Leaderboard

@gaspard has asked me to orchestrate another one of his Clavichord pieces and I was happy to oblige! You can view his YouTube video here: Character Select Screen And you can view his score here: It took me about 8 days to do this orchestration and I am presenting here two versions - one that repeats the piece from the beginning and one that doesn't. I hope you enjoy and I'd love to hear any critiques, comments, suggestion or just observations that you may have! This is the 2nd time that I've orchestrated one of @gaspard's Clavichord pieces.

This is the third and final movement of my Piano Sonata no.3 in C-sharp minor. It’s probably the most perplexing movement of music I have ever composed. For me it’s a struggle between Beethovenian heaviness (Es muss sein!) v.s. Unbearable lightness of blues (trying to imitate the style). Even though the first and second movement of the same Sonata has been commented as “random” before, I believe this one the most random of all haha. I once challenged myself whether to keep the eclecticism of the movement or not, but decided to leave it unchanged since all the styles were what I was thinking of and feeling at the moment. Here are the previous movements posted on YC before: 1st mov: 2nd mov: Piano Sonata no.3 in C-sharp minor 3rd mov.pdf The structure of the movement is a bit weird for me. It’s in Sonata form but the exposition and recapitulation never leave tonic key C-sharp minor at all, as the contrast of the 1st and 2nd subject is not achieved by key, but by style. In fact I only realized I was going for a Sonata form only when I almost finished the development section. Here is the structure of the movement: 0:00 Exposition, 1st Subject, 1st Theme: The falling fourth motive attacks immediately at the start of the movement in a passionate fashion, reminding himself of the pain he suffered after the more serene 2nd mov. It cools down in 0:31 and even keeps denying (or rather me denying my own sadness) by German sixth harmonic progressions, instead of normal dominant-tonic progression. 0:59 Exposition, 1st Subject, 2nd Theme: A deliberately repressed theme consisting of the inversion of a fourth, i.e. fifth, later gets more agitated with the Chopin Revolutionary Etude like L.H. accompaniment. It keeps on boiling until reaching the transition. I got crazy there thus I wanna try escaping… 2:28 Exposition, 2nd Subject: This section is made of 12 bar blues elements, thx to Arjuna’s @expert21 suggestion, although I already originally wanted some nihilistic jazz elements to contrast with the heavier 1st Subject. The pattern is repeated thrice, first just the “accompaniment”, then with the falling fourth motive theme added, and lastly an “electric-guitar-like” melody thx to of course my buddy Vince @Thatguy v2.0, as I won’t ever try to write something in jazz without his piano preludes. The locrian melody of course is a quotation from the 2nd mov opening! 3:46 Development, 1st Part: The opening falling fourth motive attacks again and modulates to keys I didn’t where it would go when composing lol, and finally reaches C# Locrian which confuses even me! It ends with a bridge of the locrian in L.H. quoting a little of the blues theme to the next part. 4:48 Development, 2nd Part: This part first develops the 2nd theme of 1st subject, then ends in confusion again. Suddenly a new theme emerges in the distant E-flat major and repeats again in relative major E major in a more passionate manner, until it boils down to a marvellously passionate retransition in 6:39 which I believe is the most beautiful section of the entire movement. It’s by composing this passage that I knew my creative power had finally come back. The passage ends in a desolation which leads back to the recap. 7:17 Recapitulation, 1st Subject, 1st part: A weird section. I finally could not refuse to admit my sadness by having a normal dominant-tonic progression, but still tried to escape by quoting the reminiscence of the blues themes like in a film montage jump cut in a Godard style (or, Stravinskian juxtaposition). 8:40 Recapitulation, 1st Subject, 2nd part: The 2nd theme of the expo 1st subject reappears in the L.H., and then a beautiful variation which I was probably laughing at myself for my weakness. The music goes on and gets more agitated until going to the 2nd subject. 9:32 Recapitulation, 2nd Subject: The previous “light-hearted” blues theme is transformed to an enraged Rachmanioffian roar. It subsequently cools down and tries to go for hope in the coda. 10:18 Coda, 1st Part: I tried to find peace by quoting the beautiful theme in the development plus 2nd mov’s 1st theme in counterpoint, repeat twice, 1st time in major and 2nd time pentatonic. The Locrian theme in the exposition is then transformed to a pentatonic plus the blue note of flattened sixth, signifying my attempt to find peace… 11:16 Coda, 2nd Part: However it’s futile. I realized that my sadness could not be “transcended”, at least not here, and finally realized my pain. The heavy falling fourth motive keeps attacking, and finally I was able to make a simple dominant-tonic chord progression to admit my pain, when the question is laid unanswered from the beginning of the entire sonata. The movement and the whole Sonata ended in utter desolation, as I had no energy anymore to fight as in the 1st mov and 2rd mov, nor create an imaginary utopia for myself as in 2nd mov and 3rd mov… The movement was primarily composed from Dec 2024 to Jan 2025, under a state of depression and confusion, due to what I had suffered in my full time job. I struggled a lot whether I should have a happy or sad ending for the whole sonata, but my mind gave me the answer. I could not pretend to be happy or hopeful at that time by forcing a meaningless Picardy-3rd at the end as in many of the Romantic Sonatas or pieces. I had to admit my sadness then. Paradoxically by doing that, I left all the negatives here so I had the 200% positiveness for my Sextet, which is my best piece and probably the most optimistic piece I ever composed. I tried my best at playing the movement already despite some slips haha. Hope you enjoy the movement and even go back to the 1st movement to listen to the whole Sonata! Thank you for listening,and possibly reading through this and commenting!!!!! Btw, here's Vince Preludes which inspire me: Prelude no.7: Prelude no.9: Prelude no.3: Henry

