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Hi @mercurypickles! I like the nearly polytonal feeling that the soprano introduces when it comes in. Reminds me a bit of some of my polytonal settings of various Christmas Carols that I've made mash-ups of. I read up a little bit about what the Coventry Carol is about. It is quite sad that a whole generation of children would be wiped out. The dissonance in polytonal soprano melody seems appropriate in hindsight because of this subject matter. I wonder if it is just a Biblical story or if it's meant to portray an actual historical event. Thanks for sharing this haunting lullaby.

I'm kind of wondering the same thing myself now! I guess I tend to think of the B flat trumpet as the "default" in a brass ensemble, so when I started writing it, I started with two B flat trumpets. The first trumpet part, I realized, was going quite high, so I changed it to a D trumpet. But it would have made more sense to change the second to C trumpet for a more reasonable key signature. To be perfectly honest, I was rushing to try to finish this before Christmas, and didn't think it through properly. Thanks for listening, and happy new year to you too!

seems like i am the last to get my submission in; it's not too late right? since it's 7:14pm,the 31st on my clock. I unfortunately left my score at home(it was handwritten)

Hey @Vavrinec! Wonderful wintry atmosphere! I love how you change up the tempo and meter in the middle of the piece to give it an infusion of fresh excitement before returning to the scherzo, or perhaps minuet-like 6/8 section. You also cleverly leave out the string in the 2/4 part which also brings its own contrast. Great job and thanks for sharing! Happy New Year!

Hey @TristanTheTristan! This definitely feels like has the spirit of Christmas. Sometimes it manages this by somehow indirectly mimicking some Christmas Carols without any direct quotes. Other times it seems like it's inspired by the Nutcracker. The only thing that bothers me is the mechanicality of your rendition. People have already mentioned the mechanical nature of your tremolos and trills and stuff like that. I think all that can be fixed by writing out your trills through tuplets, making them sound exactly as fast or as slow as you want (and also having control of their velocity values). Same thing with the tremolos - you could bring down their volume with velocity values - relegating them to the intended background of the music rather than an annoying thing that jumps out at the listener. The final thing that would really make it sound so much better is the occasional use of the damper pedal. Just those things would help my impression of the piece 10-fold. Thanks for sharing and Happy New Year!

Considering this was above your usually level, then you did a really good job here. Fun motif, excellent dynamics and an overall wintery sounding mood! The piece is also very well structured and easy to follow. The only minor criticism I have is that you stayed strictly in key, but I'm pretty sure this was a conscious decision. If this piece hit the 2+ minute mark, I may then press you a little harder to break out of the scale a tad.

This is EXCELLENT. Points for playing this on the piano. And I love the jazzy style, I absolutely love jazz harmony!

What a charming, if somewhat sad song! Maybe its a fortune that you posted your submission „so late“, since its melancholic mood perfectly fits the imagination of the last piece performed on a party or the piano player is playing his ultimate song while the last guests are leaving the restaurant. I suspect that it is a live-recording. If so, congratulations to that beautiful performance and a happy New Year.

Hello @Fugax Contrapunctus, I discovered your YouTube videos a few years ago when I was looking for new/original compositions concerning fugues and counterpoint. In your channel information I found the link to the Young Composers Forum and so I have to thank you, consequently, that I am here today! Since my own compositional style or approach is counterpuntual, too, I’m very interested in your work and have been following—albeit quietly—your transition from piano/harpsichord fugues to the increasingly vocal-oriented works in the last years. I’m still „stuck“ with my piano project composing 24 preludes and fugues in the form of the WTC, and so I usually write 3- or 4-part fugues (and for now, one with 6 parts). With this experience in mind, writing an 8-part counterpoint cannot be overstated, since you’re literally running out of notes if the voice leading is not organized cleverly. I don’t want to repeat the comments and what you stated yourself about a capella choirs, but there is no instrumentation comparable with the clarity and expressiveness of the human voice. There have been lots of inventions and improvements in instrument building during the centuries, but in my opinion, the achievement was more and more a better blending of that instruments and the introduction of different „noises“ and effects (as one can do with a full symphonic orchestra), but the focus on the „voice“ itself has been lost by that development. So I appreciate the revival of the skills of the Baroque and even the Renaissance era, to transfer them to the present day, possibly in combination with contemporary elements. For me, the most valuable submission to this 2025 Christmas event.

