Search the Community

Greetings Earthlings, Not having enough spare time and having to work for a living, regrettably I now have a collection of broken computers, a large stash of hard drives containing audio, notes, utility programs, samples; a lot. All my installation media too... I haven't suffered data loss thankfully, but the quantity is almost unmanageable. I'm hoping to have things organised at some time. I'm sorry not to have enough resources currently. I can still do some solo piano and suchlike and I will try to do some before long, but I have at least dug out a 45-second snip of a piece I was writing. This is the introduction. I did have around 1:35 of it done, but I can't find that. After the 45 seconds, there was, let's say, a sudden dramatic shift of tonality, and of mode (i.e. different scalar intervals). I look forward to continuing.

My aim is to write songs in an acoustic ballad style (no electric guitars or drums) similar to Don Mclean's Starry Night in terms of arrangement Primarily on piano and guitar (both picking and strumming). I am looking for software to assist with: 1. Recording lyrics (entered by typing) in a way that matches up with chords and melody without much difficulty. 2. Gives the options of best chords available for a given key. (ie. you can edit individual chords in a progression easily) 3. Does auto-arranging for acoustic ballad piano or guitar style. (with the more variety being better) 4. Can generate alternative melodies or similar melodic figures that I can select from. 5. Allows a VST to be imported, so it doesn't sound like rubbish while I'm composing. From my research so far, it seems that all the software that records and displays lyrics to match chords is separate from the software that does arranging and produces nice sound. If I am wrong here, I would love to know which of the advanced arranging software is lyric friendly. EZKeys seems like the best software for my needs, but I might be wrong. EZKeys suggests the best chords, has a nice VST piano, and does auto-arranging, although the variety seems limited and I can't find any info on whether you can import or create your own arrangement midi database. (seems like you have to buy the ones they have made and they are quite expensive) EZKeys doesn't have a melody generator that I could see. Melody generation seems best done by Rapid Composer, but some have suggested that Band In A Box can also do this. From my observations of BIAB it seems they are heavily focused on the jazz, rock and electronic styles which I have no interest in. My main concern with Rapid Composer is that it will produce melodies that sound too computer-generated and weird, like what I have seen in the demos on youtube. Has anyone had good success with Rapid Composer? Synfire seems like a mystery package, but one that might be helpful as I often struggle with coming up with new rhythmic and melodic ideas. The demo on youtube makes it look pretty ordinary and would love to see the workflow of someone making something awesome with it. I'm not sure how good it would be at generating alternative melodies and arrangements that fit the modern ballad style. People suggest loading it's AI database with classical music, but I don't want my music to sound 300 years old in style! Perhaps I could only upload midis of the songs styles similar to what I want to create? Reaper seems to be the best value DAW, so I would go with that. My observations of VST acoustic guitars are that all the good ones require Kontakt 5. I especially like the workflow of Strummaker IV but it seems you need to buy Kontakt 5 which is expensive. I can't find any other VST guitars that enable you to customise strumming patterns but I might be missing something out there. So it seems I will need to buy: 1. Lyrics/songwriting software which can import/export melody and chords. 2. EZkeys OR Reaper plus a good VST guitar OR Kontakt 5 with strummaker 3. BIAB, Rapid Composer OR Synfire if I want help with melody ideas. Any suggestions would be much appreciated :)

I hope you enjoy my latest piano composition! You can also find me at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbDBYUBl1CZLCdcPVmCsU_g where I will continuously post new works as I create them!

Moments musicaux pour violon et piano, Op. 19 No. 1 in D minor

This is a rondo in g major written for viola and piano. The score is still a little messy, so apologies for that in advance. Hope you enjoy!

