PeterthePapercomPoser

Hi again @Dima Kravets! I agree with what @luderart has said above about the difficulty of some of the double and triple stops. Including consecutive double stops that can be really difficult as well! Such as these: and these: In the first image the D and G have to be played on the G and D strings respectively and right after using those two strings for the C and Ab. In the 2nd image the G and D open bottom strings are played before moving to a parallel fifth on the A and E strings playing a B and F# which have to be barred at the same location on the finger board which can be difficult. I also agree that a real performer could definitely breathe more life into the composition with their interpretation. But it's a thousand times easier to make a musical interpretation if it is clear to the performer that the composer already has an idea of how the piece can be expressed in a musical way. This is especially important for pieces that are for a solo instrument because the soloist is tasked with keeping the momentum and musicality of the work all on their own which is much more intensive than collaborating with another performer. The soloist is asked to "make something out of the work" that in many cases has never been performed before. So having a good idea of what you want as the composer can really help the performer out and facilitate a future performance. And making a good rendition with lots of tempo changes and musical indications as to how the piece should sound even in electronic form is important as well (perhaps as a selling point to get a performer convinced to perform it). I see from your profile that you specialize in chamber music so you probably already have a good idea about that. But when you say things like: it makes me think that you don't see the point or value of making a realistic rendition, which is a shame. Needless to say, the piece sounds very mechanical throughout and could stand from some humanization and TLC to improve it. But it's better to already be thinking of those things as you're composing it rather than having to go back and revise a piece that wasn't conceived musically to begin with. That's just my own perception of the piece however. I look forward to hearing more of your contributions to the forum (as well as potentially your opinion about other composers' works on the website!) Thanks for sharing. P.S. I'm sure the reviewers of your work (including myself) would appreciate a ❤️ or a 🏆 reaction/acknowledgment of their time and effort that they took to listen and formulate a response. It would really help our little musical community flourish! Thanks in advance!

Hello @林家興! Nice job! This reminds me of @Thatguy v2.0's Prelude No.11! In that piece, he tried to marry the concept of the Mystic Chord with the Acoustic scale. Not surprising that it seems similar to this piece given that they're both influenced by Scriabin. They both have a sense of being a kind of unanswered question or have a mysterious unfinished-ness about them. It would be great to hear this performed live! Perhaps, if you don't perform it yourself, you could ask @Henry Ng Tsz Kiu to perform it for you? Thanks for sharing!

Hi @FILMSCORE! Nice orchestration! To me it has the hallmarks of a charcuterie of different orchestral textures from the classical orchestral literature. The beginning starts as if you're going to give us a trial run of all of your orchestral samples for us to test out how your orchestral libraries sound. There's a clear allusion to Holst's Jupiter from the Planets Suite (around the 1:00 mark although the melodic content in the brass is a bit different). I'm not sure what the fanfare near the beginning is from. The harp is often too loud in comparison to the rest of the instruments and is not doing its signature glissando flourishes that could give your orchestration so much more color. Although it might be really taxing on your software/equipment to render quick harp glissandi with so much reverb. It might be easier to render the harp and the rest of the instruments with less reverb especially if they're all playing together. Thanks for sharing!

Hello @Samuel_vangogh! I like the vibe of this piece and as you've already stated above, I understand that your intent was to create a certain background mood? It's not too attention getting and serves that purpose well. Also about the counterpoint - the way you use it is well suited for your intent because the heterophonic/polyphonic textures tend to lose the focus of the melodic line. This would be more of a problem in a more deliberately thematic work like a sonata but I think it works well here. Thanks for sharing!

Hi @Ho Sen Ken! Wow! What a great and intense Bartok-like piano banger! It reminds me of one of Bartok's early works Scherzo in E minor for Piano. Although admittedly, your work is a bit more similar to later more harmonically adventurous works. I'm looking forward to hearing more of your contributions to the forum (and besides sharing your music you could also tell us what you think of other composers' works!) Thanks for sharing! To reward those of us who have taken the time to listen and review your pieces, you could also leave a ❤️ or a 🏆 reaction to support our community and let us know that you acknowledge our time and effort we've put in towards reviewing. I'm sure the people above who have reviewed your piece as well as myself would really appreciate it! Thanks!

