Some Guy That writes Music

I thoroughly enjoyed this piece. Utilizes the full instrument very well. I enjoyed the upward sequences, really built excitement. 1:50 beautiful. 2:45 a wonderful build up. 3:40 exciting. 4:05 awesome, and great playing here. Nice ending.

Bravo, the different colors by the orchestra were great. (the soloist doesn't always play with perfect intonation, which made it hard to judge the quality of your solo line, but it felt a little unjoyful.) A gorgeous piece.

beginning perfectly encapsulates the vibe you're looking for, cant wait to see what else you do with these effects. 1:30 perfect melody, I do wish the melody pierced through the background a little better. 2:30 I feel like it would've developed the 1:30 melody a different way, rather than choosing a new melody. A good use of changing sounds for the melody, adds some good layers, especially when they overlap.

I also want to add here, that if anyone wants to send any music my way, they totally can. If it is capable of being sung by a baritone, I am offering my time to sing your melodies for you (without accompaniment) so you can hear it in a real voice. These would NOT be for commercial OR public use, but independent study unless otherwise communicated. If you have something for a soprano or tenor which would not fit my voice, you can transpose it yourself down to a baritone range and I can sing it for you. I don't expect anything in return, but I do hope y'all use this opportunity. I too often see composers writing difficult music for the voice, when in my opinion, the art is at it's best when easy for the singer. I am not currently accepting music for recitals, but I am always hunting.

This is beautiful. I love this piece very much as it is. A couple notes as a trained singer. Firstly, stylistically, I do not like the separated flags for each syllable. It's common in music, but all it does is give me extra work because i have write in the beaming myself. The reason this was done historically was because words were jammed into the score as tight as possible, because printing pages cost money, and often times syllables would become unaligned with their notes. Vocal beaming was a solution because you could just beam together when you aren't moving to the next syllable. This is no longer an issue because one more page won't hurt. So please do not do "vocal beaming", it's outdated and disliked by most singers. One of the above comments worried about breath, and I'm not worried, there is only one place I'd breathe where you don't have a rest, and that would be m. 57 b. 3. It's a long phrase with a mood change halfway through the phrase. I also agree that the piece is a bit rangey, but I would just make note of that for the next time you write. I'm a believer that most art song should be maybe a 10th wide. The main form which these pieces being performed are 1. Amateurs singing one song in a recital with their peers (they have a less extensive range) 2. Professional recitals that an hour long, and need more pieces that are easy than are hard. m. 10, skipping on a "ing" will feel quite weird for a singer, and considering is written for tenor/soprano (but definitely works better for a soprano voice) that f will be right on the passagio for most voices. Shifting the "on" one eighth note forward would be easier to sing. It's a little displeasureable to sing, but also the general mood is quite cute and bouncy there so it's not bad writing. m. 36, if you're using traditional vocal beaming (as you currently are) you do not need this slur. In vocal music slurs mean the same thing as your beaming. If you want legato, put it over the whole phrase, or write the word legato. Overall I think it's wonderfully written, my biggest concern is the range, even I myself would have to think about whether or not I would put this on a recital because if it's difficulty in that area. In a joint recital it'd be fine, but by myself for an hour, it would have to compete with some really good songs for that spot.

Thank you for your kind words. I agree about the development comment, I definitely think it would benefit from a longer continuation, but I need to start planning ahead for developments like that to make sense for me. And yeah I'll change the key, I wrote the melody starting on a C, and then immediately changed plans lol.

Hello Everyone, Thank you for your support in my recent compositions, I really appreciate the great feedback I always get from y'all. Today I have a piece that I really needed to write for myself. I've recently been under a lot of stress, with demands and expectations of other people really weighing me down. The struggle to meet those expectations has hurt my self-esteem. This piece is simply an expression of that feeling, and ends with the hope that I will conquer it all.

@J. Lee Graham Thank you for your feedback! I've fixed your notes in my personal scores, incase I ever get this performed. @Henry Ng Tsz Kiu @Uhor Thank you both!

Really cool music!, I really enjoyed the more sporadic textures. Your slower section is always carrying interestingly forward, with two distinctive voices at any given times. Some very wonderful counter point here. I will say the "Alla Jazz" Section felt like you lost the complexity and interest you had been building up, rather than redirecting it. I'm not sure what more you could do, it is very interesting by itself, but I felt a little surprised. The transition back to craziness was very smooth and satisfying.

