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I'll put the most notable parts of your movement in bullet points. Then I'll give you my thoughts at the end. Very powerful intro, that hooks right into your motif from the first movement. I definitely am getting strong Chopin vibes from 1:00 - 2:25. The blues section was definitely surprising to me, but it was a really fun section! Then we get brief hints of Rachmaninoff at 4:30. At 5:30, this is a nice change of melody. Love how the right hand and left hand share the melody here. 6:40 looks brutal, 16ths notes against 16th notes at that tempo? I remember you telling me that this part was definitely as hard as it looks! Then you take the first motif from mov 1 and merge with the blues style, which is very fun. At 8:40, you have a nice variation of one of your first melodies, which is my favorite part. Then at 10:20, we have the return of the pentatonic! Without a doubt, the most most relaxing part of this piece, a nice contrast to the rest of your movement which is mostly energetic and fast paced. Love how the ending brings us back to your main motif from first movement again in powerful octaves. I think this piece can teach us that music is more than just melody or harmony. It's also about structure and storytelling. And this is something that can only come from the heart and the creative mind. The fact that I was able to categorize your piece into the above bullet points shows us how well organized this movement is. You use familiar styles to convey your message, but you also broke out of your comfort zone with the blues style. The reason why this was so effective, is because you didn't go overboard, you gave it to us in small bite sizes. Very beautiful work, and excellent performance!

So cool hearing both versions side by side. Same melody and overall song, but very different outputs. In the original, I feel like the music is very precise with high articulation. But the orchestral version, I can hear the harmonies and chord changes much more clearly. It may have to do with how the orchestral instruments can hold notes. Very nice rendition!

Even though this is a second movement, I feel like it can represent an entire 3 part movement in itself. So I will try to address all 3 parts best I can (for now). Part 1 - The Intro This very neo classical / early romantic style intro is very strong, and quite dramatic. It reminds me of a Tchaikovsky intro but in a somewhat different style (your style!). 1:50 to 2+ is tremendously well done, with lots of forward progression with your harmony. This is a clear example of how to use harmony to your advantage, for the sake of the piece's progression. Sometimes composers get crazy with harmony but the harmony doesn't necessarily serve the right purpose. Tell me something, at 4:15, are you trying to show us your fugue subject from movement 1? I think I hear hints of it... Part 2 - The fugue The key changing in this piece is both sharp at times, and as smooth as butter at other times. And the many different styles that I've heard displays the turbulence of emotions here. The first major mood change after the intro is when you segue into your fugue subject starting out with the pentatonic scale. I feel like you slowly bring us back to movement 1, then BAM, you hit us hard with the motif from the first movement. I had to rewind a few times so that I could understand how you achieved this smooth transition (around the 9-10 minute mark). The fugue itself is a very complex work, and the recapitulation can be used as a study on how to modulate from key to key. BTW, I love this fugue so much, from both your first movement, and especially in this movement! There's just so much content here, that this piece can't be listened to just once! Part 3 - The chant, and metamorphosis (as I call it!) At the 20 minute mark, the last section where your chant begins, it brings me a sense of sorrow, with a hint of peace and finding oneself. And at the 26 minute mark, this is the part of reckoning, or the "return" as you say. This section is like a metamorphosis, transitioning from deep sadness, to a rebirth. It's a grand movement within a movement, but most importantly, it evokes a sense of realization and completion. And Henry, this is what your music is about. It's not just "music". It's a very well crafted and beautiful story. This one is particularly a sad and emotional one. The ending was joyful, but at the same time, I still felt sadness. I know this is a very long work, but I encourage people to listen through the full piece. Maybe others will have different interpretations, but listening to longer works like this will help you learn how to listen to the story, not just to the tones of the music.

These microtones do contribute to the music. But let me go through my thoughts, so you can get a better sense of why. I like how at 10 seconds in, you demonstrate the microtone by gradually increasing its pitch. 14 seconds in, you really are showing how microtones can affect harmony, at least to my ears. Also, I feel like most of the time I wasn't sure if we were in minor or major. Like I could tell, but there were times where the major portions sounded really ominous 😵‍💫. At 1:13 to to 1:20 you have a series of cadences. I think the first 2 cadences resolve to minor, and the final one resolves to major. But again, it's not that easy to tell. The entire piece reminds me of a dream sequence, and this could be in part due to the echo effect. I feel like I am perhaps in a haunted carnival, with evil clowns chasing me. There are some instances of reprieve, but the entire piece is incredibly haunting. This is more than the thought it just sounds out of tune. I think you are starting to learn how to make use of microtones to contribute to mood. When you suggest they don't seem necessary, I think perhaps this type of composition is starting to become second nature to you. But to the listener, I can assure you, the microtones are seriously warping the mood of this piece, in ways that may not be possible with normal music. I really like this piece as a whole, and maybe my ear training is starting to get used to microtonal music since you started posting these exercises 😅.

