Gustav Johnson

Excellent composition! Very beautiful and very expressive, loved listening! The only thing I might have considered changing would be to add a change in instrumentation, range, or texture to differentiate structural sections. You have some great stuff here - definitely keep pursuing this! Gus

Your score is a little hard to follow, as there are some weird notational things in it, but just listening to your piece it's pretty chill and has a somewhat "stardew valley" type of feel. I've used Plogue Sforzando with my DAW (Ableton), and it's not bad but it takes work to make it feel expressive. Might be worth looking into other sound fonts and libraries to hear different options and feel how various libraries represent certain instruments and sounds. There are several that have free or inexpensive (entry level/trial) options, Spitfire comes to mind. I think as a composition, everything's nice and there are some beautiful ideas! I think where things might be improved is in the musicality of the playback. All your notes have the same intensity and the dynamics and phrasing could be more intense. If you're using notation software like finale or sibelius or musescore, try writing in more dynamics to help the phrasing, and some articulations to emphasize important notes or to de-emphasize lesser notes. If you're using a DAW like pro-tools or ableton, try automoting some note velocities and dynamic changes. Keep writing! You're definitely on the right track and should keep pursuing this 🙂 Gus

I love your sound design! The lower synths are especially nice. The only part that felt out of place to me was the melodic synth line at 0:54-1:15, felt like it didn't belong or something. Cool piece.

I love it, the supporting material seems especially strong to me (the arpeggios and whatnot). The decorations on the melody are also nice. Great harmonic motion, very engaging 🙂 The middle section (waltz) is a nice break in style while not straying too far from the original path, although I think I preferred the more legato moments over the staccato moments if that makes sense. A very good piece! Gustav

@Alexander Reiger Thanks for the feedback Alexander! I'm woefully bad at producing work longer than ... well, short things like this, lol. My wife says I'd make a good ringtone composer - it's like I'm cursed and can't write anything longer than miniature. "Clipart Composer..." Woot, haha. Per the scoring issues, you're 100% right and I should probably practice that professionality when I write. Hard to find the motivation when there's really not much a chance this piece (or any others) will get performed, so sometimes I settle for "eh, close enough" when I should take the extra step - an easy thing to fix IF anyone ever wanted to perform it. Thanks again! Gustav

Thanks!!

@AngelCityOutlaw for real??

A short tune I composed near Halloween which features the bassoon (and contra bassoon), depicting a "scary" monster putting on a false bravado! Trying to get back in the swing of composing and posting and reviewing works. *whew* I'm out of shape, lol. Gustav Johnson

Hi Cloud 🙂 I love it. The transitions between sections (and phrases) seemed abrupt/clunky at times, but could easily be adjusted to flow more naturally if that's something you're interested in. I think you really shone when you added bits and bobs that were beyond the pattern, if that makes sense - those bits seemed very very natural and satisfying to me as a listener. Anyway, a good piece! Gustav

Wow, wow indeed. Any chance this is notated or Tabbed out? I'd love to re-orchestrate this using an instrumental ensemble. It's super beautiful and very well performed. Gustav

You know it's going to be good when the description and half the comments have some form of diagram in them. Well composed, Luis!

Very nice. A little gross, but nice, lol.

I really loved the slide guitar parts :)

I'm in for whatever role is most needed, judge or composer

I'll judge 😁😁😁 Or compose, if there are plenty of judges?