When I listen to your piece, I imagine a frosty afternoon when the ride in the “open sleigh” has not yet begun, as the family is still sitting around the coffee table and the horses are shivering in the cold. So the melodies of the song appear fragmented and delayed, similar to the sounds carried by the wind from a distant village. Thank you for that very impressive fantasia, and again, as the others already commented, congratulations for your marvelous live recording.

Another piece reminiscent of a music box or carousel at a Christmas market! However, instead of pins on a rotating disc plucking the tuned teeth of a steel comb, it features a well-crafted score so that a visually trained person can follow the musical progression—provided they are not distracted by Santa Claus whirling around.

Haha, the guy with its elaborate atonal string orchestra pieces (to be honestly, I only mean and know your „Aos Si“ submission to the Halloween competition) uses AI! But that’s exactly the point, you used AI assistance only for the vocals (and I must admit that the result of the „Suno“ use in the other pieces is more polished), the composition is your own and you perfectly contrast the tendency of the AI to produce an „average pop song“ with your sometimes dissonant modulation in the strings part. A good example how AI could be used seriously without losing the fun and creativeness of own compositions!

Even if you call it an orchestral miniature (and it is short, indeed), it is a wonderful, well structured and perfectly orchestrated piece that I could listen multiple times in a loop! It brings up a number of imaginations in my mind, closely related with the Christmas time: • It could be serve perfectly as a soundtrack of a fairy tale movie that the entire family could watch together, • I imagine it being played at a Christmas market with an ice rink in the middle (the trio section, mm. 17-32), • it also cites the imagination of the „one-horse open sleigh dashing thru the snow“ (mm. 33-48), • and, of course, the snowflakes (main theme, mm. 1-7). One of my absolute favorites in this 2025 Christmas event!

It’s just a fun fact that I grew up in a little German town called Pulsnitz being famous (at least in parts of Germany) of its centuries-old tradition of gingerbread making. But honestly, I just know how they taste like, I never cared about what they might „sound“ like. Now listening to it, it reminds me of a musical box which is a typical handcrafted Christmas accessory. So it really puts me in the Christmas spirit by combining its cheerful sound, despite its repetitions, with the smell of mulled wine, grilled sausages, and even gingerbread at a Christmas market.

I would have so much fun with this tool. But you wrote a fun song with bold key changing and fun harmony. I like how the violin creates friction, but only through your modulations. You then normalize the harmony once SATB comes in. You are right, the lyrics are sometimes a bit garbled, but I would say it's about 90% accurate. It doesn't matter though, most people will get the idea. The lyrics may be less accurate than Suno in terms of vocals, but the trade-off is that you get 100% compositional freedom.

Fun depiction of such an ancient carol. Love how the soprano has a mind of its own though; we can basically call this the disruptor. It blends nicely, but also ads some friction to this well harmonized tune.

Beautiful, sad, very Tchaikovsky. Music like this makes you feel which is not easy to do. Cool technique too.

Hey, very cool intro at the beginning, foreshadowing the syncopated / swing-like main melody. Love the change-up at around 30 seconds in. A very elegant / diplomatic sounding tune!

I love that short carol with its memorable subject being repeated in different variations throughout the piece in a counterpuntual style as a five part choral. The usage of a „Posaunenchor“ perfectly matches the mood of Christmas; I can literally imagine the brass instrumentalists standing nearby the entry of the church where people are gathering on Christmas eve. For one who is not familar with what a „Posaunenchor“ is, I quote the - oh, what a hot iron – AI generated answer of „what is a posaunenchor“ which, in my opinion, exactly explains it: A Posaunenchor (German for "trombone choir" or "brass band") is a community-based, multi-generational amateur brass ensemble, strongly rooted in the German Protestant church, that plays sacred music (hymns, chorales) but also secular pieces (classical, jazz, pop) for church services, concerts, and community events, emphasizing fellowship and faith across ages and backgrounds. For my taste, it is played a bit faster than real „Posaunenchöre“ would do, perhaps it is very cold outside and the players want to get inside the church as soon as possible ...