The first version is definitely my favorite just due to it's clarity. The echo effect also makes this piece sound like it has a swing to it even though I don't think you are swinging playback. The beat is really nice, and consistent, despite the unusual time signatures you are using. At around 40 seconds in, I like how you completely change the mood by breaking up the rhythm here. The arpeggios at this point are haunting, and gives me anxiety. It's starting to sound like the use of microtones are really starting to shape (or warp) how the music as we know sounds. It feels like we are entering a second dimension of music, something not possible to create with the equal temperament tuning system. I think you are starting to get the hang of this type of composition. Congrats for creating a piece that will freak us all out, and it's not even Halloween yet!

Microtonal composition is really complex in theory, but when you listen, it honestly has a certain charm to it. The composition itself is elegant, organized and way better than the crappy invention I created on camera a few videos ago! BTW, love the mordents / trills, since this is something I just recently worked on in Music Jotter. It's amazing to me that something as simple as a trill can greatly enhance a piece of music.

This sounds like an old honky-tonk piano lol. The concept of the piece is catchy and I love the beat. The most interesting part to me is at around measure 31, where you make use of the microtone in such a way that it sounds like you are slurring the chords to change key. Something I've been wondering about microtonal music is if completely different harmonies can be created. So far you've demonstrated subtle use of microtones to slightly alter the nuance. But what if they can be used to create harmonies that are completely foreign from traditional harmony?

Yeah often as musicians we ignore the sound production / mastering part of our work. But I would say this is a critical aspect of music since this is what the audience is listening to. There's so many things to take into account, and I am by no means an expert at sound engineering, but these are the basics: Noise gates (these can help reduce your breaths in between words) Background music to vocal DB ratios (I don't know the ratio for singing against music, but for youtube, I set background music anywhere from -40db to -35db against my voice which is usually -3db to - 6db EQing your vocals or music (bringing up the bass and trebles make for a decent output, in my opinion. Your voice may require different types of eqing) limiter (making sure your peaks don't surpass a certain threshold (that red limit where you hear tearing, or distortion) normalization: For youtube, I normalize my voice. When I talk lightly or have a voice inflection, I want the same db levels. For music, this may not necessarily be the case though...this is a judgement call. I'm sure there's a ton more but these are the basics for some good audio output.

Ok this is actually pretty cool. The music goes well with your script and mood. Nice camera shots and angles too! There is one major problem though and that has to do with your voice. It's inaudible! Also the quality of your voice sounds mono. At 25 seconds in, there's distortion too. That has to be eliminated. So the music, mood of script, camera shots are all great. But your voice has to be fixed. You can definitely fix these problems in "post" meaning, you can tweak the existing audio track. The voice to music db levels don't have to be like my videos (where my voice must well overpower the music, usually by a good 30 db higher). You could probably get away with a 15 to 20 db voice delta since this is a trailer, and the music is the main focus. But I unfortunately can't hear what you are saying, at least, with headphones on.

I really love the microtones, because it surprisingly adds expression to the midi recording. As an unintended result, this makes your recording sound a lot more authentic. The way you incorporated the microtones is also subtle which may contribute to the realism. But for a first time this is impressive, because adding these extra layers of harmony can really add to the complexity. Given this added complexity, your compositions are still extremely well organized, and your scores are always fun to read and follow along. I'll have to consult with you when I get to microtones in Music Jotter!

The harmony and dynamics are really awesome. The harmony starts off pretty tame but I really enjoy how it deviates from the norm, and gets adventurous. I think the choir samples don't really do you justice though about halfway through. And Cantamus may be better for vocalization and accuracy, but most likely wouldn't come close to sounding as good as some higher quality choir samples that can sound out specific vowel sounds. As far as the lyrics, a minor critique (and I only know this because I am in the process of creating lyrics in Music Jotter). When you split a word between beats, the hyphen is used for this split, rather than the space. 1:20, are these parallel 4ths or 5ths? If so, was this intentional? And I really love the part at 0:50. You were able to get this part sounding pretty realistic especially with the crescendo!

