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This is my first attempt (excluding some best-forgotten teenage stuff) at writing a concerto. The style is my own blend of Classical and some early Romanticism and perhaps a dash of Baroque, but I wrote for the modern valve trumpet. Admittedly, the tessitura may be a bit high, frequently going up to the 8th and occasionally the 9th harmonic. Any comments or feedback would be most appreciated!

This is my second piece from the Spring Trilogy, April. It is the most easy-going of the cycle. It begins as a gentle waltz but it gets more energetic and drammatic. After a short recapitulation the piece ends surprisingly in dark contrast between bright pizzicatos and low, murky tremolos of the cello.

Hell yeah brother

How about we just ban AI and trust that people are honest, and if people find out that it's AI, they get temporarily banned. This way, people will be afraid to post AI content and not post any.

I don't think we should be Draconian about policing this. I think the policy should be no posting music composed by AI, but I really think it would be a mistake to start policing and interrogating every post and assuming it's AI until proven otherwise. If there are indications that a piece might be AI (e.g. no score provided, telltale signs of Sonus, posted by someone with no prior history on the forum, etc.), then it makes sense to inquire further into it. But demanding proof of authorship from every composition would be a drastic overreaction to an issue that has, as far as I'm aware, only actually cropped up once here so far. I'm against AI compositions on the forum, but I'd rather waste my time once or twice giving useless feedback on an AI composition than chase real people who are posting real compositions off the site.

As far as the 3rd part of this poll, If we decide to regulate, I think requiring / encouraging the composer to give some insight about how they composed the piece, and their motivations of the composition should be enough.

As someone involved in education, AI has been a hot topic. I have a pragmatic view that AI, for good or bad, is ubiquitous in our society so it is better to control how it is expressed in the forums where you can set explicit guidelines and consequences for abuse rather than ban it entirely and have it go underground. I would advocate creating a dedicated subforum for AI music and be clear that AI music must be declared as such can only be submitted/discussed there and a clear policy that violating these guidelines can lead to suspension or banning from the site. Also in the end, if someone wants to pass of AI music (or any other creative endeavor as their own), it's really hurting them more so than others. They are not improving their creative process so any praise/feedback is hollow and meaningless. At least it's not stealing someone else's work and passing it off as your own (which has happened to me). I am of the mind that AI generated art in all forms will always be inferior to human efforts so in the end who really cares?. If AI every got to the point there were really think it is on par or superior to human effort, well, then great since a masterpiece is a masterpiece (I am just doubtful that AI will ever be able to achieve this).

I was thinking about the ice that's formed here on the ocean. How in foggy conditions it looks like it never ends. I'd like to go sit at the beach of my cottage with an omni mic and just stare into the fog and play this... This is also a slight experimentation on both microtonal tunings (aesthetic) and in player's freedom. You'll note that my recording sounds a bit different to this (and was actually played on steel string guitar), but that's the point :D. I often feel that the player is not given enough free reign to interpret what they are playing - not enough free reign to bring themself to the stage. So this is a slight complaint to that I suppose. All thoughts, feelings, colours, landscapes, gibberish, textur 21st of jan.mp3 es that come to mind please tell me.

I see them. They're the tiny little arrows attached to the accidentals (see image below).

Hi @PaavolaPyry! It does sound improvisatory with all the sudden chord progession but I like it. Nice playing as well! To me it sounds like a Lute Baroque prelude in more modern chords. I am sure @PeterthePapercomPoser would like the piece as well as he wrote a lot of microtonal pieces, and @Thatguy v2.0 wrote many great guitar pieces. I hear some of the microtones but don't see them on the score, will you add them on the score? Thx for sharing! Henry

Did you ever have any music theory lessons? How old are you? I started by improvising on the piano and then writing down these improvisations. During my intermediate school studies I was intensely studying harmony and counterpoint from 16th to 19th century theory. I learned the use of instruments by arranging numerous popular pieces - I had a band with a flute, clarinet, violin, trumpet and trombone players. They were not advanced players but sufficient enough to learn how to late compose for these instruments. If I were young today, I would recommend anybody to start with arrangements and harmonizations of folk pieces or children pieces. Initially to use basic functions of tonality (tonic, subdominant, dominant, followed by supportive functions of IInd, IIIrd and VIth chord of the key, and then beginning to venture outside the single key).