I must admit, that I didn’t know the „Coventry Carol“ before, so I had to find out more about it first. Even though it is not a new or own composition, the performance as a „Posaunenchor“ is quite unique and exciting. The picardy thirds at the end of many phrases sound so heartwarmingly clear with the trumpets or trombones! I really enjoyed the meno/crescendo part at bar 41 after nearly falling asleep from the lullaby! And even though the trumpet was obviously obliged to hold back to piano soon, there's still a very jazzy feel to it right up to the end. All in all a very enjoying piece which perfectly captures the calm mood of Christmas, paired with humor and joy!

Yeah, that one would surely be awarded the „Shortest Christmas Piece“ badge (haha), thus it isn’t easy to come up with a long review on that. Even though it's certainly just for fun, such a mashup shows the potential of „simple melodies“ and how much one can do with an easy piece using counterpoint, harmonization, instrumentation, etc. Thanks for making this fun Christmas event possible, and a happy and successful New Year 2026.

@Wieland Handke I truly love the baroque instruments you have chosen for this trio. The counterpoint between them creates rich harmonies and melodies! I can see how this would be played with in a church.

Ohhh, what a wonderful piece! It has such a Christmas feel when the crotales—or whatever sounds like them—burst in. The orchestration is precise and well-balanced. Thank you.

It's a fascinating piece. Composing with these resources is very special. Thank you.

It’s a really lovely piece and it gives me Christmas vibes for some reason. Even if it’s not perfectly written, that percussion set sounds amazing.

Definitely reminds me of Tchaikovsky, and ballet style music. I can picture this piece being played in a Broadway musical.

What a great ear training challenge. Great playing btw. You HAVE to listen to this a few times to pick up on things though. For example, 1:10 to 1:45 I think represents the "Oh what fun it is to ride in a one horse open sleigh" part of the song, and the same goes for around 2:25, which I think is a bit more obvious. This was awesome!

This is incredibly coherent for 8 voices. Normally I would say something about the strict key, but in this case, it doesn't matter. This makes the few times you do change much more noticeable. Plus the musicality is in the voices! When I listened to this again without the score, the music became even clearer to me, because my mind was not overwhelmed by all those voices visually. This was absolutely beautiful.

This reminds me of town theme in some of those old school rpg games. Great melody, great pacing and cheery. Very nice!

This song is amazing!

Congrats for turning such a cheesy holiday tune into something very enjoyable!

Lovely little piece. I guess I shouldn't be surprised that a chain of secondary dominants works so well as a fugue subject, but I think you bring out its fullest potential. It makes little moments like mm. 32–33 so lovely because it's so diatonic but keeps the spirit of the sequence. Really cool to see what parts of the theme you kept and selected in certain parts. I think m. 37 is the only bar that I'm not as big a fan of: the P5 (vaguely on ii?) into A4 (vii˚) feels a just the tiniest bit awkward because (I think? I've been having a hard time trying to think of a reason...) the third is neglected twice.

Hi @Crescent Roulade Thank you sharing this charming piece around the holiday season. I can hear how it would fit with the mood of being Christmas piece. You have nailed that, for sure. However, there are some areas you probably need to adjust for later works. First, when you need to label you parts. That way, we can tell what the instruments are. This is easy fix. 🙂 Second, for the drum part, I am rather baffled why there are notes in octaves on a single line staff? Third, I am rather confused about the general form...all i hear is one motive throughout the piece. Again, these things to keep in mind. All of us here to learn from each other. I am sure in time you will too. 🙂 Kvothe.

And we are off, again. This time @J. Lee Graham brought us a fugue in 3 parts! Exposition: The subject ("we wish you a merry Christmas) is the tenor voice and does us. bring good cheer. He wrote this 3/8 instead the meter that song is written. You may ask why. That is to link to subject with the counter subject. We then hear the CS once the full theme is stated this signal the next voice to bring more good cheer. After each voice does this, we move onto the next part of the fugue where stretto could occur. Devolvement: Yes, there are stretto to be found. and fragments of the subject exchanging between each voice is to be discovered. Recap: Then we return to subject to fully round off the composition. Great job.

