PeterthePapercomPoser

Hey @Alex Weidmann! So this is the piece you wrote that was inspired by "To Zanarkand" from Final Fantasy X? It's not bad! When I listen to the original piano piece, and compare it to yours the first thing that I notice is that, in the original the melody is brought out more in high relief. You can do this too if you use MS Basic Piano soundfont and offset the velocity values of the melody to about 32 higher than the rest to really bring it out of the overall texture. There are plenty of great emotive harmonic moments in your piece that get lost among the mind numbing narrative of imbalanced piano noodling. When you don't bring out the melody, the listener doesn't know what to listen for and retreats into a passive listening mode, which is what I think is happening here. That's my advice - thanks for sharing!

Hi again @kaiyunmusic! What a wonderfully sweet and relaxing piece! The musical content itself is great and I wouldn't change a thing about it! My only critique is with how you notated this. I would notate it like this instead: Your version is essentially in cut-time (or otherwise known as 2/2) while this version is in 4/4. What program do you use? If you wanted to convert your score to look like this you could select all of your notes and there should be some option somewhere for diminution by half or "paste at half duration" or something. Thanks for sharing!

I might as well publicize the Google sheet since you're not the first to mention it: Scherzo Index

Yes, that part is in fact Eb Lydian Dominant, otherwise known as the Acoustic scale since it contains all the first and most prominent harmonics of the harmonic series. Good eye/ear! This is the original material from the Mt. Kolts Theme: The scale used here is Eb Lydian #2 and is the sixth mode of the harmonic minor scale. Thanks for your interest!

Hey @Mooravioli! What an underwhelming piece to have as the first ensemble piece that you've had performed and recorded! I feel like your style is hard to get into, but it definitely gains from repeated listenings. The listener gains more and more affinity for this piece upon repeated listenings I mean. It's very esoteric to get into though. But I love your use of flutter-tongue and slap-tongue on the saxophone! Great use of extended techniques. Though I think that the music could be more unified and self-similar. I don't find myself whistling or humming a tune after listening to this piece. Besides just having cool techniques and unusual chords and progressions I think it's also important to give the listener a long-leading melodic line and a clear theme. But that might just be my opinion, and I'm a very thematic composer. You do you, of course. Thanks for sharing!

Hello again @HoYin Cheung! First, I have to say that I love this piece! I've played it in recital back in my university days. I also love the idea of arranging this for a solo Violin - Piano duet! It will definitely make for some very musically intimate moments between you and your g/f that only this kind of music can create! I do have a minor critique of your arrangement however - I feel like the Violin and Piano should start together, doubling the main melody at the same time. I think it sounds like something is missing when the piano starts alone, without the Violin and it's also too much like the original. I think you should endeavor to make your arrangement different from the original from the very beginning, to make potential listeners aware that this is an arranged version from the very beginning. That's my humble opinion. Every other part of the arrangement is great! Thanks for sharing!

Hey @Mooravioli! Thanks for your review! Stay tuned for that in a future movement! I've already composed a variation which does this, I just haven't integrated it into a finished movement yet. I feel like it wouldn't be in the spirit of the original themes by Nobuo Uematsu to use microtones since they didn't use microtones. Although I definitely plan on writing plenty of my own microtonal VGM music in the future. Thanks again for your review!

I believe you're referring to beat 3? I didn't want to spell the Eb major chord as a D# major chord (on account of having to spell the G as an Fx and also because there occur both F#'s as well as G's in the voice leading which are still best understood in the key of E minor). The chord on beat 3 is actually an F# major chord spelled with a Bb instead of an A# (and again, this is done because of voice leading since the Bb leads to an A in the following harmony of B7 with a C# in the bass). You gotta consider that the whole chromatic system is imperfect and often, compromises must be made for the sake of readability and voice leading. Also often, organizing the given pitches into a heptatonic scale with no repeated notes as best one can takes precedence over spelling passing chords on weak beats correctly. Are you referring to the Db major section in measure 258? Db major has 5 flats while C# major has 7 sharps so that was just a practicality and familiarity thing. Some key signatures are preferable to others for practical reasons and are used way more often because of that. That to me justified switching to a flat key even though the tonal center of C# is not that foreign to a piece in E minor, being the relative minor of E major. Yes, that is annoying for sure. Even more so for harp which sometimes needs everything respelled a certain way according to the position of its pedals. But correct me if I'm wrong, but you seem to use scores in concert pitch for your music? That's one way to avoid the trouble in the score, but if you ever need to print out parts you'd still need to transpose it to the correct enharmonic key. Unless you're working with an instrumentalist who is expected to be able to transpose such as Trumpet or French Horn. Thanks for your comments!