Hello Folks, this is a 3 movement work I recently finished in my first few weeks of composition lessons. The following three movements are about three leaves as they fall from a tree. For each leaf, a different character is met. These leaves begin in similar places, swaying in the wind, before falling into the world of their character. The first leaf falls and is found by a little kid. This kid plays with the leaf, more excited than any adult could understand. They fly, dance, and eventually sneak together into the house. The second leaf falls and is watched by an old man. The man does not interact with the leaf, but instead is reminded of the beauty and fragility of the world. He remembers his life through this lens. The third leaf falls and is spotted by an angry man, who wants to crush every leaf. The leaf realizes he is coming, and flies with the breeze to escape, before eventually failing.

I wouldn’t say anything negative about 5, I more so think a fast 4th (between the current 2nd and 3rd) movement would do a lot of justice to this piece. The last movement you showed has lots of beauty to it, my only consideration is many beautiful movements in a row detracts from their beauty. When you are able to compare the beautiful and the “uglier” movements, it makes those beautiful moments all the more moving, and same with the fast movements. I honestly would gladly listen to any of your current movements in person if I had the chance, they are wonderful. Just because you wrote something that is hard, doesn’t mean its bad, otherwise most of the best music would be no good. I will say one thing, in my opinion (as a vocalist) if you have a solo voice singing with an orchestra, you should utilize the voice at least 60% of the time. This is not something that I’m totally sure everyone will agree with me on but I’ll explain my reasoning. In a concerto or soloist oriented orchestra performance, the soloist must stand infront of the orchestra. Particularly for singers, their job is to emote and show the emotions of the music. When you have a singer on the stage, they are the only face not in their music. They look directly at the audience. Long interludes of 2+ minutes are incredibly difficult to keep the audience’s attention. And if the singers sits and then later stands it cannot be acted through. Film music gets away with the soprano coming in out whenever they want, but I believe this should not happen on stage, simply out of a desire to tell a story, in what I believe, is the most convincing way. I’d be curious on other people’s thoughts on this.

I was listening to your work on my phone, when I started texting people, at some point I stopped what I was doing so I could listen to the music. This is rare for me. I think there is some gorgeous music. I personally like the move from 1-3 being calm. But I felt like after that beautiful calmness of 3, you have set-up some anger, or vivace well. The longing of the soprano in the upper range and emotional ending to 3 was great. This tension exists in the first measure of 5, but disappears, I wanted a movement of it. This music made me realize I need to do better lol. Beautiful stuff 5 makes me want to start running on the beach. Idk how else to say it. Also the soprano part sounds a little high. Idk what the range is, but even for a soprano, singing above the staff for a prolonged period of time (a minute straight or more) is quite difficult. High Bs and higher are terrifying for anyone, especially with the orchestra forte underneath, because the soprano can’t cheat or anything. So try to use this range more sparingly if you think you can. Although quite sylistically different from you, one the best composers to look at for easy vocal writing that still uses the full range of the soprano voice would be Donizetti. Take a look at the way he sets up singers for important high notes, I’ll try to find an example when I get home.

Lots of great use of changing colors to keep the same motif interesting. I think it is great as is, but if you were looking to add more, I would love some longer legato lines to add some contrast.

I actually quite like the strength of the motif for this minute and a half. It just really makes me want a B section. Often times in the renaissance, when there was a crazy polyphonic repetitions like this, they would do 1 of 3 things. Either have another polyphonic section in a different mode, have a more declamatory section of text, which would often be in a "double choir" setting which was back and forth between two homophonic sections, or an outright homophonic section. I think each of these would work really well. Heres an example of Lotti moving from a incredible thick reptitive canon-like polyphonity into a triple-ish choir: https://youtu.be/OZ9dXLmRlpo?si=LaAY263rsR4sFO6x And Gesualdo into a more homophonic style: https://youtu.be/TBC-45-FfVQ?si=Kmqmee2Ldr9aPlYU&t=131 And most was just more polyphony.

I wrote this piece with the goal of submitting it to a competition. However I could not get myself to format the music to my preferred level, and a general disdain for the form of the piece, so I decided not to submit it. I have worked quite hard on this piece, bringing out many new textures for myself. But I am at a point where I am too entrenched into this piece to make the large formal changes I want. So I would like to share it with you all. This piece is about a Whale and a Whaling ship, and their corresponding battle, capture of the whale, and bringing it home. I thought this might be an interesting idea for a competition, with a lot of dramaticism inherit, and generally a little easier for a listener to make the connection. Let me know what you think of the piece. I'd love to hear your input on the different textures throughout. I think this piece has some pretty awesome moments and I hope you guys will let me know.