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Hello fellow composers! I wanted to share a short piece I wrote called Forest Path. With this piece, I was trying to evoke the feeling of walking along a quiet trail through a dense forest — something intimate, peaceful, and reflective, with a sense of gentle exploration. As with my previous pieces, I’ve been trying to focus on melody, orchestral color, and restraint. The goal was to create a warm, lyrical atmosphere using relatively transparent textures and gentle harmonic movement, rather than relying on large dramatic gestures or extensive development. I’m continuing to experiment with writing short, self-contained pieces that establish a distinct musical character without becoming overly complicated. One of my goals with this project is to improve my ability to write memorable melodies and use orchestration to support the atmosphere and expression of the music. I’m particularly interested in whether the musical ideas feel engaging throughout, despite the relatively simple structure and restrained writing. I’d also welcome any thoughts on areas where the piece could be developed or refined. Thanks in advance for listening!

I listened to your composition and really liked it. The melody is expressive, the texture is interesting, and so is the orchestration. It turned out to be an excellent piece!

Wait, what? One of my favorite composers in this forum, Vasilis's piece is played by one of my highly regarded pianists, Henry? Great, this is a good day, I can say that, certainly. Hey, Henry, well done — this is well played and beautiful. This performance breathes life into the piece even more. As for the composition itself, Vasilis, as I said, amazing. So amazing. Thank you, thank you for sharing this!! Shout out to both of you guys! Best, Lithl.

A curious and lovely piece. You’ve made good use of the piano’s range. At first, the very high register can be a bit tiring, but this is soon offset. It would probably sound good on a celesta, an instrument we associate with this sort of scene.

Here I am delighted to share a recording of my sonata, beautifully performed by my dear friend @Henry Ng Tsz Kiu I feel truly honoured by this wonderful gesture, and I cannot thank him enough for the time, care and generosity he has devoted to bringing my music to life. Dear Henry, thank you from the bottom of my heart. You are not only a remarkable composer but also an outstanding pianist, and knowing that you have chosen to perform a sonata that I dedicated to you makes this occasion even more special and meaningful to me. I feel deeply grateful and honoured. Thank you, my dear friend! Vasilis Sonata no.27 1st Nov 2026.mp3

“Vampiress” (a city song from the cycle of musical illustrations to Max Dalin’s novel “The Bonfire and the Salamander”) Music by Alexander Khomenko Lyrics by Konstantin Chiganov Lyrics: They told me: “You love a corpse, you fool.” Did you think decay would make me flee? The bite of her lips, so cold and cruel, And I will have the last laugh, you’ll see. The graveyard is a twilit garden’s gloom, The tomb, our bridal chamber, waits. Her hair’s sunset lights up the coffin’s room, And on that bed my strength abates... Her fangs gleam sinless in the night, Her crimson eyes make a vow: Undying love, and by their light Hell and heaven are nothing now! Our wondrous path, our frozen sleep, To catch the thread of fate and blood! Love Twilight’s princesses, love deep, And drink not wine, but life, a flood! (translation by Claude)

Good day. I’ve watched and listened to your waltz. It’s a pity that almost the entire string section was cut off in your score. I liked your idea. The character and the image are interesting. However, your orchestration raises questions. With a live orchestra, all of this will sound worse than in computer playback. You have a lot of unjustified voice crossings, a lot of imbalance, and instruments used in registers where they simply won’t be heard. And if a part can’t be heard, there’s no point in writing it. Take the very beginning. The theme is in the first violins, divisi. Meanwhile the second violins and, I assume, the violas provide harmonic filler, playing the accompaniment. What’s more, you reinforce this accompaniment with the woodwinds and even the brass! In real life, this will produce a very noticeable tilt toward the waltz accompaniment, while the melody will sound pale and inexpressive. On top of that, your first and second violins cross each other. That’s not good. The flute won’t be heard in measures 2-7. It’s too low for it there, and it will sound weak and pale. In this orchestration, the other instruments will completely drown it out. The brass chords raise questions too. Judging by your score, you aren’t taking into account that in real life the horn is about half as loud as the other brass instruments. This means that many of your chords will fall apart in practice. The trombones and trumpets will heavily outweigh the horns. And, as I understand it, you give the theme to three trumpets and flutes? I don’t think that’s the most successful solution. Your melody is fast and rhythmically quite complex. Even setting aside how technically difficult this part is for the trumpets, the very fact of three players performing it in unison will cause problems. They can easily drift out of sync. But, I repeat, I liked your idea, and the image is interesting. I wish you creative success. Alex

Many thanks for listening! I did think I might add a seed shaker or tambourine near the end, where the violins are playing tremolo. Maybe I could add some harp too.