Hello @Fugax Contrapunctus! I like the idea of this piece but I personally would do a few things differently if it were mine to make it more expressive and bring out its best features. The thing that bothers me most about it right now as-is is that the tempo it's played at and the fact that the piano starts it soon makes the individual voices hard to hear and instead ends up sounding like a sequence of chords metronomically and mechanically performed. I think if it were played slower and with the piano removed it would bring out its best features of being a really great and haunting chromatic canon! The other reason that this would work better (in my opinion) is that the listener would then be able to absorb the melodic material without immediately being interrupted with the stretto-like canonic treatment that you employ in the piano part. Of course, you're the composer and I don't expect you to make these changes, but I thought I'd mention my rationale behind why I'd want it this way anyway for any benefit that it could possibly impart to you in the future. But I thoroughly enjoyed this canon - thanks for sharing!

Hi @PCC! Great job with this arrangement! I was having trouble hearing the bass part in some of the sections so I turned on my bluetooth speaker but it kept glitching out like crazy with the sound cutting in and out constantly which made it unlistenable (and this happened only in the "principale" sections - it played the rest of the piece just fine for some reason). So I know that my inability to hear some of the bass parts was in part due to the speakers on my Chromebook. But I also question whether there might be something in the recording itself that makes my bluetooth speaker behave the way it did in the principale sections? Either way - I think I got the gist of your intent in how it's supposed to sound. Thanks for sharing!

Hi @nostalgia! I listened to the most recently updated version. A nice piece made up of chord clusters and pentatonic melodies and chromaticism! It does sound quite contemplative - like solitude is expected to sound. Thanks for sharing!

Hi again @Alex Weidmann! I like the ebb and flow of this piece! There's definitely a gradual rise and fall in dynamics that sounds very natural to the arc of the piece. What doesn't sound natural however is how the melodic line sounds interrupted or cut off by occasional staccato notes in the strings in the beginning. This is a problem that you soon rectify with the addition of more instruments playing the melody and a thicker orchestration. But I like the piece despite that - it makes me think of a peaceful and potentially life-bearing world in orbit around Tau-Ceti in the goldilocks zone for that star. Although, now that I read about it, the Tau-Ceti system is quite a bit older than our own solar system, so it's possible that it has already harbored intelligent life in its past. Musically it amazes me how you are able to make music out of the most random seeming musical gestures on solo instruments with a harmonic pad underpinning. It's so totally alien to the way I write music. You also make use of really alien sounding chords that I would never think of using (all of which is appropriate for a piece about an alien solar system I guess! LoL) Thanks for sharing!

Hi @MJFOBOE! I like this piece! I especially like the clever way you end it. The listener doesn't realize until the very end that the D major area that the piece has been in for basically its entire duration is actually the dominant and that G is actually the tonic! I also love the Mixolydian b6 mode you use with some alterations here and there. The following excerpt and wherever this figure recurs loses some focus for me: Especially the 1st bar there - you give the listener trills in the winds and that 16th note triplet figure in the strings. There isn't really anything there for the listener to latch onto in my opinion. That's my perception of the piece. Thanks for sharing!

Hey @Alex Weidmann! I listened to the most recent update (#32). The main theme has the makings of a great feel-good space western! But, I do have to say that in my opinion, the key modulations in the piece (especially the last one at the very end) sound out of place and unnecessary, like you're changing the key just for it's own sake without really any real musical reason guiding that decision. Also, I like how the piece starts very underwhelmingly with really soft high strings and slowly builds up to the main theme first on trumpets and then scored more fully with strings on the main theme. But then, the arc kinda doesn't know what to do with itself after 1:07 because it feels like the climax of the piece has already been reached and the music doesn't know whether it wants to keep growing to an even bigger climax or die back down to a whisper. Those are my immediate perceptions of the piece. Thanks for sharing and let us know if your music ends up getting featured!

