PeterthePapercomPoser

I've concocted yet another short microtonal experiment, this time inspired by @Henry Ng Tsz Kiu's Violin Sonata he wrote recently for his friend @expert21. I wanted to continue this with a B section in another key/meter before returning to the A material, but it ended up sounding pretty conclusive to me at the end. But let me know what you think! Maybe I'll make another movement? I would appreciate any comments, suggestions, critiques or just observations you may have! This is entirely in 24 tet. Thanks for listening!

Thanks for your reply! Here's what measure 29 should look like if the beats were aligned properly according to the correct placement of strong and weak beats in your piece: It makes a very small and barely noticeable difference in the recording. But, especially if you ever gave this to real performers, it would bother a performer to read the music feeling like the strong and weak beats are in the wrong places in relation to the bar lines. In 4/4 beats 1 and 3 are strong beats and beats 2 and 4 are weak, but here you in measure 29 you had them switched. But sometimes composers do do this deliberately as in Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 4 Pizzicato Ostinato or Stravinsky's Last Piano Etude (in F#) from his 4 Etudes for Piano. I hope this clears up any confusion! Thanks for asking.

Hello @therealAJGS and welcome to the forum! I think this music reminds me of the OST to "Earthbound" a classic SNES RPG that I played as a kid. The organ sounds remind me of the vibe of that game. So, to answer your question - I think the genre could easily be VGM because this sustains a certain mood/vibe throughout the whole duration of the piece. It certainly doesn't fit in "Orchestral and Large Ensemble"! So I'll move it to Incidental music. Thanks for sharing!

Hello @InterstellerApex and welcome to the forum! I like this chamber piece! It's simple and melodic and wears its heart on its sleeve. Thanks for sharing! Just some nit-picks - why is there a long silence at the end of the piece? Also, in measure 29 I perceive the metric alignment of the music to shift by one beat. So beat 2 becomes beat 1 (I perceive the Bb in the Clarinet and Piano in the beginning of that measure to be a pick-up note). The same thing happens again in measure 44.

Hello @Petr Kopuletý and welcome to the forum! I see you've submitted two pieces here before, but I have not had the occasion to review them yet. I like this piece! There's definitely a musical ebb and flow and gradual building and resolution dynamics wise. I think the only thing I have to complain about is that the piece to me lacks harmonic tension and release. It accomplishes its building and resolution through adding and subtracting instruments and having them play louder or softer (or having the piano play thicker chords or more complex rhythms which definitely have their charm!). But then again, your harmonic approach is individual and anything but ordinary. There's even some imitation between the flute and piano at 8:53 which is a great feature! The piece slowly winds down and comes to a well deserved but unusual conclusion - one that I perceive as quite divergent from a traditional tonic resolution! It'd be interesting to look at a score. Thanks for sharing!

Hi @HoYin Cheung! This one is quite contrapuntally complex! The motivic ideas and counterpoint are sound. And there is a clear hierarchy of importance and different elements are brought in and out of the foreground dynamically like a kaleidoscope. There is a natural ebb and flow and a sense of flourishing at every moment of the piece's duration. It is surprising how thematic the piece actually is once I listen again and pay attention, despite the challenging harmonic language and sometimes cacophonous orchestration, with elements seemingly chaotically interrupting each other. The reduction in instrumental forces towards the end really helps to bring the piece towards its conclusion. And it looks/sounds like your harp writing towards the end is quite possible and even easy for the harp to play! Looking back over the score, I notice that the 16th notes runs in measure 28 - 30 in the winds don't seem to be audible (at least I couldn't hear them). Presumably you rendered this score with NotePerformer? Thanks for sharing - I enjoyed it!

Hi @mercurypickles! Danse - I love the wacky/quirky nature of this Prokofiev-esque piece! The parallel b9's in the melody also add a lot to the character of it. Makes it sound like a dancing clown or something! Haha. Also - I think if there were 4 8th note pick-ups to this it could easily be considered a Gavotte. Or if it had a quarter note or two 8th note pick-ups it could also be a Bourree. But since it doesn't have either of those just calling it a "Danse" certainly fits! Ricercar - for me this is perhaps the most formless and indistinct part of the suite. In the beginning, when listening with the score it looked like maybe it had more of a resemblance to a canon than a ricercar, which I presume to be a slow/early form of a fugue. I find it really difficult to hear any independent voices in this piece which I think is supposed to be a display of contrapuntal knack. It just sounds like the top voice gets the emphasis making it seem like a homophonic piece rather than polyphonic. Pavane - This one also has some very interesting harmonic inflections! The recurring motif is easily identifiable throughout the piece and there's actually more voice independence here than in the ricercar imo. I also think this might fit under the description of an instrumental version of a dance that has kind of lost some of its dance-like sprightly-ness. Thanks for sharing these! I hope to eventually hear the whole suite - overall I definitely found these enjoyable!