Wow! 😍 You can probably tell one of my favorite composers is in fact, Chopin! One thing about the piano is that its too far away sounding, making it a bit of a strain to listen to. However, I can put that aside because these variations are in fact gorgeous. But one thing you need to do is.....and I can hear the whole forum thinking this too....please provide a score! Something of this much beauty must be documented! For example, the Fantaisie Impromptu variations are very fast, and I'm really curious how you notated this (for my own learning). Your key changing is also just, really really awesome. You don't overdo it, but when you make these changes, its magical. One minor criticism would be that the tempo is insanely fast. I personally like it, but some people may have a hard time with fast music without any breaks. This is why we need to let the listener breath a little with different rhythms. I do appreciate that you tone down the tempo towards the end which I feel is a beautiful touch!

This is definitely a piece I had to listen to a few times, because of its complexity. But I enjoy complex music, so this was easy for me to do! There's so much dissonance in this fugue, and I'm actually quite amazed at how smooth you were able to make this sound. Your sudden and deliberate key changes really help to keep the listener engaged in my opinion. Here's what happened when I came across the key changes. I had to go back and listen again and again to hear how you were able to execute your modulations. I tend to do this a lot with new music for my own knowledge. I love it! The amount of expression in this fugue is also unbelievable. Dynamics in music are so very important, and I hope the Young Composers of this forum can learn from this. As far as your melody, the repetition of your main theme in your fugue definitely helps guide the listener throughout this piece. And you know what amazes me the most? Your smooth transition to the pentatonic scale at the 7:00 mark. I had to go back several times and listen to your execution. It's these techniques in music that keep a listener engaged, especially in longer works such as this. While this is a very complex piece musically, it's actually quite easy to listen to, and the re-listen value is very high. The reason for this is because there's so much that can be learned and absorbed from this piece, but impossible to do in one go. My piano works are basically the same...they are not meant to be listened to just once, because of how much is going on in them. I just gave you some good watch time because I listened to this piece about 4 more times while reviewing this work. I'm impressed at how well you compose and play for the piano, and now I'm even more impressed at how well you compose for the chamber orchestra.

Yes @Sonata_5, you can easily notate this in Music Jotter if you want to join my challenge. I will record it with good organ sounds, and put it up on YouTube. I'm going to make a short video on how to use Music Jotter, it's easy to use, and a powerful tool. @mossy84, why not join as well? Either way, it's hard for me to give advice on a non recording.

To add to Vince, in my opinion, music doesn't always have to be original. But I want to emphasize that I actually enjoyed your "Beethoven-esque" sonata more than a lot of Beethoven's own sonatas! That is tremendous value to any listener, even if it is of a similar style. And Henry, as I go through your piece and notate it carefully in Music Jotter, I am truly appreciating how very rhythmic this piece actually is. I had to take a day off from scripting my next video which will be 100% dedicated to you, because I had to fix a few things while I was notating! Your piece also inspired me to create custom note spacing, sooner than later. The reason for this is because some of your voicing has spacing that does not overlap notes (which is a Music Jotter default), but is spaced a bit to the right. I'm not sure what my video will be about yet, but I have some ideas. I will see how much of your piece I can actually notate in Music Jotter, then I may try to record parts of it in midi.

Lol! I take it you are a fellow musician coder, very cool! And welcome to the forum. Can you explain a little how you created this music? Did you come up with the lyrics, and is some AI singing the words? I take it that some of the beats, and the music is AI driven. But you enhanced the beats with your drumming? I'm getting this from the YouTube description. Love the song, and I really do understand where you are coming from. Corporate tech is just not for me anymore!