Hi @ComposaBoi! I know I've heard the 1st movement before but am not sure if I reviewed it. I don't hear the following chord in your performance: I just hear a Db both in the left and right hands. Also, didn't you mean to mark this as 8vb? 8vb means an octave lower while 8va means an octave higher: That aside, I find the main theme to be so happy-go-lucky in comparison to the bleak introduction! LoL I think the way you present the main theme in measure 78 is more appropriate to be the main theme proper, being darker and more suited to follow the bleak introduction. I know you said you won't be changing it but I'm going to give you my impressions nonetheless. The version of the main theme at 151 is also nice - not overly happy-go-lucky but rather, bittersweet. The version of the main theme at 220 where it is used as a modulating sequence is really good! I much prefer this treatment of the happy-go-lucky material as it sounds more developmental and suited for modulation. When you return to the material of the bleak introduction the 2nd time it sounds really empty and like the momentum of the piece just stops and falls dead (especially with the left hand staccato notes). The 2nd movement waltz sounds like it really flourishes perfectly out of the 1st movement! It really creates a lucid listening experience. The only thing that brings me out of it is the allegro furioso. I think it sounds way too fast and intense for the bittersweet mood you set with the beginning of the waltz. I like how you reference back to your 1st movement material with the molto meno mosso part. With how fast and furious this part gets it's amazing that you managed to perform it! I think bringing back the dreamy main waltz theme towards the end really releases some of the furious tension you build up with the fast tempo sections. Great job with these two movements! I'm looking forward to reviewing the last two at another time. Thanks for sharing!

Hello @Alant! To me the combination of instruments, especially the trombone and pitched percussion with the electric bass is especially reminiscent of the SimCity3000 soundtrack. It's very nostalgic to me! Great job and I was sorry to hear it end. I think the track could be continued for much longer just adding more and more instrumental forces like @Henry Ng Tsz Kiu mentioned! Thanks for sharing.

Hey @Rafael Avila! Thanks for posting this here! I enjoyed some of the harmonies created by this set! The set itself is interesting being created by two 5ths a half step apart (A, Bb, E, F). I think the piece sounds kind of strange sometimes at points where there's strong consonances where I would expect a dissonance (like at bar 14, beat 2). Also, this is a good experiment in using a set (presumably the first time you've tried writing a piece using a set?). But it does come off kind of like an exercise because of the constant, mechanical and metronomic pulse and almost exclusive use of only 8th notes and quarter notes. You have a ritardando towards the last chord which does function well to make the piece feel like it concludes well (and the last chord is also pretty cool - a Bb maj7 #11)! But the rest of the piece kind of ambles along at a constant unchanging tempo which feels very pedestrian. There are so many more individual musical gestures to be made using triplets and more complex rhythms and quicker or accelerating and decelerating note values. I just feel like there is so much more experimentation to be made here - but it's definitely a good first try at a piece using a set! Thanks for sharing!

Hi again @UncleRed99! My perception hasn't changed by much, but I think I can better explain why I perceive the piece the way I perceive it. I can hear that you definitely intend there to be a main melody leading the piece from beginning to end but there are a few factors that (in my opinion) prevent this from being a lucid listening experience for the listener. Sometimes the melody is just overpowered by chords in the orchestra played loudly while a single solo instrument is playing the melody and it doesn't really get heard. The most obvious example being the bass clarinet melody in bar 5. There are also other examples where you kind of create a polyphonic/heterophonic texture where it becomes kinda hard to hear which instrument is supposed to be the focus or main melodic line. There are ways to make polyphonic/heterophonic textures work though but that would necessitate them being more self-similar and use a higher economy of means to achieve a more obvious audible relation to each other. While if that isn't achieved, then it can end up sounding like you're just noodling around in a certain key. Although I don't want to neglect to give you credit where credit is due. You definitely have a recognizable motif that permeates this piece: It's just that this is a very short recognizable motif that is just repeated throughout the piece without really being used to develop it by using it as the dynamo and origin of all of your other melodic material. When the other material isn't connected together it can sound dissolute and lacking in direction or focus. That's my perception of the piece. I'm glad you're so determined to continue to improve and I hope some of what I said can help you further on your journey!