guy500

Thanks Peter. Yes, unfortunately that's the aspect I don't have the capability to get right (tonality and enharmonics) so I always write atonally. I'm told I often veer quite far from the key I'm in anyway, so it seems usually to be more appropriate.

Just finished my first String Quartet. I'd love your thoughts on it (constructive, though, please....), but most of all I need feedback on the score. I'm new to scoring (and have no musical training) and so am not confident at all with it. I'm especially worried about the notation around articulations/accents. I'd really like to know how much of it needs to change in order to make it playable by a real-life String Quartet. Track 26 - String Quartet no.1 - FULL VERSION (Jan-Mar 2026).mp3Track 26 - String Quartet no.1 - Score.pdf You can also listen and read the score at Track 26 - String Quartet no.1 (Jan-March 2026) -

My story is a bit different - I started at 52 - less then 2 years ago - with no musical training whatsoever (apart from badly strumming a guitar for a while in my later 20s...). I seem to be very prolific though - my first String Quartet that I've just finished is my 26th piece since July 2024....

Well, it's yielding excellent results. Keep going!!! Look forward to hearing more as your own style evolves.

This sounds really nice - as if it's by one of the greats!!! It really stands out amongst recordings shared in this way. Congratulations on writing it and even more so on getting it professionally performed!!

Thanks - yes I've had feedback like that about the rests and have since tidied it up - consolidated some of the rests and replaced others with breath marks. I hadn't realised how difficult all these tiny rests would make it for the singers. It might be a bit harsh to say "the whole system is flawed". As it's written atonally (as opposed to tonally but constantly switching tonal centres), I understand there are different and much simpler conventions for enharmonics - but I'm using them for the first time so wasn't sure I was getting it right. It seems that there is no key signature, and the expected enharmonics seem to revolve around ensuring horizontal readability (e.g. avoiding where possible consecutive different notes in the same line). I understand that if looked at through a tonal lens, it might seem overwhelming, but it's not a tonally written piece. I could share the web page where the track in embedded so that it's much easier to hear. I'll bear that in mind for the future, but I'm not sure I'm going to be posting any more music on forums. While I've had some excellent support and advice that's really thrown light on my blind spots and helped me to move forwards, there's also been (not here) plenty of small-minded, finger-wagging abuse, which is really disheartening and demotivating, and sadly, I don't think it's worth it anymore. This seems unfortunately to be the norm, and I've come across several composers who've either stopped sharing or given up composing all together because of it.

Definitely. We're not loving it as any claim to greatness or mastery (that really would be arrogant). We just love it because what's come out of us naturally resonates with us. Unless we're exclusively technical in how we write, we put, to varying extents, part of ourselves into the music. We write what we find to be beautiful, even if no-one else does, so it's not surprising that the same beauty strikes us when we hear it back.

I don't think it sounds arrogant. At its best, our music is a deep unconscious expression of our own essence. It carries our signature like nothing else does. If we don't love it, we don't have a healthy relationship with ourselves. Even if no-one else resonates with it - it's important that we do, else what are we making it for?

Definitely. That's important too. i think I was suggesting more that if a composer matches your preferences and listening expectations because they truly resonate with you and that's just the music they compose when they're focusing on what's beautiful for them, this would lead to a more satisfying experience of both composing and listening than if the composer was putting aside what they find beautiful in order to specifically meet your expectations. I suspect there's not a lot of difference between what we're both saying.

Thanks a lot Henry. Appreciate the comments. Yes INFP, so not only introverted feeling, but that combined with extroverted intuition. It means the intuition is naturally stronger and the capacity to learn theory is naturally weaker, so for me it's a choice between going against the grain and trying to learn in the conventional way anyway (which would likely kill my process), or try to find a different way (difficult as it's so rarely talked about....).

I've really struggled to get my head around music theory - the way it's currently presented - since I started composing last summer. So, I've been giving some thought as to alternative ways of presenting it that might make it more accessible to new untrained composers, especially those who use DAWs and samples rather than manuscript. This video is meant as an exploration only - not suggesting better or worse approaches, or taking a position - only considering alternatives that could work for some people. Hope it's helpful. https://youtu.be/O_SSqvaVKDA?si=QXuksfXovuawS3Tf

Everyone is different and it's likely that John Williams is understandably perfectionist, and his insightfulness allows him to see what he could have done better. Being human, that's likely to lead to some degree of self-criticism and regret. My tendency is to look at things a little differently. I don't see any flaws in any music, including my own. That's not to say there aren't plenty of ways to improve, but ultimately, the music was that person's best expression of themselves, to the best of their ability at that moment in time. That different strategies or ideas could have been used is not a flaw (the way I see it), but a springboard for future improvement. Just yesterday, I was listening to the first ever piece that I composed from last July, which I don't think I've listened to since then, and I was expecting to cringe. Of course, I heard many things that I'd do differently and more effectively now, but I was struck - shocked even - by how much that music still resonated with me. Like you, I could hear many of the "flaws" (I don't really think of them like that - just as if you see a painting by a small child, you don't see it as flawed compared to Rembrandt, you appreciate it for what the child put into it), but the essence of any music can transcend these. If we can keep this more charitable outlook on our own and others' music, I think we'd be happier overall, as well as improving faster. I like your suggestion that trying to create the next masterpiece is unhealthy, as it's most probably about striving to create something that meets others' expectations or criteria rather than simply looking for the most authentic form of self-expression. I think that if we pursue the latter, it will be a more effective way of driving the search for improvements and expansion in our composing without the self-imposed pressure of feeling the need to prove ourselves.

This is my first attempt at sustained 4-part counterpoint. How did I do? Audio – https://soundcloud.com/guy-shahar/track-16-vocal-quartet-satb?in=guy-shahar/sets/new-compositions-2024&si=d2d57780dc6f4ae7a75b7ea8a5dbdbe3&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing Score – https://heartfulhealing.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Track-16-Score.pdf I don’t usually ask for feedback on the score, as I barely read music and tend to just rely on the one Cubase generates. It’s way out of my comfort zone, but I think it’s probably time for me to get the hang of the basics of scoring, so I’ve got Dorico and have been trying (hard) to get it to help me. How does this one read? What adjustments should I bear in mind for scoring my next piece?

Thanks very much, Pate. Yes, I'm pretty sure that's where I went wrong - I didn't realise that their part was meant to be read an octave lower, so it all makes more sense now. They were actually singing an octave lower than I'd though.

@Luis Hernández that's cool. I didn't know (and don't know theory so probably couldn't do much about it even if I did). So, purely co-incidence...