I'd say it's probably more of a "consistently used device for purely historical reasons", certainly a small detail not worth glossing over. Overall I like the fugue, and as you said, it's indeed fun. I'm a big fan of how you chose to retain the original harmonisation through your countersubject(s). The piece just wouldn't be the same without it! The counterpoint and motivic development are both very good. What I find lacking is the choice to include the extraneous 9th bar in the subject. At the risk of the fugue becoming a bit foursquare, I find its inclusion to be a little inelegant. In addition, the appearance of a rising chromatic scale in the subject harmonisation is something which I feel like should be explored more: the harmony in the episodes is too tame in comparison.

This piece is just what I needed tonight, thank you

This time I have mixed "O, Christmas Tree" with "Hark! The Herald Angel's Sing!" I included three stanzas of each Carol and each occurrence of each stanza is set differently with the final one being a bit polytonal. Also, this time the mash-up is accompanied by a brass octet instead of strings. And the choir is a SMAATTBB 8-part choir. Thanks for listening and I hope you had a Merry Christmas and that your New Year will be a happy one! I'd appreciate any comments, suggestions, critiques or observations!

Nice lyrics, and the overall direction and structure of this song is solid. Very calming and the style is fun. You're in a forum where you may have a tough audience because most of us here are composers in some capacity, myself included. Maybe one day you will want to learn this art beyond prompting (lyric writing is a skill too which people should not dismiss here). But in the meantime, you're having fun with Suno which helps create more an interest I believe. I also use AI to create musical parodies btw, my main goal is to create laughs with catchy tunes and lyrics. So my stance on this matter will be a little more on the interesting side, especially coming from someone who is developing a music notation application!

Hi, welcome to the forums SeekJohn14v6! I kind of like AI overall I guess, but after listening to this theme you brought here thrice and listening to hundreds of other AI-prompted stuff I would say that I get more or less the same feeling that comes over me when I listen to this kind of "contemporary" music where, more often than not, one could replace parts of the score by "make random noises" and call it a day or additionally scramble the passages and play them disordered. It's not really that I don't like it (some I do NOT like it at all), but that I feel it and find it gray and boring. Judging by your recent posts here guess that you're satisfied with your work already, and I probably would if I was in your position. In fact, I am when it comes to make thumbnails for videos using Stable Diffusion or similar stuff (and then editing them, I must say). This adds up to the little feedback I could give you, unfortunately. I am no lyricist, and English is not my native language, so I'm not much into the world of lyrics so I cannot really point you towards a place where your stuff may be much more appreciated. This is not to say some people will appreciate or at least get impressed by what you have presented here, but I am unfortunately certain there won't be many people commenting on your stuff for any other reason than discussing if your use of AI should be considered a work or not... Perhaps another lyricist somewhere? The thing is there's little to comment since it makes little sense for most to explain what may have room for improvement, musically speaking. This usually helps composers, they rethink stuff and improve on their mistakes. But this is almost nothing like that. Now, I have read somewhere else that you clarify that these pieces are AI generated because you don't want to be a deceiver. That would be like showing AI art in some artists' forum and calling it a day expecting nobody would notice or suspect, right? From your POV it would be easy to deceive people into thinking this mp3 you submitted is not made by AI, I get you. However, and getting the AI song checkers out of the equation, to me and many others here in this cozy lil' forum, this would have hit as AI from the beginning to the end, which is again not necessarily bad, after all I'm just suggesting that many of us here are mostly pretty capable of distinguishing between AI music and non-AI music specially in these more pseudo-bombastic cases. It's an acquired thing. Maybe in a year or two, it'd pass. Depends on how profitable being as meticulous as possible ends up being. I am glad that you can make your ideas real and your lyrics go live with this technology and 0% or a small fraction of what an actual group or a producer would charge you to recording that. This technology will hopefully improve in the coming years and you'll be able to remake stuff better. At the end of the day, again, if you're satisfied, little else matters. But let me tell you that the world of composition is wide, and if you someday decide to venture deeper on it, you may understand why AI-pieces at this very moment are not much convincing to someone like me, musically speaking. That said, I am sure your album and pieces can get a good audience. Masses will never be that nitpicky, and this —and any random prompt as well ngl— is on par or better than half of the mainstream music produced nowadays 😆. Best of luck and Happy new year! Daniel–Ø.