Thinking, "I should write a theme first and then a contrasting one," is exactly the sort of thinking about form that he is discussing. You sound like you are well on your way to thinking about the large scale issues with a piece, rather than just writing note by note. It sounds like he's talking about how beginning composers just sort of work from one note to the next without any rhyme or reason. There may be no theme at all, just a random succession of notes that they liked for five minutes straight. Everyone works one note to the next, but the more experience you have, the more you'll be thinking ahead about how to organize yourself in the choosing of those notes. Thinking, I have a fast section, so next I should have a slow one for contrast... that sort of thing. Or, I'm going to have range issues if I give this bit to that instrument without modulating. Do I want to modulate, or do I want to give it to a different instrument... And he wants to suggest some simpler exercises to get you started thinking about these sorts of things before you decide to write a whole symphony. Use fewer instruments. Write a short theme and see if you can turn it upside down. Practice writing a fugue. Also, Schoenberg is writing in a way that makes him sound like a big smarty pants so he can scare you into doing your homework, so don't be intimidated into a state of confusion, just do the exercises. (My best guess at what he was going for at any rate).

Dang, two new(-ish) pieces in a month? That's crazy. Tbf the main materials here are from a preexisting song, and the other piece is a full revision. Then again, I had to learn orchestration stuff for this and that took a very long time. aaaanyway, really happy about how this has turned out anndd imma just gonna quote the description from the progress update thread you could find the progress update thread here: also @Henry Ng Tsz Kiu, I'm really glad I could be the first one to ever quote one of your themes! When I was sketching that section, I thought of wanting to quote, and I thought of your specific theme. Again, really happy that it fits really well. Also also, those syncopated rhythms are actually from the original song itself. But, I do agree that it fits this "cover" and the original song. Glad you liked my orchestration too! (vocal by Jillian Ashcraft, taken directly from the OST)

Even though my application is still under development, the idea is that Music Jotter can translate the AI text notation from ChatGPT or Gemini to actual notes. This saves the end user the pain of having to notate the AI's response output manually. As far as I know, there are no other tools that can do this at the moment. So you literally are at the only place that can give you somewhat of what you are asking for. The problem, is that ChatGPT and Gemini are not trained on classical music, they are all purpose llms. I would love nothing more than to develop my own llm down the line, and train it on Chopin, Mozart, Beethoven, and other music, but hey, maybe if I can convince some AI investors down the line that we need this technology, this can be doable! But as of this moment, you can describe music and get textual output (even fun chord progressions!), where Music Jotter will convert that textual output into playback sheet music. My latest 2 videos on my channel are dedicated to this.

