chopin

Pretty awesome how you were able to seamlessly merge the themes together. Fun dissonance sprinkled in every so often, which could very well be hints of a Bad Santa making his way through town. Or perhaps the Grinch is waiting nearby to cause mayhem. But overall the themes are pleasant and you changed them up to incorporate your own voice. The ending is very pleasant and have fun harmonies. But I do hear a tiny bit of sharp dissonance hidden in the passage. It sounds like something didn't quite go as planned, but it was too subtle for Santa to notice.

This could be a study on how to use slurs effectively in bowed instruments. How did you get the slurs to sound so good btw? The microtones add an interesting color to the piece and the rhythms are fun to listen to. You used 5/8 with a purpose. Also, the ending is so normal and calm compared to everything else, does this mean that love was found after a chaotic journey?

So far this is one of my favorites that you have done. The trio work well together, and this is certainly one of the most unique castings you've composed. I can see this being converted to just a piano, if you ever wanted to create an Etude out of this. It would be fun to play and listen to, and potentially falls into that Etude category. And like always, your recordings are getting really, really good.

Fun motif, and interesting instrument choices. I like how you abruptly change the mood from fast, upbeat -> slow and dramatic. This is the same technique I use in my Mario musicals actually. I make Peach seem all innocent and sweet, then the next scene, BAM, I have her change her attitude. I feel that this technique adds a shock value for the listener or viewer. You are doing the same thing with your harmony and rhythms by abruptly shifting both, which keeps the music unpredictable. Even though your music is unpredictable with that regard, it's still well structured, and easy to follow.

Very unique piece of music, interesting rhythms, and interesting choices for harmony (dictated by the dice)? Do you find it harder to compose based on the rules from the game, or is it easier because you are essentially following a template? Cool piece, and rhythmically weird, in a good way!

Melodies Themes Motives Harmony Chords Textures Form Development Structure Time Originality Creativity Score Presentation Instrumentation Orchestration Playability Execution of Given Challenge Taste 6.5 10 10 10 10 9 9 10 Ah, this piece is right up my alley. I could tell this is perhaps Ravel inspired, and this is a style I really enjoy. Id say that the melody is weak, or just missing, however, you do a great job at still keeping things very interesting, purely with your structure and harmony. Speaking of harmony, amazing and well done! The mood of the piece brings on a sense of high tension and release. Technically, this is hard to play, but given my experience with piano and this type of style, its very doable, especially at this slower tempo. Does it remind me Halloween though? This is definitely more "art style" music, however, it offers chilling sections, with some released tension. After all, in horror situations, no one's being chased for the whole movie, right? There always is a sense of reprieve! Melody: While there are some instances of motifs, I found this to be more of a mood piece. But you are able to keep it interesting. This is due to your structure, and harmony. Harmony & Structure: This is where you shine, your harmony is what drives this piece, but the structure is what keeps everything legible and easy to follow. Originality and Score Presentation: Score is beautiful, nice use of cross staves to keep the music easier to read, and tuplets help group your rhythms. Playability: Very difficult to perform, but clearly laid out and with a lot of practice, there should be no problems here. The second movement could be trickier because you have more key changes. Execution of challenge: Eerie atmosphere, tension buildup and release. Great elements to get into the Halloween spirit! Taste: I absolutely love this style, I started getting into Ravel which influenced some of my later compositions. I feel like you do an excellent job at capturing this style.

Melodies Themes Motives Harmony Chords Textures Form Development Structure Time Originality Creativity Score Presentation Instrumentation Orchestration Playability Execution of Given Challenge Taste 10 8 10 10 10 9.5 10 9 VERY fun melody, highly original, clear structure and clearly able to create that Halloween vibe in a fun whimsical way! And I love the way you are able make use of your instruments to your advantage to help progress the piece. The breaks in your music also feel natural, and help build the suspense. Melody and Harmony: Beautiful melody, it's perfect! The supporting harmony is fun, clear, and helps move things along. Form and originality: Your music reads like a book, it has a clear intro, body and ending. The natural breaks are equivalent to paragraphs, and you build suspense this way much like a novel. Score Presentation & Playability: Good structure, clear music notation, reasonable tempo and natural breaks all contribute to the high score presentation + playability metric. Execution and taste: Personally I enjoyed the full piece, and the general mood reminds me a lot of a lighthearted Halloween dance! The breaks in this piece also contribute to the mood changes, which helps accentuate your catchy melody.