Hi again @Alex Weidmann! I decided to find this work after your review of my FFVI work. I would review it if I could listen to it again but there doesn't seem to be any sound file or link to YT video? Where is the music?

Thanks @ferrum.wav and @Alex Weidmann for your reviews! I really admire your attention to detail and delving into the score in reviewing the piece ferrum! But, there is actually another way to analyze the thematic associations in the piece, by realizing their relation to the original themes from the game! This section uses a pairing of two similar themes: The top voice is from the Fight Theme; while the bottom is from Terra's Theme. The themes are so similar to each other when lined up metrically to start at the same time they have almost the same contour. This section is built up from canonic imitation layering of Terra's Theme over itself in four voices. The horn part: is a melody that is also from the latter half of Terra's Theme. This section is a 6/8 variation of the fanfare from the Returner's Theme: This section is also a 6/8 variation of the quartal accompaniment in the Fight Theme: This melody is from the latter half of the Mt. Kolts Theme: Thanks a lot for your detailed review and I am really glad that you're inspired to continue your variations through listening to this! I think you and I have a certain affinity in our compositional styles through our desire to write new music on pre-existing themes and vary them. Thanks again! Thanks! Yes, it was. The only way I managed it is to keep everything mostly in the same key that way the different variations were modularly compatible with each other and I could try to fit them together like puzzle pieces. But that does come with disadvantages, I think. I remember listening to that work! I don't remember if I reviewed it or not. But, it wasn't from FF VI but from another installment in the series, right? I think I was almost too greedy in my ambition with this project. Having included 8 different themes in a variations piece, I almost bit off too much than I could chew so to speak. The project really seemed at many times to be too big for my ability to manage all the different themes and variations. And it's not done yet! Thanks again for your review!

Hey Vince. Thanks for your review! I actually do have Terra's Theme stated that way in the solo string quartet section of the piece here: The 1st Violin and Cello have Terra's Theme in a form that's closest to its original form here. Yeah LoL .. well, it would be a misnomer no? If I persist with this project then this won't be "final" at all! Haha LoL I never thought somebody would call it a "quagmire". The rehearsal marks are a headache even for me. I have a Google sheet with a catalogue of all the variations and their meter, tempo, themes used, and page number in my notebooks (as you've seen I think). Those technical details aren't really useful for anyone except me if I ever plan on continuing other movements or in case I still want to use unused or unrealized variations in the piece. Thanks! Saving Kefka's theme for the end was a happy accident actually, and it's a modified version of a 4/4 variation that didn't work quite as well and was going to get cut anyway. I hope so! As I said, there are so many unused and unrealized variations still in my notebooks - it would be a shame if I didn't utilize them in another movement. Thanks for your kind words!

Hey @Alex Weidmann! I really love this piece! And your orchestration is great! I usually like when composers try to end their music on a non-tonic chord. And one of my favorite moves too is to end on a subdominant, which you do here. But I think, the tonic is so well established here and repeated so much that it seems unnatural for it to end on the A minor chord. But I like the overall ending idea - not sure how much of it is your personal addition and how much is in the original. And the counter melodies I liked too! You also keep the groups of instruments playing together relatively small at any given time, giving the piece that chamber feeling that it needs in this case. Thanks for sharing - your orchestration skills are definitely improving!

Hello again @Krisp! I love the delicate piano dissonance accompanying your voice in this song. You usually include English subtitles in your compositions but I was disappointed to see that you didn't in this performance. It would be great to know what the words mean when you're singing! But I do like that you show the notes of your composition much more clearly than before in this video. Thanks for sharing!

Hey @Henry Ng Tsz Kiu! I don't know how I haven't yet mentioned this but I like how the main Arjuna theme is a clever set of enclosures around a single tone. By approaching a tone by both overshooting and undershooting it with a leading tone from below you create a nice sense of approaching the tone from all directions. I love the romanticism of Variation III with its minor subdominant. Variation V takes up your now characteristic play with pentatonic scales. The fugato variation is brisk and full of vitality and life which brings the movement to an exciting and energetic conclusion! Thanks for sharing!

Hi @ferrum.wav! I listened to the original track and your first variation immediately afterward. They do transition into each other very smoothly! I think making small changes to each successive variation is going to be the best way to eventually make the piece sound more and more different from the original (but still audibly related) as possible. That's what I always find most exciting about variation form is that it successively sounds more and more different and further removed from the original and brings a surprising sense of variety despite still being audibly connected to the original theme. Thanks for sharing and good luck on your successive variations! P.S.: I've also recently finished a movement of a giant variations piece. Check it out if you have a chance!