Just begin composing. Don't wait to "feel ready" 🙂 You can start for free using Musescore and read scores (highly recomended) on imslp a long with youtube for audio. Start learning how to read scores with some basic music theory. find a teacher or teach your self. Then post the scores here on the forum for feedback. That a lone can take you far with some patience. Just focus on small improvements constantly every day! Good luck! 🙂

This is my "Three Sententiae for Glissotar, Op. 386", a piece I composed last year. The glissotar is a newly invented instrument that is a version of the Hungarian woodwind instrument "tarogato" but with the distinction that the notes are not determined by holes as in most woodwind instruments but, as in string instruments, by pressing the fingers anywhere in the range; and glissandos are possible. I had to create a new soundfont for it in order to be able to make this mp3 version. I have provided a description of 'sententia' as well as of 'glissotar' on the title page of the score.

Hello everyone, I am new to this website. I am an amateur composer and would like to share a piece with you that I composed last year. Any feedback is appreciated. MK

I've moved on to Chapter 6 of Persichetti's "20th Century Harmony" which is about secundal chords and clusters. The prompt was "1. Harmonize the following melody for string trio using chords by seconds." Thanks for listening and I'd appreciate any of your comments!

This would be a very Haydnesque effect! I can never forget how he delibrately asked the strings to mistune their strings while sustaining a chord: (Begins at 23:17) Also the ending of the Farewell leaves me like WTF lol

@Henry Ng Tsz Kiu Thank you so much for your thoughtful reviews of each movement! I'm glad you mentioned the timpani solo - I thought it would be amusing if, when the orchestra sets up the cadenza with its 64 chord, the timpanist suddenly decides that they're the soloist and starts playing a timpani "cadenza" before the trumpet gently nudges them aside and proceeds with the real cadenza. I could even imagine a bit of stagecraft where the trumpeter gives the timpanist a "what the hell?" look and maybe the conductor pretends to try to get their attention and make them stop. Anyway, I'm glad you liked the concerto. It's certainly one of the better pieces I've finished, in my opinion.

Coming back from the dead just to vote on this. The core of any artform is the creative process, and the use of genAI to generate music is anti-process. It focuses instead on the result, and advertises itself as a "facilitator", a "helper", or something to remove the "hassle" of the process. It misses the point that when passion is involved, the creative process is a hassle that one ultimately enjoys. There is no art without passion, and all genAI does is vomit results to the passionless. A creative process comes about through the passionate development of a skill, and it fosters further understanding of said skill. The result is one particular target of a process at a given point in time: it comes about as the inevitable conclusion of a process. This decades-long shift of focus to the result is what makes genAI seem legitimate, because it's the endpoint of a logic that defines art as the object instead of the craft. It's made of the same cloth as the commodification of art, and the reduction of everything to "content." It's a corporate point of view, which can't conceive of art in any other way, and only seeks to expedite what it wrongly perceives to be nothing but a very slow assembly line. I am a composer because I know how to make music, and I learned how to make music by making music. A prompt engineer did not learn how to make an illustration, they learned how to tell a particular machine to do so. One could argue that prompt engineering is a craft, because it isn't absent of human involvement. But where it fails is in never being directly responsible for the result. With genAI, nothing about how to directly reproduce the result is learned because there's no process involved, only instructions by proxy given to a glorified blender. What differentiates genAI from art is the absence of a skillful process directly related to the object. Therefore, the point, and what makes one anything from a hobbyist to an artist, is the process. It just so happens that one cannot go through the process without inevitably coming to a result, which informs more process, and so on and so forth. That's how an artist grows.

