EmmDoubleEw

Hey thanks so much for your post. I made this thread months ago and it always feels good to have that first reply. I'm glad you pointed out the weakness in the orchestration, and those are really good suggestions. Next time I'll be more careful to think about orchestration creatively, I kinda just forgot about it :).

Here is the performance by the school string orchestra: String Quartet in d minor

I smoke pot before composing, and drink coffee while doing it.

1. Techniques used The piece is contemporary in style. I used a lot of meter changes and repeated motives (descending thirds, syncopated octaves, etc...) 2. How long it took to compose the piece One school night 3. Structure of your piece Macro: ABA Detail: ABB'CA' 4. Obstacles when composing Coherence. There were entire sections I just scrapped in order to be economical and have the piece flow. 5. Summary of overall piece I'm pretty happy with it. The school string ensemble started working on it and will perform it for the school next month. String Quintet in D Minor - Picasso's Dance.mid

I liked it. Very romantic, great melodies and good use of sequence. Though one thing: It's clear that you are learning to compose because you tend to fall in the trap of using a little too many cliches. I don't mean offense, this is completely something I still do as well, but as you come to develop your style, I would suggest pushing outside of your comfort zone. You don't want your music to sound like improvisation (at least in my opinion). Also, i think you could have developed the theme a little more in depth than what you do know (which is repeating it a few times through out the piece) Your piece would have more unison if you worked more with less material. Hope this helps. _MW

I think this works as a fun children's piece. I kinda like it, keep it up.

Philip Glass succeeds with three chords because he knows what "creativity" means, and it certainly doesn't mean "doing something that sounds good." The worst thing a composer or an artist can do is make something with the goal that it will look or sounds good - He will inflates his ego and the work will invariably be crap. If you want to be a compose, I suggest you get a composer's mindset. You won't create good music if you don't take risks. And just to be clear, that doesn't mean you can't restrict yourself to certain periods, I'm sure that if Bach or Mozart were alive today, they could still write great and new classical and baroque music - it just means you need to stop making music just because you think it's "pretty" or something.

It's copyright, and yes, that's all it takes to copyright your work, with the only prerequisite being that you are the author. Spencer, The work is nice, but not very exciting. What's complicated about the piano part? The chord progression gets old a little fast. Of course, I really don't like the pacelbel's canon so I'm biased in that sense, but in my opinion music should move. In any case, keep up the good work and tone down the ego.

Hey, Really excellent work - as I'm sure you know by now. very powerful, great development, great orchestration. Great job! I can't really give you objective criticism, but here are my two cents, purely from a subjective viewpoint: I wish your themes, harmonies and figurations were a little more edgy. Your style seems a little too conservative right now, which gives the piece sort of a "movie score" feel. That's not a bad thing, but I think you could do great things with more original classical music. In my opinion, I think you should be taking more risks than you are taking right now, just to speed up your development as a composer. Again, you don't have to listen to me, this is a great piece. Keep up the good work, _MW

This is great, it's like classicism with an edge. I'll post more after I've listened to the whole thing. Honestly though, after the first two movements, this is worthy of "Major Works"

I like it, it works as a baroque prelude, Good work.

God I want to hear this live! It sounds amazing! Sending shivers down my spine. Great work!

I wish you would decide to write this either in elegant chopinesque style or 20th century post-romantic piano, because it shows tremendous promise. The first harmonic progression is extremely eerie, I actually love it. Just pick: Do you want to restrict yourself to common harmony or keep going with the somewhat bangy dissonant chords? I would go for the second choice if I were you. Keep it up.

Well I don't have any technical criticism for you, this is pretty good. But I'm just wondering, what's the point of writing music like this? this may sound harsh, but I don't think I, as a listener, gained anything from listening to this. People here start crying at ppl when they post neo-classical, sappy, new-age stuff, but how is this different? Or is this an excercise? A learning step? If so I think you are on a good path. I'm looking forward to hearing music from you that transcends technicality.

If you're looking for creepy sounding instruments, look up the THeremin.

Definetly :), thanks!

Actually, I can't really imagine improving without constructive criticism, so it's welcome here. Also, I really enjoyed your fugue. Great work. I'd love it if you could find some aspects to improve in my fugue.

Hahahaha, okay, here is my hilarious first attempt at an exposition (although the ending of the exposition is obviously not finished) http://www.freewebs.com/emmdoubleew/FugueThema6.mid Suggestions and Criticisms before I continue?

Hahah holy crap, this is officially the hardest thing I've ever done composition wise, even with 5 years of music theory behind me. :P I'm gonna keep trying though, it's so much fun ;)

Hahaha, that's weird because when I think of Glenn Gould I think of him as a clownster. I'm pretty sure he had a comedy show at one point. Whew okay, I've never written anything butterflyapunctal or even baroque, but I'm gonna try it. I've wanted to write a fugue for years now and have never done it, so I'm gonna try righ tnow.

I was wondering what techniques there were to seemlessly change keys. We all know going up or down the circle of fifths, but I'm interested in other tricks. For example, if I want to go from C minor to G minor, but having a transition between them, how could I do this?

Thank you so much for this! I will read the whole thing. Thanks!

:P I hate these typos

This is definetly one of your better works.

??? Was that just a hyperbolic praise or are you serious? Because if you are you need to go back and listen to Bach's WTC Your work is amazing andrew, I really liked that invention, but surely even you will agree you can't do better than Bach. In any case, great work.