Hello @PaavolaPyry and welcome to the forum! Very interesting piece! I have a limited (some) amount of experience with guitar playing as well as microtonality. From what I understand in your tuning indications the G string should be tuned slightly sharp, and the B and E strings slightly flat. Since the piece is in drop D tuning as well and basically using D as the tonic, this tuning puzzles me. If you were trying to achieve intervals closer to the ones found in the harmonic series, I'd think that you'd want the G string slightly flat as well (bringing your G#'s in this piece closer to the idealized 11th harmonic and a "purer" tritone sound). Although when I write microtonal music, I have vacillated between different goals, sometimes deliberately going for an "out of tune" sound to create a warped sense of tonality (using 24 tet). Other times I do try to get closer to the intervals in the harmonic series with justly tuned intervals though (using 1/3rd and 1/6th tones). What is your intent with microtonality? Thanks for sharing and I'd be stoked to hear more!

Yet another very melodically accessible installment in your Violin Sonata! It's very easy to get sucked into listening to it over and over because of its accessibility, which happened to me multiple times when I listened on this page and then opened the YT link. And the piece is seamless structurally despite having the much more important (imo) melodic coherence than structural coherence. It's also amazing that you manage to smoothly quote my Postlude theme from my Suite for Strings! It's quite easy to identify and I love hearing this little Easter egg that you included in this sonata! The piece is definitely scherzo-like, random pauses included (actually the random pauses enhance the scherzo-like atmosphere as they prepare the anticipation for a sudden surprising restarting of the momentum. I also love the modulations to Ab major, Db major and Eb minor. The piece is very harmonically adventurous! Great job and thanks for sharing!

Hi @shirz and welcome to the forum! I like the alternation between the two main harmonies you use throughout the piece! I think these kinds of simple alternating harmonies have a lot of expressive potential! It does sound kind of demented and spooky. Organ would make it match your target vibe even more! You know .. this music kinda reminds me of the OST to an old SNES game called "Zombies Ate My Neighbors" LoL! Great job and thanks for sharing.

Thanks! I considered doubling the melody with Violins but in the end I decided to let the Distorted guitar shine on it's own. You gotta imagine the sound of the bubbling of the lava inside of a sub-glacial volcano! LoL

I've finally gotten around to writing some of the kind of music I've been dreaming of - microtonal video-game music! This is for a hypothetical video game that I might make myself some time in the future. I thought that microtones would lend themselves very well to creating the kinds of moods necessary for video games, especially RPG's (which is the kind of game I want to make). This particular track is meant for a lava cave type of level. The instrumentation is 2 Oboes, 2 Bassoons, French Horn, Timpani, Bass Drum, Synthesizer, Electric Distorted Guitar, Violins, Violas, Cellos and Basses. The tuning is 24 TET and I pick and choose occasional sub-minor 3rds, super-major 3rds, as well as super-major 6ths and near-tritone intervals. I'd appreciate any kind of suggestion, critique, comment or observation you may have. Thanks for listening!

Hi @Henry Ng Tsz Kiu! Wonderful and simple use of secondary dominants and classic sequences. The melodicity of the piece is also more defined and the pastorale nature of it is more solidified with the birdsong allusions. But it has its Sturm und Drang moments to it as well as the occasional random pauses before the birdsong gets its solo moment which is really a great way to emphasize that aspect of the composition. You underline the birdsong by exposing it in solo relief - very clever. Lately every piece I've heard from you has been getting better and better. And imo this whole sonata is an even more substantial achievement than your sextet! Great job and thanks for sharing!

Hello @Churchcantor and welcome to the forum! I've noticed that you posted a large number of your pieces already, sometimes commenting on your own topics multiple times. There's a few reasons why you should avoid doing that. 1) Posting too many works in a short time tends to overwhelm the members and reviewers on the site and they might not pay as much attention to your work as if you posted one work at a time. 2) Commenting on your own topic before anyone else has had a chance to reply also makes it look like people have already replied to your work in the "List of works with few reviews". If a piece has more than 5 reviews it gets removed from the list even if all the replies are just you replying to your own topic. This piece has a very clever name given that it explores the use of parallel tritones! Cool idea! I think calling it an "experimental etude" is a really good description! But some etudes, besides being exercises in some kind of theoretical construct (in this case the parallel tritones and also some surprising use of polyrhythm) also manage to be musical and entertaining. What with all the heavy chords and copious use of repeats this piece gets really tiresome to listen to even once (I also can't identify a reason why the repeats should be there). I can't identify a melody or some kind of musical hook to get me to tune into it on more than a surface level. There's also no dynamic contrast or balance between different elements of the composition, some of which could be more important than others. It's a cool experiment though! Thanks for sharing.

Hi @HoYin Cheung and thanks for your review! Thanks! I used Musescore Studio 4 and Musesounds for all the solo strings in this piece. As can be seen in the score, I fussed around a lot with the dynamics in order to bring the different contrapuntal lines in and out of the foreground throughout the piece. Thanks for listening and commenting!