Hello @schedevrant and welcome to the forum! I am not too familiar with chatgpt, deepseek, or grok or any other AI tools for that matter.. but the owner of this forum @chopin is developing a notation software called Music Jotter that is able to take data generated by AI tools and create music. He's showed off the capabilities of AI tools and Music Jotter and what they can do on his YouTube channel - Can ChatGPT compose like Chopin? From what I understand, since ChatGPT and Gemini can understand midi data you feed it and output midi data - you can import it into notation programs and see the notes etc. That's just my understanding of the AI capabilities though. Can you maybe talk more about the difficulties you encountered in realising midi data output from AI tools and opening them in Musescore or other notation programs? They can export their files as midi even if PDF, jpg or mp3 isn't a format that ChatGPT understands, right? And thanks for asking! I'm sure many people will find this topic useful. And hopefully some of what I said will be helpful!

Lately, I've been thinking and imagining how Ancient Greece was reinterpreted in Impressionism. And well, all of that inspired me to write something. The dawn is that moment before sunrise when there is already light. For a brief explanation of what resources I use: Aurora

Thank you for your two very touching comments. The 5/8 has actually imposed itself, in the double idea of constant imbalance, of a shaky race towards an impossible love. I didn't want it to seem like a free rhythm game (and I almost didn't want it to be noticed). And you have indeed perceived the subtexts that are in this poem, where we are already on the edge of expressionism. His tensions where the carnal and the metaphysical are tied. The entire last cycle of Jules Laforgue (imitation of Our Lady of the Moon) is haunted by this theme. An exile of love, a mourning of love, a throbbing pain, a frustration, and a feverish incandescence. He was probably already very affected by tuberculosis when he wrote this, since it was shortly before his death at the age of 27. And also well seen, I like to sow here and there some "turns" among other secret messages, which are a little Schubertian necessarily (when you have a piano, singing, you want to talk about Love and pain, how else?). Thank you in any case for your deep listening. It makes me immensely happy to know that my music is heard by such benevolent ears. I'm not done with Laforgue...

At last, I can post the studio recording of my Piano Quartet in C minor. The two movements were recorded in a 4 hour session on 5/23, and spliced/mixed today 5/30. I've learned so much, and am very happy with the result, as solo strings are not good on ANY VST, compared to professional string players. The pianist stepped in on short notice and did wonders humanizing the piano part--the chorale and 2nd movement theme sound fantastic! Now I have a concrete reference for what my writing sounds like with actual musicians. I plan to do another pass over the score, as there are things that need improving on my part. A worthwhile and important step in my DIY musical education!.... The artists: Fantastic musicians, and they all helped me consider my writing, score/part preparation and musical issues in new ways!---- Violin: Dan Winnick Viola: Chloe Thominet Cello: Michelle Kulwicki Piano: Derek Szlauer Recorded and mixed and Big Sky Recording, Ann Arbor, Mich. Geoff Michael, Engineer. 5/23/25 and 5/30/25.

Well at least I am always corrected by Peter when I mistype piano as piani (not with a gun tho lol!!) Henry

unfortunately @user011235 there isn’t any video game in progress. That would be amazing though. i wrote the clavichord version thinking it would be a character select music for such a video game though. So interesting to see what @PeterthePapercomPoser does with keyboard scores. The middle part really shines much more in the orchestrated version in my opinion. I used to do orchestration before the obsolescence of finale and I feel like peter has much brighter and friendlier symphonic takes whereas my ideas usually skewed much harsher. And some of the things Peter knows how to do I never got around to learning. The kid knows what he’s doing!

Hi @user011235! I like this rag! I was actually surprised to hear the 16th notes in this swung. I had to look up whether rags were ever swung or not because the ones I was familiar with were played straight. But it turns out that later rags, after 1920 did in fact incorporate swing time into them even if sometimes only in the right hand syncopations. Great rag though! Makes me think of this Simpsons clip: LoL!! Thanks for sharing.