Ha, a fugue, that’s something for me! It's fun to hear how you've transformed this a bit hackneyed song into a baroque, festive harpsichord performance. The use of running sixteenth notes in the counter-subject, and especially in the interludes, creates a nice complementary rhythm which drives the piece forward in a festive way and gives the listener a good distinction between the thematic and transitional sections. This flow is only slightly disturbed in bars 66-68 where I, in my opinion, also wished more semiquavers to maintain the momentum. I particularly like the coda with the pedal point and the final quotation from the theme in measure 120! In that sense: Happy New Year! P.S. If anyone is a bit bored about „Jingle Bells“ and Co., Shostakovich’s Prelude 15, op 87 is a more spicy version of „We Wish You A Merry Christmas“ while the possible reference to that melody might be completely unintentionally.

It's music like yours that helps me continue to grow as a composer. I read through your and Peter's conversation, and it's over my head haha. I really liked the atmosphere you created. Sure it was dissonant, but it was a beautiful dissonance that I didn't know could be achieved. And THANK you for performing this live, I don't know how software (as good as it's getting even) could reproduce this, let alone capture the spirit you gave it with a gorgeous performance, and from the composer is even better. This is truly well done, and a piece that I've had a lot of joy listening and re-listening to. Thank you for sharing! 🙂

I have no words, haha. I absolutely adore the style and the period you inspired yourself with. Plus, seeing all the details in the sheet music is a joy. And the music certainly lives up to it. Thanks!

Ohhh, one of my favorite pieces from this Christmas Event! The combination of the three keyboard instruments is very original yet effective at the same time. The presentation and the score are beautiful.

An incredibly interesting brief piece—I'm really hooked. I like the polyrhythm and how well it's put together. I'm not really catching the flamenco rhythm, though (haha... I come from the land of flamenco, so forgive me!).

This was fantastic to listen to! Your first submission was fun, but I feel like this one offers a lot more color and character. Excellent usage of all the instruments. The piece moved along, was extremely focused and had good momentum. I also feel like every note served a purpose. Well done.

What a great piece, and very soothing. A perfect way to calm one's nerves during the stress of this holiday!

Nice blending of styles, and a fun little catchy tune. Love the animated Santa graphic haha.

Hi @Fugax Contrapunctus! Only in choral music can so many individual lines at once still retain their individuality. The tone colors of the different voice types are different enough as to grant them distinctiveness even when they're really close together or even overlapping. And here I thought I was working with a lot of voices in my recent Christmas Mash-up for SMATBB!!! Although even in that 6 voice arrangement, I sometimes use divisi. Thanks for sharing this wonderful choral work! It makes me wonder how apt Cantamus is at rendering words in other languages (like for example Polish since my Christmas Mash-up's so far feature Polish, English and Latin lyrics). Great job!

Hi @Monarcheon! At first I was very puzzled by this piece as it was very difficult for me to hear how it was at all related to Jingle Bells. But I have since listened better with the help of the score and I can confidently say that I do hear it. You have cleverly fragmented the theme and augmented each fragment into its own unique musical gesture. The extended tremolo on one note I perceive as a development of the basic repeated notes "Jingle Bells". While the tremolos between two different notes I perceive as a development of "Jingle all...". "...the way" is developed in measure 10. I maybe would have liked for the associations to the original Carol to be more obvious but you certainly bring your own particular style to the season! I love your setting of "Dashing through the snow..." in measure 23. Some of the remaining material still puzzles me however in how it is related to the Carol - did you take a lot of liberties with it? Thanks for sharing this wonderful recording! I think your performance is excellent and really brings out the unique creepy tone colors of sul ponticello and sul tasto and harmonics and tremolos all put together and what not - it's an extended technique frenzy! Makes for a particularly spine-chilling Christmas! Haha

If you make a lot of changes and want to preserve the old version so that people (and you) will be able to see the progress that you've made then you might want to create a new topic. I have a few things that I want to tell you about this piece too! Like for example just this first phrase: I perceive the downbeat of the melody on the 1st eighth note, but you have it offset by an eighth rest meaning that all your downbeats are on the off-beat. Also, 8/4 is an uncommon meter and I hear this piece as being in 4/4 but with all note durations halved like so: It's a charming and simple piece though! Thanks for sharing!