Melodies Themes Motives Harmony Chords Textures Form Development Structure Time Originality Creativity Score Presentation Instrumentation Orchestration Playability Execution of Given Challenge Taste 8.5 ??? maybe 7? 8 10 9 10 4.5 7 This is intense! Very nice melody, which is represented throughout the piece in various methods. The up/down beats, for example on bar 22, very cool technique. Very complex work, and looks like you've gotten a performance of this, which is impressive. So playability will automatically have to be a 10, but had I not known this, I might give it a 6 or 7, because you'd need professional performers here. Melodies and harmony: Melody is pronounced, and very good. I'm not sure how to rate harmony here, this is not that type of piece. Form: I definitely had to listen a few times but the form seems pretty well defined. Following your melody and musical ideas are not hard at all once you learn the format. Originality and Score Presentation: Highly original work and your score clearly outlines your ideas. Playability: If you got a performance, this has to be a 10, right? But this is a very difficult piece of music to perform, I may have given this a 6 or 7 otherwise. Execution of Challenge and taste: Excellent piece, but this just does not remind me of Halloween. It's definitely intense, but for Halloween I expect either horror, or whimsical march-like music (for both adults and kids). This is clearly an art piece.

Melodies Themes Motives Harmony Chords Textures Form Development Structure Time Originality Creativity Score Presentation Instrumentation Orchestration Playability Execution of Given Challenge Taste 6 + 9 + 10 9 + 8 + 8 10 10 10 9 5.5 + 7.5 + 10 7.5 + 9 + 10 Mothman has an avante-garde feeling, which helps portray a specified mood. In my opinion, the mood does not represent horror or panic, but more of an awakening, with some friction. Perhaps this could represent certain aspects of Halloween, so, that's why I gave this movement 5.5 out of 10 for execution of challenge. The Letiche is an awesome movement, and has the best rhythm out of the three. Highly articulated and lyrical, extremely fun to listen to! Makes you want to dance, possibly with spirits in the room! More Halloween-esque. And finally, my favorite of your movements was El Chupacabra. I feel like this one represents Halloween the most. And the melody, hands down, exceptional. Everything leading up to the melody is perfect, because you do a great job building up that tension. The rhythm here is actually really good too, maybe even on par with Letiche, it's just less pronounced (this is not a criticism). Letiche is more deliberate with its rhythmic changes, this piece, is VERY smooth! * For certain metrics, my scores will be in order from Mothman, Letiche, and Chupacabra (a + b + c). Otherwise I will give one score for metrics such as score presentation, playability, etc. Melodies and Harmony: Honestly, overall you have excellent melodies and supporting harmony. Mothman had the weakest, but that was clearly by design (that's why I separated the scores) Form creativity and score presentation: Beautiful score, ultra clear form broken up by movements, and very creative! Playability: Although challenging with the articulations, and other techniques used, seems playable to me. Execuation of challenge: Mothman just feels like it's meant for a completely different type of listening experience. The Letiche is more in line with Halloween I think, given the mood and fun rhythmic patterns, and I feel like Chupacabra is spot on with the Halloween vibe. Taste: I love them all. Even my least favorite of the 3 is awesome. You show discipline in writing for a specific mood, and it seems like you have a lot of experience with music composition.

Melodies Themes Motives Harmony Chords Textures Form Development Structure Time Originality Creativity Score Presentation Instrumentation Orchestration Playability Execution of Given Challenge Taste 6 9 8 10 10 8 5.5 8 This is a rather technical, and complex piece. After listening to this a few times, the motifs, structure and flow made a lot of sense. It's interesting, because each time I gave this a listen, the music became less dissonant to my ears! Melody: While you do have a clear motive, due to how short it is, I would have liked to hear possibly another theme. But you do vary the motive quite often, so you are able to keep things interesting that way! Harmony: Definitely more on the complex side. Complex in that you wrote a dissonant fugue. But the harmonies mesh well together, especially after listening to this multiple times. Form and creativity: Clear form, and highly original work. Score presentation: Beautiful score, clear notation layout. Playability: This probably would be quite technical to perform, but seems quite playable to me. Execution of challenge and taste: I realize this is highly subjective, but this piece just doesn't remind me of Halloween, despite the dissonance. But I still enjoyed the piece very much, especially since I am a big fan of fugues.

Melodies Themes Motives Harmony Chords Textures Form Development Structure Time Originality Creativity Score Presentation Instrumentation Orchestration Playability Execution of Given Challenge Taste 6.5 4.5 7 8 N/A (don't count this metric) 7 10 6.5 Intro is very cool, and the melody created by the organ is definitely fun! The issue is that the piece is very repetitive, and your one key change at around 2:00, feels too forced without any smooth modulation to that key. There are of course times in music that this can work, but because the harmony rarely changes, we needed a bit of this forward momentum. Think about this, if you are in one key, and you simply transpose it up a half step without modulating through other keys, you are still basically in the same harmony. This is why I like when you break up the piece with the solo vibraphone, because something needed to break the monotony. But you did a good job at getting the vibe of Halloween. After all, this is a Halloween competition! And you know what, getting mood right is not an easy thing to do. Also, you have a good melody, it's a little hard to pick out because of the very robotic midi render. Melody and Harmony: Fun melody but the harmony needs to be a little more varied. This will help break up the monotony. Form and Creativity: Pretty creative! The form seems easy to follow enough. Score: Basically, N/A, we won't count this metric. Playability: I'm sure it's playable. The midi render makes it hard for me to judge this because of the lack of musicality in the audio. Execution of Challenge: You nailed it! Taste: Fun piece, but a bit on the repetitive side. Great melody, but buried in poor midi render. Melody could easily be enhanced with better / more varied harmony.