I've decided to tackle orchestration again, and this time, I've paired it with vocal. I've actually got into this "game" again recently, so that's why I chose to orchestrate its only song with my own preferences. The main theme may sound like it comes from an anime cus it's from a fcked up anime dating simulator lmao The instrumentation is fairly standard: 3(III=pic).2.3(III=bc).2 - 3.2.0.0 - timpani.percussion(glock, xylo, sus.cymb, cymb, trgl) - alto - strings The audio has a lil bit more than the score. It's a transition to a more quiet section, you may recognize a theme that I've quoted from someone from this forum 👀 Anyways, lemme know what you think about it, I'll probably upload more progress down the line enjoy

by playing your works For one you are demonstrating reality, not just abstract concepts there may also be some performer/instrument/acusotics specific aspects only you can do of course being an amateur without the finest techniques I struggle to perform my own works even with more time in practice something I definitely lack irl i might also face musicality or intepretative blind spots so its always helpful to have someone else try to (at least how to) play your work

Just finish Spirited Away last night... Also, I always cry listening this in the credits....

A religious motet I began writing this afternoon and have finished composing in under five hours. I didn't initially think of the text when I first started, as is usually customary for me, but instead found the rhythms suitable for the text afterwards, and as such, took it from the passage of the Vulgate where the crucifixion of Christ under the connivence of Pontius Pilatus is mentioned, and then added a a reference to His resurrection at the end. Admittedly, this motet would have been more suitable for Late Easter, but alas, I guess only now have I managed to compose anything of the sort. Enjoy! YouTube video link:

It kind of depends for me on exactly what it is. In many instances, I like hearing a performance come back from live players and the little nuances that make their interpretation unique. However, I will say that it can be frustrating working with musicians with pop and jazz backgrounds. They're not so used to part-writing and often don't read sheet music. Their music is often much more chord + melody based and improvisational, so they often think that the pitches I've written are merely guidelines when they are in fact deliberately chosen because of how they will work vertically, as a unit, with other lines that occur at the same time, and they struggle to understand why them changing the melody the way they have messes up the piece.

Like many trio sonatas, this work consists of four movements: slow - fast - slow - fast. It starts with a three-partite Grave with a slight hint of French ouvertures, though then developing in a different direction. The second movement is a fugue. I am rather fond of a moment where all voices stop and the recorder and violin start the conversation of voices anew, and more lucid than before. The third movement is a through-composed Adagio, followed by a fugal finale in 12/8. This trio sonata is written for alto recorder, violin, cello and harpsichord, but a variety of instruments would fit too, though it leads to interesting changes in the character of the individual movements. I am not sure if the Grave and the Adagio shouldn't be swapped to increase the coherence of the music. Any suggestions welcome.

A slightly more Romantic-sounding fugue than usual, whose theme's chromatic nature I chose to exploit with a string quartet setup for greater expressive intensity. The subject itself was originally somewhat experimental in nature but quickly developed into a full-fledged exposition, and the rest was hours upon hours of trying to deal with its rather unwieldy nature as best I could. Enjoy! YouTube video link:

A revisited, revamped and restored version of a little fugue I first composed back in mid December 2019. Given I had only started composing a few months prior to that point, this one was previously riddled with contrapuntal flaws and mistakes of all sorts, the vast majority of which have all hopefully been fully corrected or at least starkly mitigated after this revision. Enjoy! YouTube video link:

Progress update for today: finished the quiet part after the part from the first post. And yes, you might've figured it out, I quoted @Henry Ng Tsz Kiu's Image in G major (2nd theme). Like, I put his theme on my sketch, pair it with the main theme, and it is just a good counter point for it. Furthermore, I think it fits well with the rest of the piece cus both the main theme and his theme use a lot of pentatonic. Anyway, really happy with how productive I am with scoring today, can't wait to finish it

There's improvement, but some dissonances are still not well resolved. See below for a few ideas—though you may want to reduce movement in quavers to better align with the keyboard style. EDIT: added a 2nd version

Hey Pabio @Fugax Contrapunctus, The fugue subject immediately reminds me the last movement of Brahms's Piano Quintet, b.94 But of course you use the motive in your own way and much more contrapuntally. For me maybe I will use much more of the motive in b.1 in the episodes since it's the most significant figure of the whole subject. Nonetheless that's just me, and thx for sharing this great expression! Henry

Another piece from 2018, in a style that... well, i'm not really sure. It's got bits that sound classical, bits that sound romantic, and to me some portions even sound more modern like new age, folk or pop. I wrote it in 4 days so everything kind of just flowed. What do y'all think? Any feedback is welcome

Yeah those spots indeed sound giocoso, and maybe the very short duration of the high note pizzicato fits the description well!