I enjoyed listening to this. I’m far from the best person to analyze other people’s music, but here are some thoughts on what I heard. First, I think you should just call this f minor and write it as such. Phrygian dominant would have a g flat, I believe. (But I haven’t worked with modes in years and you might have a different reason for not putting this is f minor.) Add accidentals for the natural minor as needed. It will still give the sound you are looking for and make it much easier for a piano player to read. Also, is that a tie on the top note of each pair of notes on beats 2 and 3? It doesn’t sound like it is in the recording. I think they are not necessary and I found them distracting when playing through the piece. I like the themes. They are pleasing to the ear, at least to mine. There could probably be a little more variety. Measures 13-14 do reverse the direction of the tune, but it’s still rhythmically the same, and I wonder if that is giving enough sense of “new material”. Also, it’s in the same key. (This is a problem I have writing music — trying to keep things familiar but not beating any dead horses). How about putting something in a related key, maybe a major or try reversing measures 13 and 14, so you would have the new phrase start with three quarter notes. How about putting in some theme that has wider intervals. You have mostly step-wise motion the whole way through with the exception of a few jumps in the octave section. I think measure 39 and following have the more successful new material. Good variety but the key is still intact, so it’s provides some connection (again, for my ears, can’t speak for others). Maybe don’t use repeats for measures 63 / E section. The listeners’ ears will be well-familiar with the ideas by that point. Finally, I vote for an authentic cadence to at the end. It sounds unfinished. Like I said, just some thoughts I had.

Hi YC members, hope everything is going well with you. Today, I got the idea to start this topic: the best pieces you have listened to in 2026 so far. I don't mean you have to only mention pieces released in 2026 — but the best pieces you have listened to in 2026 as of now. I'd like to share: Jon Appleton's "Homage To Orpheus". Makoto Ueno "Preludes, Livre 2, CD 131: No. 10, Canope". Also, this piece as well: Ben Nobuto's "Hope Spiral". My friend @CrystalCanon told me about him, and I immediately fell in love — please check him out! Thanks, CrystalCanon! Well, I actually have many more pieces, but that's all for now. Next, it's your turn — what are yours!?

I was just playing around/jamming a bit to your tune and at 0:19 it seems possible to perhaps change the left hand into C major chord, though you may need to change a few right hand notes if you want to "fit" the new atmosphere. From there, you could do something like F major, followed by G major and back to C major. This would sort of fit the whole i IV V thing you got going in the A minor key. If you want to get really fancy (keep in mind my music theory may be not the most accurate here)...I sometimes think of the ii chord (D minor of C major as a substitute for F major. So you could add that in, though I'm not sure if that works for your piece. Sometimes, making the F major (the IV) into a minor, so F minor sounds good. I tried jamming to your ideas a bit with the F minor and it sounds okay I think. Then you have to make a decision...to stay in C major or return to A minor. You could play G major if you want to stay in C major, or get the E major going, if you want to return to A minor. Sometimes it's fun just to switch the key suddenly and without warning (my hero Schubert does it often), so you can just slightly randomly turn the A minor into A major if you wanted for fun. A more advanced idea would be to switch the key using one note that it's same (I didn't do this on the recording). So if you are playing like an A note over and over...A is also in F major and also in D major, so you could sort of just "slide" the music into those slightly more unrelated keys that way too. Voila! You instantly have variety. I recorded myself noodling around a bit so you can see. I'm just an amateur composer, and I'm sure that you can get much more "precise" and robust feedback from others on the forum. Example.mp3