Thanks very much! The Hummel concerto (as well as the Haydn) was very much in my mind when I was writing this. It took me a little over a month to compose this; I think I started it in early November and finished mid-December. I have no contacts at all in the music world, so no, I'm afraid there's no way this would ever be performed.

Hello my dear composers. Here my 2nd movement of my latest Sonata. I hope you like it.

Hello beautiful souls, firstly I want to tell you I love listening to music. When I listen to a piece of music, I wonder what the inspiration of the composer behind it is. I want to know if all this talent is god gifted or we make it with practice. I want to pursue music composition as my new hobby, can you please guide me through how I can start? It’s not like that I know nothing about music as I used to play guitar and piano in my college days but I’m not remember that much now and yes please consider me as a complete beginner. Thank you.

Just make some things. The making will lead to questions, and the combination of the questions, and the practice making will make you better over time. Don't be afraid to get started. Don't expect to be any good. You WILL be bad at this, because you have never done it before, so go ahead and start and just have fun! We call it "playing" music, so play! 🙂

I have moved on to Chapter 7 of Persichetti's "20th Century Harmony" which covers polychords. The prompt for the piece was "4. Extend the polychordal passage for piano:" Thanks for listening and I'd appreciate any of your comments!

HI @PeterthePapercomPoser I can tell you are enjoying these exercises! I love how you use the harmonic and melodic motives that he presented thorough out the entire piece. I think we need to have something like this for YC challenge. 🙂

Thanks! It's a bit of a lighter finale, like that of the Hummel trumpet concerto or of some Beethoven concerti, which I thought was needed after the long and serious adagio.

Kirby's Epic Yarn - Weird Woods

Very enjoyable finale! I like how you let up tension, but tension is still there; you don't let up. Does that make sense? Probably not, but this would have rocked Vienna in the 1790s.

This is the first movement of my Spring Trilogy (March, April and May) from a full album by here presented cellist Bernardo Brizani, who selected four composers to create a full twelve-month cycle of seasons. The score already has all three movements but the recordings are presented on separate videos. This movement begins with slow, murkly chords in strings while cello shows a contrasting, arabesque-like energy. The middle part of the movement is a bit more agile and brighter in sound, while the ending returns to the initial mood. The music has neoromantic features but I do believe it is mostly in my own idiom.

Wow, a lot to digest... About bar 16. I guess I was sloppy not to add crescendo to basses. About mixing sharps with flats: I prefer diatonic intervals to diminished even if the vertical structure looks strange, I guess for practical reasons (for example, this always happens when harp is used). Beam over rests: from my experience, it depends what type of metre is used. I try to properly control the beaming but sometimes it looks a bit rough. Still, we are used to such notation at the ear and rhythm training sessions. 🙂 I usually don't add extra bowings, unless I am 100% in necessity for the specific articulation. Maybe I am a bit more aware of the bowing since I have a daughter who plays double bass. 🙂 Anyway, thanks for the comment. You really pointed out specific situations which made me take some extra peeks in the score. 🙂

Hello! I was working on a movement and I wanted to go for a lake-theme so I was wondering whether C or G Major sounded better for this. I also provided scores for each major key.

Maybe you could start from C major then try and switch from C major to G major to add some more texture to the music from time to time

As composers, we never really know why we compose. If we knew it , we might never have become composers. I DO know why I became composer. It is the passion and the will to speak positively to your audiences and, if necessary, criticize the negativity or simply enjoy the widest range of possibilities of art. It is also about exploring and sharing your talents with everybody. The Bible also says the talents should never be burried. And you should always try to improve your skills and explore the little explored and be open-minded.

And what makes your music so good compared to masters such as Mozart, Beethoven, Mahler, Prokofiev, Shostakovich, or so many great living composers? You must imagine that you are the best there is, the best there was and the best there ever will be...