I wrote this piece ten years ago, but have just made a new multitrack recording of the parts, so I thought I would share it here. Yes, you are correct. The bass line is being sung by an alto dropped down a well. (GarageBand makes it possible for me to sing all the parts, but I have to use the transpose feature to record the lowest bass notes, which creates a little distortion to the sound quality). The sheep is a genius of place; why would she stray? Here is the homeland. Here, her mother's house. Feed my sheep. Lead them home. Let them rest. Sisters, all among the hills, chanting their Daily Office: "There the rain licks into little pools. There, a dip to hide new lambs." "Take my coat," she said. "You are a guest."

Thanks so much, Henry! I know that parallel 5ths and octaves aren't harmonically exciting when one is looking for independence of line, but that wasn't what I wanted for this piece. I wanted a sense of rain-washed green hills with clear air above, dotted with sheep all saying their prayers to the land together like little nuns. So homophony made sense, and open harmonies, with the sopranos floating above like birds taking in the scene below. And since that could be a bit boring, particularly given the repetition in the text, some changes in rhythmic emphasis seemed wise. The tricky bit is remembering to read ahead so you actually do them, but thankfully, the conductor doesn't have too much to do, so they can free an arm to dictate triplets and other patterns if people are watching. Thank you for your thoughts and I'm glad you enjoyed it! -Maggie

Unfortunately, given how short this piece already is, such textural density isn't just merely accidental, but a properly deliberate design choice. Should the composition in question reach up to more than 3 minutes or so, as is the case for other compositions of such duration among my works, perhaps I would consider temporarily suppressing one or more of the given voices. Otherwise, unprompted rests in the middle are out of the question for me. Fixed, and thank you for your kind words, as well as your constructive feedback.

The name of the program in question is Cantāmus (https://cantamus.app/), a music rendering website originally intended for vocal rehearsals, but which serves my purpose of setting my vocal works with actually "sung" lyrics well enough, so to speak. Better yet, it doesn't even work with MIDI, as it reads the score directly once uploaded to the site as a .musicxml file (which I find rather optimal, given my own bad experiences and failures in trying to get MIDI exports of my compositions to be relatively decent). I also often tend to overlay the final recording of the Cantāmus rendering with the audio file for my composition as sung by the MuseScore 4 MuseSounds Choir soundbank afterwards using Audacity, so as to grant the otherwise crisp and dry timbre of the Cantāmus voices a softer, more mellow sound and a greater sense of reverb.

Hi!!! This a different post from the usual, I trieed making collage art and I kinda liked so I decided to translate it to music! Its my first time writing incidental music but I believe I achieved the mood I wanted to express!!! https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NKk3dLrDa8q4Rh_rVZ-36o9bmbVITTU3/view?usp=drive_link

LoL just like me in the last year

Hi Maggie @pateceramics! Oh I love your rhythmic variety here, like the triplets in b.25 or more obviously the 3+3+2 pattern throughout the piece. I also love your harmonies here, those parallel 8ves and 5ths work really well under this context and atmosphere and D flat major, making the music purer and more peaceful! Thx for sharing! Henry

Hi @Samuel_vangogh! This one sounds wierdly soothing with the naughty nonchalant melody plus a consonant accompaniment. I don't know art but I think your music matches the painting much, as the mysterious sound matches those mesmerizing clouds. Thx for sharing! Henry

Hi @user011235! You wrote it in 4 days?! That's kind of amazing. Speakng of the music, I for sure like the classical/early romantic style of the music. The modulations are wonderful too. For me maybe you can add much more slurs to both instruments especially the violin, since I think it won't play that much notes without legatos even under styles, especially in expressive spots like b.316! Also, the very high pitched pizzicato, like in b.203, sometimes sounds a bit uneffective for me, as they sounds really spicy and disappears really quickly. Thx for sharing! Henry