So I took the time to listen to your piece as a whole, and I will rate my favorite movements from greatest to least as a start: Movement 3 Movement 1 Movement 2 Movement 4 Movement 1 is very strong Movement 1 actually is quite strong, since you had a clear theme / motif, and you captured my interest for the full 20 minutes. A tremendous feat to have someone intently listen for that long. Your key changing is phenomenal, and loved your usage of the tremolo. Chords though? Be careful because it is impossible for string instruments to play 3 notes a time. Always write your music with playability in mind. Even if you don't expect to ever get performed. Be careful of tiring the ear Let me just get this part out of the way. In terms of length of your piece, given the style (baroque), an hour long seems like a lot. When music doesn't have too many breaks and goes on for such a long time, it tends to tire the ear. You want to be mindful of that. I also think that your movements aren't differentiated enough to provide that sort of relief. For example, I've lately been listening to Tchaikovsky's symphonies, and they are super long. However, his movements are quite different from one another, and although they tie into his themes, they are still different enough as to keep the listener engaged. I also feel like baroque style music is tough to listen to for such long lengths just due to the nature of the style (lack of pauses, breaks, lines of notes, etc). But let me stress, your first movement kept me engaged for the full 20 minutes....so you clearly have skill. What if... As I was listening to your work, I was thinking that you have the skill to write a full symphony. This piece is skillfully done, and your attention to detail is quite amazing. Your usage of crescendos and decrescendos, tremolos, pizzicato strings, legato and other articulations shows me that you have a lot of practice. I really would love to hear you write something with...more breaks. It would really bring out your music. Speaking of bringing out your music... Please invest in some better sounds! You are a fantastic composer with so much attention to detail, I want you to, no I order you to invest in instruments! And reverb! You need good reverb! If I am going to listen to an hour of your music, my ears require something that sounds much better than the sounds you are currently using. Even crappy soundfonts would sound better than what you have. Isn't there a Yamaha GM soundfont that's floating somewhere on the internet? Invest in better sounds, this is something I have to nix you on 🙃 Movement 3 is absolutely amazing, and I mean it This movement was my favorite, and I will tell you the reason why. You changed it up big time in the beginning of the movement with those slow chords. Then you get into a fantastic fugue! I LOVE fugues and counterpoint. Your counterpoint here is skillfully done and you make use of all of the instruments, where they all have their different parts. No doubling up from what I could hear, and I could just imagine how much more amazing this section would sound with proper instruments. But here's another reason why you want better sounds. The viola is a beautiful instrument, and I want to hear the beauty of that viola play in your counterpoint. The cello is such a mellow sounding instrument, but sounds like it is droning on, and the violin sounds like it is whining. You get the point, right? It is a turn off to people who may be inexperienced at critical listening. But it is such a great movement, and your strongest. You captured my attention for the entire duration of this movement as well, and that is a tough feat because I am quite picky with music. Really good job here. Overall this is a great piece and I would be curious to see how you do with larger orchestral writing in the future.

I really love your passion and the amount of work you put into this! I'll touch upon a few points from memory after reading your responses... Investing in sounds I understand why many composers ignore this part. It's the same reason why programmers love to build but hate the debugging process. It's boring! But here is an analogy for you. As a computer engineer / programmer, if I am just building and not talking with the potential customer, and my software is unusable, isn't my obligation to fix the software before I continue building it? Otherwise, no one will use the software. Well its the same for composers, writing the music is just half the battle. Because guess what? The only thing your audience cares about is how it sounds. Most of your audience will not have the critical listening skills that I have, just keep that in mind. So having a really great audio output is extremely important. I clipped a part of my livestream where I talk about nuancing your music, and how important it is. The livestream is over an hour long so that's why I clipped just 60 seconds of it 😂. I challenge you to... Create your next composition with audio output in mind. Keep it under 5 minutes or so, this way you can practice working on your audio. Music Appreciation If you want to become a better composer, the easiest thing you can do is listen to other works! I listen to so much music, not for the sake of becoming a better composer though, but because I absolutely love music. The only reason why I became a composer was because of my love of listening to other works. It's the same reason why I became a computer programmer. Not because I wanted a job, but because I loved the art of creating new things. The more music you listen to (and I mean actually listen, don't just put the headphones on), the more well versed you will become at the art of composition!

I'll give this a go. The Microtones I think the microtones really give this piece an "out of tune" piano charm. I can imagine, if this piece was sequenced and had better piano samples, it would sound sick. The thing is, to make it sound more realistic, you'd have to keep the microtones consistent throughout. But, realism probably wasn't your goal here! The Sound Effects As someone who experiences ASMR, this piece gave the unintentional effects of ASMR, at least to me. Ear to ear sounds tend to do that. Not sure if it will be everyone's cup of tea, but honestly the sound effects didn't bother me or they weren't that intrusive of the actual music itself. Sequencing Tips I'm someone who really believes in nuancing his music, because it can really transform a piece of music into something spectacular. I may create a post on this, but since I am taking the time to comment on this piece, I may as well link you to my little discussion around nuancing. Take a look if you want, I offer some ideas on how to nuance your music (which is a tedious process unfortunately). Breakdown of what I had to listen for I had to listen to the piece a few times because there were so many things to listen for: The ASMR sound effects 😁 The microtones The quality of your sequencing (which isn't bad!) The actual composition itself The Composition Itself As far as the piece itself goes, you have a clear main theme, and 2 secondary themes (with some joiner music as I call it) and derivatives of your main theme which is fantastic. I love hearing that stuff in the music I listen to. For example, at 4:20 I like the derivative of the main theme, it sounds very sonata-esqe, and reminds me of how Chopin used an awesome derivative of his Sonata 3 which is reminiscent of his main theme of his first movement. So the fact that this section reminded me of that is no joke! At 2:55 were you inspired by Beethoven? Just curious! Overall this is really a creative piece, and I like the microtones because it reminds of me an out of tune piano. Not so sure about the pitch changes on a piano, but hey, that doesn't really take away from the composition itself so, who am I to complain about that. This is a well done piece of art.