This is the final draft of my best work up to date in my life, String Sextet in G flat major. Posts of seperate movements have been posted before and I'm not gonna repeat it here. If you're interested in the music details, pls check the following YCs: 1st Mov: 2nd mov: Here is the score and YT link of the work: String Sextet in G flat major.pdf Here is the structure of the work: (*denotes parts I love). The two movement structure is inspired by Mahler's 8th Symphony, so the second movement is proportionally much longer than 1st movement: 0:00 Opening credit and structure 0:11 1st Mov, 1st Part: Tao Primo (*3:35-3:47 nice bridge, **4:40-5:26 nice chromatics) 5:34 1st Mov, 2nd Part: Minore, a fugato, some little challenges (**9:40-10:10 nice retransition) 10:10 1st Mov, 3rd Part: Tao Return, a triple fugue and ending (falsely) (*11:45, **12:46 till the end) 14:48 2nd Mov, Lamentoso: Denial of Tao and realization of the realistic World full of tragedies. (*16:54, *19:11, ***19:44 sounds like my version of Bee's op.131 finale!, ***23:38-25:15 most emotional passage for me) 26:33 2nd Mov, Fugue a6: Objectification of emotions and reason. The most difficult passage for me to write technically but easiest emotionally. (**28:10-28:42 includes a 6 part stretto of 1st subject and a nice C minor modultation quoting my own Clarinet Quintet, ****30:07-31:27 a 6 part stretto of 2nd subject and one of my fav. section in the entire work with the very beautiful C minor passage, ***32:58-34:31 nice turn to pentatonics and nice disappointment) 35:03 2nd Mov, The Return. Start picking up the real self and soul and connect oneself with Tao, finding self equals to finding Tao. “I Six Books explain me and I explain Six Books (Lu Jiuyuan)”(*35:03-35:36 try to regain energy, **37:05,37:37,38:11,38:43 Nice color, **39:12 nice folk melody, ***39:15-40:15 Nice pizz.! And a very nice snap pizz! **** 40:46-41:46This passage leaves me in wonder. I don't know how do I compose this, **42:17-43:23 Nice appetizer fugato, ****43:24-44:53 Grand Climax!, ***44:54-45:41 Nice heterophonic passage which ignites my creative power for this movement, *****45:42 till end Pefect ending) This work was first inspired by Chinese Philosopher Tang Chun I's Realm of Heavenly Morality in his monumental book, The Existence of Life and the World of Spirituality, in April 2022. I wanna felt and descibed it hence I finished the whole 1st mov. I thought it's enough, until I met with my dedicatee Johnson, my respected philosophy professor Dr. Tao and my friend Merina in April 2023, and I knew it's not enough since without pain Tao isn't possible at all. After some painful incidents in 2024, I am finally able to finish the whole piece in March 2025. For me this work is about Tao, Tao lost and Tao regained. Since this would be the final post on the Sextet, please let me acknowledge people I would like to thank along my way of composing. This work is dedicated to and in memoriam Mr. Johnson Ho https://youtube.com/@beingintheworld?si=9Ch3hnk1UtluHTRF who sadly passed away in July 2024, and it's a regret the work couldn't be finished when he's alive. I would like to thank him for his great inspiration especially his postive way to deal with his illness. I would like to thank Dr. Tao, without his teaching esp. the one on the book Buddha-nature and Prajñā (?) did I realise the importance of pain and human suffering to morality and humanity, and probably won't have enough philosophical basis for this work. I would like to thank Mr. Vince Meyer @Thatguy v2.0, who acts as my musical Virgil, providing so many inspiration particularly in this piece's fugue and different motivic usage, and also make this great recording. Also, thank him for his encouragement when I kept saying I could never finish this piece. I would like to thank Dr. David Goza http://www.youtube.com/@David_Goza⁨⁩ ,without his videos on YT I would never able to improve my own writing. I would like to thank Merina, Yvonne, Arjuna @expert21 and Peter @PeterthePapercomPoser for staying with me in my difficult times. I would like to thank Mike @chopin for his idea to go back to medieval texture in the Return. I would like to thank Luis @Luis Hernández which helps me solve the harmonic progression btw tritiones. I would also like to thank my ex-boss's mistreatment, as she teaches me a great lesson and the pain helps me reflect a lot which shows here. Also, thanks to everyone who has listen to this piece before and comments, as they help me a lot. Thank you Young Composers Forum and @chopin for giving me a chance to grow musically. Thank you for everyone who has commented on the work's parts before, I especially love the comments by @Fugax Contrapunctus @Giacomo925. Last but most importantly, I would like to thank my mum and family. Without their love I would probably fall much deeper and won't be able to finish this piece at all. Thank you!! P.S. One interesting fact on the piece is that it stays longer in F sharp minor then G flat Major….. Henry