Hi @Alex Weidmann! LoL it's no garbage at all, only Filmscore's "improvements" towards other members' work qualify with this word! I think it's a good new music honestly. It will make good background music in a bookstore to me. Does it sound more random than my 3rd Piano Sonata movement, mov 1 or 2 which are famous for their randomness LoL?? Thx for sharing! Henry

Hey Pabio @Fugax Contrapunctus! I can tell this one is an early of yours since there's no adventurous modulation happening in the middle to last sections! Nonetheless I like this one especially after your mitigation, and in my fav. key! Thx for sharing. Henry

Great contrapuntal work! The piece sounds complete, the four voices flow naturally, are easy for the ear to follow, and all are engaging! My only small critiques would be that the four voices might be slightly overused and that a few more silences could make the whole piece feel less dense. Also, I don't think it's necessary to use different types of fermatas in the final measure. Once again, bravo!

there’s more where this came from

Me refiero a que suena como con pequeños portamentos, nada que ver con eso otro.

A delicious piece. The piano is very active and playing a very important role. It's an odd combination of piano and two violin sections, and it seems to work, although the role of the second violins seems very secondary.

Wow It sounds very intense and spectacular, with 4 voices... The truth is that it catches you in a non-stop progression. I think the shortness of it benefits it given its textural intensity. The sound of the strings sounds like it's a podo “dejado” (I don't know how to explain it.... in Spanish “dejado”). Is it some effect. Greetings, and congratulations to your mother....

one of my favorites to cover:

Watching this Wuthering Heights adaptation for my Uni English course. Music is absolutely phenomenal.

My profile picture explains what is "風乍起，吹皺一池春水" [Wind suddenly starts blowing. It causes ripples in a springtime pond of water]

After joining YC I have quite a lot of experience playing my own pieces now, though only by recording with only myself at the piano without an audience. Yeah this is exactly why I record my own piece with my own interpretation. I played my ( ) piano piece back in 2012 because it was to be submitted to the Exam Bureau and I found the trill of the Sibelius rendition disgusting, and the rubato was very unsatisfactory, so I recorded the piece myself. Even though it's full of slip, the recording is full of emotion and honesty, and I heard from my teacher that the piece's recording was played in Teacher's Seminar and those teachers were in awe of my playing which is full of slips haha. Playing my own piano pieces gives me a chance to polish the details further because music play by hands is much different than Augensmusik or Öhresmusik. I can prove this piano music can really be played. Also, even though the piece once composer is not belong to me exclusively, the interpretation from the original composer is important to know. I have also played through all Vince's @Thatguy v2.0 12 Piano Preludes. He did mention I brought in something he didn't think of before (at least not ruining his pieces haha). Actually when I receive reviews of my pieces I always discover something I have never thought of. No one ever plays my pieces haha, tho @PCC once arrange my piano piece Moment Musical for Organ. I would be excited if anyone plays my pieces, especially my Piano Sonatas, haha! Henry

Hello! Thank you for your very detailed feedback, I appreciate you taking the time to listen even though you normally listen to a little something else! A lot of your suggestions are interesting and I will definitely consider putting them into practice. My music, as I wrote, breaks from the classical form, is full of irregularity and deliberate inconsistency, yet can be simple at times. I draw inspiration from many directions, including jazz, Czech folk music and others, each of which influences the music in a different way. The simplicity of traditional music, the wildness of jazz: they combine to create something very strange and, at first glance, perhaps confusing, out of tune. One has to get used to it first, because the first listening seems different from what one usually hears, even from contemporary modernism. Anyway, I'll certainly consider a lot of the things you've written, as they contain ideas about how to perhaps get more in touch with a wider listening audience. Thanks for that!

N.I.C.E. ..................And each one no longer than 2mins.

A very good effort in a difficult form to get right. I would recommend more immitative counterpoint in the 1st movement---particularly in the cello. While I get the "grave" tempo and the intended feel, sonic interest might be better served by a bit more motion. Not to hinder but to ACCENTUATE.

If you would like a computer font for gamelan cipher notation, you can download KepatihanPro from the library of the American Gamelan Institute at http://www.gamelan.org. There are also many scores for gamelan and inspired by gamelan, in many kinds of notation. If anyone would like more information, I'm glad to talk about it! jody.diamond@gamelan.org