A Classical waltz, very cool! Most waltzes I have listened to have been in the Romantic style. This piece gets very interesting after the 1 minute mark. Your harmony is much more interesting here, kudos! And I love the part at 1:40, right before the waltz goes back to root key. The only thing I will say that when you compose music, try varying your harmonies a little more. For example, when we look at your first page, there are no accidentals. This tells us that we are in strict key! And sometimes this is fine, especially if you are trying to write a folk tune, or something simple. But this piece would greatly benefit from a little more harmonic variation. If you have not watched my Valentine's Day video yet, be sure you do! I talk about the role of harmony in Romantic music. You may enjoy it, and learn a few things along the way.

You are right in that music is subjective, but I will remind you that meeting the requirements of a competition are critical if you want to do well. Receiving low scores doesn't mean your music is bad, and doesn't reflect who you are as a composer. It simply means that more people saw that this specific piece of music just did not fit the criteria. For example, something as incredible as Beethoven's 5th Symphony would have gotten low scores if you think about it, maybe except for melody and harmony, because it would have most certainly not fit the criteria for this competition! With that said, I personally enjoyed your work, but enjoying something doesn't mean a judge has to give high scores for this particular event. The whole idea of the competition was to convert 8 bit tunes into something bigger. Right off the bat, your piece was one track making it difficult to judge. So in terms of orchestration, the form of your piece ended up being too small (and of course this is my very subjective opinion as one of the judges). But then this is why we have 6 judges. I also had to look at what the other contestants did as well, and all of them had multi track works. I realize this wasn't a specific condition of the contest, however you were up against 8 other people. In a competition like this, the other works will either set the bar a lot higher, or a lot lower. But in this case, the bar was set quite high, because the quality of submissions were immaculate. I know it is disheartening sometimes to receive feedback that is on the negative side, but you can quietly use this feedback to your advantage. There are many of the great composers who had to endure such criticism in the past, and this was their profession and livelihood. So they were forced to listen to the feedback from their audience in order to improve. If you don't adapt to feedback, you end up losing. And this doesn't apply to just music. It applies to anything in life.

If you are having trouble adding a new track, please join the Discord, and let's discuss in the Music Jotter channel. I'd have to know what issue you are facing so I can replicate it. It's most likely a browser compatibility issue (which is why I really need to also release a standalone).

Love the fugue, and its perfect for the challenge. BTW, I'm still collecting submissions for that Fugue Challenge if you'd like to submit this. Music Jotter should be able to import this, with limited problems if you want to give it a shot!

I love it, and it would be a great submission to my Halloween event. I definitely get a "mystery" vibe with this piece. As far as how to notate this, I can't suggest Music Jotter yet, as it is unfinished, however I think most software, even MuseScore should be able to handle what you need. MuseScore should handle cadenzas just fine (press control or command while inputting notes). MuseScore also handles multiple voices. My software can handle multiple voices as well, but again, its not polished, or finished yet. However you bring up a good point...hiding staves when not needed (parts?). Something I will consider!

That's one epic boss fight. I like how you have an intro, after the intro. It's a very organized suite of music. Speaking of your intro in Phase 1, this actually reminds me of the beginning section of Tchaikovksy's symphony 4 (after his horn intro), which is one of his strongest symphonies in my opinion. You nailed it there. Overall I like the chord progressions and beat you use for the piece, and you make me proud of your usage of acciaccaturas (I think they are acciaccaturas, I don't have the sheet music). Either way, great way to use ornaments in your music, and its a fun melody for a boss fight. As far as the recording itself, perhaps a bit more wet reverb would help. The recording sounds a bit dry. But that may just be my personal preference.