Plenty of mixed feelings about this one. Sure, you can write for strings (although G flat major is a terrible key for strings) but the work does not progress anywhere for a pretty long time. No modulations (barely any chromatic), similar character. This is more like a minimalism style, akin to early Glass or some less expansive John Adams. The transition at 5:35 is refreshing. I am pretty impressed with final movement, it is a piece within a piece. There are some nice and memorable moments but the overall form is probably too large for what it offers. Still, I admire your bravery to compose such a long string sextet.

If this piece is intentionally hilarious, then job well done. I had an amusing time with this.😁 And the music itself fits perfectly.

It is always strange to listen to microtonal music as it sounds out of tune rather than a coherent musical language. And it is used within the traditional d minor with more or less classical melodic and polyphonic technique which is certainly unique. To some extent it reminds me of the third string quartet by Aulis Sallinen.

After many years, I have finally composed a new tango, my fifth so far. It is for double bass and piano, since my daughter Eva is a decent performer and always wanted me to compose for her. The tango has a typical A-B-A form and uses a modern musical language with added dissonances, based on a tonal centre of e but without clear major minor progress. The middle section is in much more clear yet still modal f sharp minor, very melodic and utilizes the high range of the double bass. The composition end with powerful energy and one final snap pizzicato on a low e.

This was a very interesting listen. My brain goes to Bartok because of the folk aspect and rhythms. Also, I keep thinking: just wait until this guy gets into the changing time signatures every so often and then we'll have a feast!

That's why we would need the AI detection tool for help to make sure it's not a lie.

Continuing with Persichetti's chapter on added-note chords, I wrote this piano piece. The prompt was "9. Extend the following piano idea, preserving the general character." Thanks for listening and I'd appreciate any of your comments!

Hi Martin, This sounds experimental, which is always good! Some of your brass writing is very nice, and the cat vocalisations are hilarious! Overall the work feels a bit random at times, and maybe lacks coherence; but still an enjoyable listen. Alex

It's good to see how others organise themselves. The idea of working on the sketch in three staves or more, depending on the volume, is great. Perhaps in a future project I will try to do the sketch for solo piano, as the intention is not so much to imagine orchestral colours as to establish the structure, parts, climax, harmony and rhythm.

Hey PaperComposer I really liked this. There was a lot of creative time signature switching up, and I think you orchestrated this really well. I'm not a string player, so I won't comment on the triple stops (Looks daring haha). I love how you broke up the 7/8 theme in different ways, and really enjoyed the clever use of each instrument. It's always nice to pick out different parts when listening and follow along without getting bored. I will say that I didn't care too much for the B theme. I felt like the A material was strong, and I appreciate the nice contrast it gave, but as a whole it felt a bit out of place to me. Kind of like I went back in time to a noble's manor in all its splendor every time I heard it. 😜 Moving forward, I would work on your transitions and pacing. You have great ideas that are uniquely you, but it felt rushed in between sections, like it was all just crammed together. Spread it out! You have four instruments, let them all have their time to be heard. You have contrast in your thematic material, but an easy contrast to employ is simply letting the viola and piano play for a little, or solo violin, or whatever combinations you would want to create. For some reason I've listened to this piece several times within the last days without commenting, so I figured I would share a few thoughts since I've enjoyed it so much. Thanks for posting 😄

