JP S.

Hey Elma! Nice start in a lot of areas. Is this something you’re looking for feedback on? If so, what level of feedback?

You’re welcome. And after writing that, I realized that your flute & clarinet were the same dynamic, so maybe it’s just a thing you could solve using Musescore’s mixer then exporting? But at the same time, the flute’s middle range speaks very clearly and the clarinet’s middle range (written C4-Bb4) speaks the least clearly. Live players could more easily be instructed to match dynamics if you made a note. I don’t know which would be the most effective option, lowering the flute dynamic, raising the clarinet, and/or using 2 clarinets, depending on if you want it live or to sound cohesive online. But I think you’ll figure something out:)

Hey Alex! First of all great job working at orchestrations. I saw you’ve done a number of them, and as someone newer to composing I think they’re a high quality way to practice and grow. I myself do arrangements of pop songs for Pep Band, which is a very similar process, so I get the concept. I think you’ve done a high quality job in many areas. You’ve got the piece generally laid out, with variations in timbre. The repetition had a semi-lulling effect, yet there was also variation to keep up interest. You’ve got generally nice timbre choices and pairings. I can tell you have a composer’s intuition:) It was a pleasant piece to listen to overall, so you didn’t do terribly:) To provide what I can to hopefully help you take it to the next level, I listened to your piece several times & a recording on YouTube of someone playing the piano version. In my opinion & sense, the original piece edges on a little too repetitive, but it does gain traction at about measure 8 when things start feeling developmental. It does have a kind of lulling effect though, so I think he achieved his purpose, but in my preference I wouldn’t encourage the composition to have any more length or repetition. Here’s my understanding of the original: it seems to actually have two melodies going on simultaneously, playing on each other the whole time, with the other notes providing warmth & fullness. He does a 4 bar A theme twice, then changes to the relative major on a big chord. I liked how the pianist did a little rubato at the transition, because otherwise it would just sound like a major sudden change with no warning, which would feel offputting here. Then he has a 4 bar cascading, what feels like an almost inversion of the previous, repeated (similar to the beginning). It feels like a reprise, concluding & transitioning. That section has large moving chords on the downbeats, and can kind of feel like the ending music of a movie scene. Then he has a iii chord, which I thought he was going to modulate to that key, but he continued developing for 4 bars ending on the B (V of E again). But he goes into a CM7 chord with the melody for 4 bars, the bVI no 5th, which to me feels minor. It ends on a B chord with cascading notes that feels like a cadence, into the final section. It’s an 8 bar near restatement of the A theme, which feels relieving and longed for. Then it ends on the iv, with sudden long chords, which to me just makes me question if whether the child fell asleep or not. Relative to your composition, and recognizing you’ve already done a good job and my comments are just trying to help you get that last 10% to make it pop, I think your timbre changes felt simultaneously too much and too little. At first I didn’t know what to comment, but I think you almost tried to apply film score, quick drastic timbre changes to a slow, lullaby-like, repetitive piece. I think if you were more clear & distinct about your timbre changes, especially using them on the 8 (or less often the 4) bar marks & to mark harmonic changes where he has them, that would help encourage the natural cadence of the piece. My two favorite timbres you used were the low woodwinds with clarinet melody, and the string ensemble. I also think the horn melody was a nice additional change, but it was much brighter & more poignant than the other timbres, so I think it would fit more on the 2nd set of 8 bars, or other more in-your-face moments. Whatever you do, keep the melody on one instrument through the phrase instead of changing so often. The second thing that would help would be the transitions. Ryan Leach on YouTube has a great video on writing transitions: I think both introducing newer elements earlier, and utilizing the more prominent changes (like the large, slow, cascading chords at m.8) in a prominent way will both make the sections fit more together like a natural puzzle. The last minor thing would be trying to make the upper & lower melodies equally as present, with the harmonies quieter behind. It’s a small thing that would make a big difference in this piece, but I think the flute was too loud, and I lost the lower melody over time. Great job, and please let me know if these helped at all. Happy composing!