Melodies Themes Motives Harmony Chords Textures Form Development Structure Time Originality Creativity Score Presentation Instrumentation Orchestration Playability Execution of Given Challenge Taste 9 8 8 9.5 8 9 10 8.5 I can't believe this is the guy who created The Crusty Candy Cane! Great use of instruments to create atmosphere. Fun motifs throughout, lots of "I'm being chased" scenes, and you portray this while still being musical, which is awesome. What intrigues me about this slasher-esque piece, is when we get to around 4:30. It gets really emotional here, almost like, a monster who realizes his identity, and expresses grief momentarily. This is such a brief, heartfelt emotion. You pivot quickly back to horror, but in my opinion, this amplifies the emotion that much more. Melody and harmony: The melody/theme is easy to identify, it's catchy, and can easily be heard throughout. My very first impression, after the first few seconds, I thought this would be more of a "mood piece", but nope...if you keep listening, there definitely are clear themes. Form and originality: A structured, fun free-form work, very original! Score presentation and playability: Score is easy to follow, simple 4/4 time throughout. Triplets help break out of the 4/4 rhythm, to keep time signature sane. Great dynamics and very articulated to help intensify the mood. Execution and taste: Very Halloween-like in the slasher sense, with an incredible heartfelt section at around 4:30, where you momentarily change the mood. This is a moment of self reflection, and possibly realization of what one has become, before going back to terror.

Melodies Themes Motives Harmony Chords Textures Form Development Structure Time Originality Creativity Score Presentation Instrumentation Orchestration Playability Execution of Given Challenge Taste 10 10 10 8 9.5 10 10 9.5 First submission and it sounds like this? Intro is awesome! Your harmony is spot on, and keeps the entire piece moving along wonderfully. That's what harmony is supposed to do. And the melody and beat are amazing! I'm not usually a fan of the strict classical music style, however this piece changes my mind. If done right, this can be an amazing style. You put in your own flair into an old style and it works beautifully. The only criticism I have is tempo. In my opinion, you need to slightly increase the tempo, which is an easy hack. Do that, and you have yourself a fun lighthearted Halloween piece that can be enjoyed by both kids and adults. Melody and harmony: You absolutely broke this metric. Many people are good at harmony, but when it comes to melody, this is where they fall apart. Not only do you have a fun, memorable melody, your supporting harmony amplifies it. And to top it off, your beat breaks the metric even more. Well done. Form and creativity: Perfectly easy to follow, and you took a standard style, and blew it out of the water. Score presentation and playability: This is where I am impressed. Your score is SIMPLE. It's in one standard time signature, and everything looks standard to play. But this is what's amazing to me. Despite how simple the score looks, the musical idea is far from simple. Music is more than just the notes and rhythms we hear. It's about the full idea, which you conveyed in a simple, well organized manner. I can learn a thing or two about this myself. Execution and taste: Again, you destroyed this metric, the music matches your vision clearly, and I felt the vision musically.

Melodies Themes Motives Harmony Chords Textures Form Development Structure Time Originality Creativity Score Presentation Instrumentation Orchestration Playability Execution of Given Challenge Taste 8 9.5 9 10 8.5 9 8 9.5 Ok so in terms of creativity, this one is off the charts. The harmony is so creative, and haunting. You sometimes feel like its simple harmony but then you confuse the listener with 2 or more different harmonies, but still somehow make it sound good. My favorite part is around the 3 minute mark, where the violin and flute share the melody. Does this feel like Halloween? I think it does. The slow pace with the pleasant but eerie and confusing harmonies give it that vibe. Extremely well done! Melody and Motive: I feel like it's a pretty catchy melody, but where you really shine is at the 3 minute mark. That part is definitely a 10 in my opinion. Harmony: You somehow made your harmony sound pleasant to the ear, despite it being non traditional. I think it's because you used dissonance sparingly. Form and structure: I was able to follow this piece with clarity. What I do is first listen with the score, but I find the score to sometimes be distracting. I almost always like to genuinely listen without any distractions (this includes visual performances too). When I listened to this with my ears only, you can tell how structured this piece is. Creativity: This is the strongest point, if I could give you a 15, I would. I think this is an extremely original composition. Score + Playability: Yeah, this is playable! Execution and Taste: Hey I love this style of music. Just the right amount of dissonance, maybe some counterpoint, a clear melody, and techniques that I can learn from!

Hey, cool concept! The atonal parts required me to put on my creative listening skills! But I agree with everyone else that the col legno section is very well done. The beginning section could potentially be akin to a march perhaps. But even though this is atonal, the piece sounds pretty structured to me. The ending though, is a bit to abrupt for my taste. While it does have a cadence, it just felt unfinished to me.