Hi, beautiful and interesting. I love the exposition, every instrumente has its own work, the counterpoint seems to be born naturally. The FIRST change to the "dance" part m. 38 sound a bit odd to me, coming from a thicker and dramatic section. Very smart those previous glissandi with a "comic" effect that lead to the happier "dance" part. The second time I hear this is not so unnatural, once learned. The development of this part is briliant, only some spots are a less clear, in my opinion: m. 55 - 56, ... probably because there are too issues to have in the ear: 3 agains 2 rhythm, trill, staccatto... Nice work anyway. These are only minor impressions of mine. Overall, there is lot of work here. Interesting tonality, not often seen, particularly in orchestral sets (where some sections are better written in other tonalities, enharmonic following transpositions). But some works comes to my mind in this tonality: Scriabin piano sonata, nº 2, Liszt La Campanella, Shostakovich string quartett nº 8 (movement II).

Interesting, I hadn't considered there being three themes, I guess I'm biased toward assuming there would be only two for some reason. As I listen again this structure is more clear. I'd say give it the melody somewhere, and maybe trade back and forth between the other instruments. As an example, maybe give the right hand in the piano the melody in m.20-27 while the violin has a secondary role (maybe an echo to the piano an octave lower when the piano plays sustained notes), then have the violin take over to finish off the section. This also might make it more clear that a new theme is starting. Yes I do hear it as a ii V. As I sit and play the progression (G#m, D# Major, G#m, G# Major) on my piano a few times I hear what you're saying and I'm somewhere in the middle now lol. Maybe since the G# major on the downbeat of m.97 isn't immediately preceded by the D# Major on beat 3 of m.96 it doesn't sound as resolved to me? And since the D# major leads to the G#m, the G# major comes as a surprise? I dunno, if you're happy with it don't let me change your mind lol. I remember, you've come a long way in such a short time. At this rate you'll be composer in residence at a major orchestra by December 😂.

Really good work! I really liked your melodies and each instrument has unique, independent, and interesting lines pretty much throughout the piece. I also liked the contrast between the light major theme at m.38 and the darker section preceding it. I will say I think it might be a little "violin-heavy". For pretty much the entire piece the violin took the spotlight; if some of the melodies were passed around a little more it might add more variety. I also think the piano was particularly underutilized. I'm certainly no authority on sonata form, but I thought you did a good job. Here's how I interpreted it: m.1-19 - Introduction m.20-37- Theme A m. 38-42 - Theme B m. 43-74 - Development m.75-84 - Recap Theme A m.85-89 - Recap Theme B m.90-98 - Coda Am I close? I liked your development section and thought you did a good job twisting and turning the themes into new ideas. I will say the restatement of m.75-84 seems a little short since there was an additional phrase the first time I heard it in m.20-37. Maybe add an additional phrase like the first time to make if feel more balanced? Lastly, the end of the piece doesn't feel resolved to me, was this your intention? I think since I hear D# in the bass in m.96, followed by a big G# major chord in m.97, I'm expecting to hear a C#, rather than ending on G#. I have a feeling this was your intention since you hint at this being the first movement of a larger work, but just wanted to be sure. Again, really good work, and thanks for sharing! If I were in your shoes I would make it my goal to get my hands on some decent sound libraries and put together a good audio representation of the piece, (or better yet, get it performed). The sounds you used aren't too bad, but I don't think it does the piece justice.

There is no creaking on sonatina's violin. you can use them directly in musescore, no other player is required. The squeaky violin sound , good works on chords, making them more realistic. in this video I used two different violin sounds ( sonatina and vanilla sfz ) here to make it look realistic: https://youtu.be/uZC1NCCtCUk(still not as good as a vst, but not bad.)

The melodic ideas on the violin are nice but I think they can be developed. I got used to the sounds of musescore, but violin is really bad. Sonatina orchestra is free and works on musescore. For a squeaky violin effect sound, you can also try: https://vis.versilstudios.com/vsco-community.html