Hey man! Great piece. I’m also a Catholic composer, so I wanted to check this out to offer my compliments and any knowledge I have that may help you bring this to the next level of quality. Ill try to keep it brief, because I can tend to give long detailed analysis:) Overall feel: this sounds very Mozart-esque. It seems to me like you drew from his style pretty heavily in the intro, outro, and the countermelody lines. At the same time, I think the inner melody with the choir is lovely and more in the modern classical style of what I hear churches singing today in the US. From what I can tell, it seems you’re Polish and this is in Polish. I Googled it and it said that Saint Martin is particularly celebrated in Poznan; could you tell me a little more about why you’re writing this for him in mind? What inspired this piece, and what is your goal? High quality points: I do love the melody. It sounds very sweet, and also has a form and repetition that feels natural and memorable. I think a church would easily pick up something like this. I also do like the flute part especially as a countermelody, and I think it brings a lot of rhythmic variety and sweetness with it as well. Questions: This is already a good piece, and any questions I have are minor points only to try to help you. If this is in Polish rather than Latin, could you please title it in Polish? I was expecting a Latin piece, so this could help a future choir director distinguish it. Also, if this is intended to be sung at a general church or Cathedral, could you reconsider your form and instrumentation a little bit to match that style? Generally pieces like this are written for piano/organ, and other instruments are used as accompaniment. I could see this easily being a piece for piano/organ, flute, and SATB choir. Then you could take the piano/organ part and expand it into a string quartet if you wanted it to be played at a Cathedral who had a string quartet. For the form, I think the general Church congregation would appreciate something a little shorter. I find that an instrumental intro feels nice at about 4-8 bars, and I think an outro here would feel nice at 3-4 bars. (I also think the little stops and the short staccato notes with thin accompaniment takes away from the natural momentum of the piece, so removing those will help the overall flow). Again I think your melody is wonderful. Could you consider doing a IV-V-I progression on zmiluj sa? I think it would be more pleasant than the F augmented chord you have now. For the end of Pane, could you consider using your flute melody as the final notes of the first Pane? So the melody would end FBC rather than DDC. It would be on an V7 chord. Also keeping the flute & congregation together on that would help the singing. Then the form: in my mathematical mind, I would think repeating everything twice would be the ideal (like how the priest - congregation does it in the ordinary form), or doing everything three times (like the extraordinary form), but this feels really nice to have 2-2-1. I think it’s more musical that way. You may want to ask a liturgist if having the final section only once would be allowed. Similarly ansk anbout inverting the zmiluj sa Kriste; we don’t do that in the US, but if you guys do, cool. And something with congregational singing, having the altos & sopranos singing different words at the same time would really lead the congregation off. Could you have the altos match the sopranos more? I do appreciate starting the melody on beat 3 and modulating to G major; I think that’s really nice variation. And finally, something I’ve learned in my own writing is that repeating a section outright makes it sound flat and boring. I tend to always change something when repeating a section. Strangely, I didn’t feel that way when listening to your piece. I think it might have been because so many of the lines are written in polyphony rather than homophonic style, so they sound more interesting. If so, keep it up:) In polyphony it can be difficult to have all 3 chord tones present all the time, so see if you can include that. You’ve done a wonderful job, and I hope you keep composing:) If you update the piece, I would love to see your changes. Feel free to check out or offer feedback on my pieces Cheers!

Thanks for the feedback! For some reason I can see it clearly on my phone screen, and using my Grabdpa’s laptop I could see it with YouTube’s highest resolution (1080p), but apparently you can’t see it. If I cut down on the stagger breathe note, maybe that can save some space and expand the rest. For the “Gregorian Chant” comment, I was intending it to be free from meter, not time. The cadencing of the beginning section phrases doesn’t end neatly on 4-8 beat sections, and if you try to feel it like that, the music would feel wonky like swaying on a ship unexpectedly. Is there a way you prefer that it would be phrased?

Heyo! Here are the first two choral pieces I’ve finished enough for feedback. I would love to hear what you enjoy about the pieces, then give any tips about what you think is high quality and how to fix anything that’s lower quality. My main desires are for feedback on the overall feel of the pieces, like the fittingness of the choral parts or the piano. I’ve never written for either before professionally, and these are kind of the test to see if I have potential to create choral music directors would actually purchase. Are these close to professional quality? If not, what could I change? The goal was to write semi-simple pieces that your average or slightly above average church choir could sing as a Motet or “Anthem” or a choir-only piece during a service. I enjoy purer, diatonic harmonies more, as well as an epic feel at times, so hopefully those come through. Thanks in advance for any comments you’re willing to give:) The Assumption: https://youtu.be/u_uR3quvWiA Come Holy Spirit Pt. 1: https://youtu.be/CTrRiL_wY_Q

Hey man! Great work at coming this far. I can tell that this style of orchestration was stretching you, but I hope it opened your horizons and you’re growing a lot:) Here are a couple of my thoughts: Distortion: I also noticed the distortion over time. It was slight and in the background, but perceptible. I agree with both the above analyses that it’s part Musescore (which could be fixed with a DAW), and part a thicccc orchestration lol:) Composition: This is already a great start. I don’t know if I would call it a “cue” (that seems to mean introduction to me), but it seems like a mid-scene Star Wars music. What I think would help you most would be developing your melody with a more cohesive theme (maybe using period or sentence forms), then using it to create a simpler piano sketch. Having everything sketched out on one (or two for complex pieces) pianos/organs/accordions helps to have a clear vision of how much harmony is going on at once. Then you can orchestrate and double all you want to get the timbre you’re looking for. These are some of the most helpful videos I’ve found for this topic, from my favorite YouTube composer Ryan Leach: This one covers using just a basic 4 or 5 part writing sketch, then adding octave doublings to give it an epic feel. I really recommend only using 4-5 parts/pitches at a time for emotional purity. This will also help cut down on the mud/distortion: Next is an example of another young composer who was coached into writing a cinematic piece from a sketch. Then finally, “How to Orchestrate…” is the pro composer’s version, starting from a more complex 2-piano sketch. I hope that in giving high quality feedback, I might be able to receive high quality feedback when I post something:)

How does this actually work in the field? I’ve had/seen multiple arrangers say that as long as you’re not selling commercial recordings of the music, big companies won’t bat an eye. My HS Band Director arranged songs for MSU that were aired in National Television, and I assume many music students there do so. I haven’t heard anyone directly say that selling arrangements without copyright permission was treated as fine, but how would composers make nearly any money after hours of skilled labor when up to 50% can be claimed by the copyright holder, and up to 50% can be claimed by JW Pepper? Any referrals to actual MB Arrangers would be much appreciated, and thanks in advance:)

Hey, did you somehow get the MIDI playback to include pronouncing the words? I haven’t heard of a program that does that (Musescore only has “Choir Aahs” or “Choir Oohs”). If so, what program did you use?

This is so wonderful, and I think you composed the joyful/playful sections very well:)