Hi all, This is a song I wrote under extreme pressure. It was a cold, dark winter morning in the western district of Reykjavík. I woke up at 0730 and within five minutes was in the shower. This was one of those mornings where the hot water was shy to arrive, but I was in a hurry and could not waste precious minutes waiting for it, so into the cool shower I hopped. I am a seasoned cold water enthusiast so it took me but a few seconds to adapt, but when the hot water finally arrived I found myself completely seduced by it. "Bah, there's no rush", I thought, and proceeded to take a leisurely if focused shower. The clock struck 0800 as I exited the shower and upon discovering the time decided that it would not be wise to waste too much time, after all, I was to show up at 0830 at the academy for what my composition teacher called a "special assignment". In a modest hurry I ate a small breakfast and packed a few things to serve as snacks, which my teacher warned his students would be essential. It was 0815 as I left my apartment, clothed for the harsh winter in nothing but a suit, a snow jacket and a hat and gloves, but luckily I had decided to drive home the previous night rather than walk, which saved me a half hour stroll through downtown Reykjavík. It normally only takes twenty minutes to walk, but as it had snowed heavily the night before I would have had to wade knee deep in fresh snow to get to the academy, which adds an extra ten minutes to the journey at least. Unfortunately, the same problems that haunt pedestrians also haunt drivers to a much greater extent. Driving through snow is not necessarily more difficult if you have winter tires, perhaps slightly more perilous so a slower speed is advised, but getting your car stuck is a huge issue. Just my luck, I couldn't even leave my parking space. Thankfully it was easy to dislodge but it took ten minutes if you also account for removing snow off of the car itself. I didn't get stuck on the way, but I passed many cars that did, so I can only consider myself lucky. I arrived at the academy a little past 0900 and found the class in complete silence, working furiously. I greeted the class and apologized for being late, citing the unfriendly driving conditions. My teacher was sympathetic, having showed up a little late himself, but spent no time on idle chit-chat. I could tell immediately as I walked in that the special assignment he spoke vaguely of was going to be crazy. My suspicions were confirmed when he said: "On the table you will find a collection of poems. Choose one to your liking and compose a song for soprano and piano. I am expecting a singer and a pianist at noon to come and collect the pieces. They must be ready by then." I cannot accurately describe my mindset that morning, but it was very zen. Oddly, I did not suffer from any kind of doubts or writer's block or anything like that. I chose a poem, took a seat and began to think. What do I do? Instead of wallowing in inner turmoil over the viability of this or that approach, I pounced on the first idea that I had. I spent maybe an hour sketching out the general architecture and coming up with answers to some questions that would be important to the process. Then I started writing, and I wrote almost non-stop until noon (I went 15 minutes over too), working out all of the fine details that needed to be settled. At last I was free - I handed over what I had done, almost unconscious of what I had been doing the past four hours. The singer and pianist hastily rehearsed the pieces during lunch break and returned at 1300 to recite the pieces as best they could. The performance was far from perfect; most of the pieces were quite difficult and they had little time so nobody blamed them. I was conflicted about the result. On one hand I was delighted that it turned out very nearly how I had imagined it despite the inaccurate performance, but on the other hand it lacked focus in important moments. My teacher said as much, and urged me to revise it. Revise it I did, and I also ended up performing it with the same singer at the end-of-semester concert for this year. The recording you hear is live from that concert. I hope you enjoy. The moral of the story being, of course, do not spend too much time preparing to move. The only way to know if you are one step closer to checkmate or whether you committed a horrible blunder is to move the piece. Do it in an informed manner, but do not be afraid to falter, as it can only serve as a learning experience. A side note to the moral is: Sometimes you just don't have enough time to fully realize your piece. If there is a tangible deadline, i.e. somebody is literally waiting for you to give them the score, you just have to get to work and finish it in any way you can. It is much easier to revise a piece than perfect it before it is finished, and you have plenty of time after the deadline to do that. These are lessons that I now carry with me, having experienced them first-hand. P.S. Before you judge the singer too harshly, know that the hall is notorious for being very difficult to sing in as it is almost completely dead acoustically. Believe me when I say she is a fantastic singer when she is better rehearsed than she was at this concert and is in a space which is not actively sabotaging her. I was a little nervous so I managed to completely space out for the first half second or so of the piece, which is why I came in a little late - I apologize for that.

My first orchestral piece finally done! Opus 12 is written for modified orchestral ensemble consisting of : Piano, Woodwinds : flute, oboe, A clarinet Brass : French horn Percussion instruments : glockenspiel, vibraphone, tubular bells, triangle Strings : violins 1, violins 2, violas, violoncellos and contrabasses. and harp. Composition consists of first part (moderato - E major/C sharp minor), second part (F major/D minor) and third part - modified first part. Since I'm a complete amateur high school student, any helpful hints and comments are very welcomed! Score in PDF format coming soon. For more music please visit : https://www.reverbnation.com/mademoisellelilaclucrezia

Mehdi HOSSEINI (*1979)Inertia I (2014), for clarinet/bass clarinet, piano, violin and celloENSEMBLE PROTON BERN Conductor: Matthias KUHNPerformers:Richard Haynes, clarinets/bass clarinetSamuel Fried, pianoMaximilian Haft, violinJan-Filip Ťupa, cello

This is kind of a piece I had written before knowing much about theory, but knew enough about composition and form to formulate a coherent piece. It didn't help me get into Oberlin so I'd love to hear why from you!

Prelude Espirituelle was meant to be like a showy piece that someone would play for like a finale or encore or something. The only catch was I was supposed to write it in less than a day. So, while this piece may not be very practical (haha whoops), I think it can mostly be judged on musical ideas more than anything else. The person who told me to write this for her thought it was kind of impractical to learn quickly. Everything sounds kind of "pop-y" which is kind of good and kind of bad all at once. Thanks! (Copyrighted under the Opus 2 series)

One more song for violin and piano using exotic scales. SONG 7.mp3 SONG 7.pdf

This is my 9th soliloquy for piano. The first 12 bars constitute a sonata beginning/fragment I had composed years ago. So this piece felt kind of like the YC challenges where we composed based on each others' themes, only in this case I composed a piece based on a theme from my 19 years younger self! Here is the link to my 8th soliloquy for piano: http://www.youngcomposers.com/archive/music/listen/6667/soliloquy-for-piano-no-8/

I wrote this just for fun, and as a training to write music for full-length films. However, synchronization is a hard work, I had to compose playing the movie all the time. The motorist.pdf

Opus 7-1(Allegro misterioso) and Opus 7-2(Moderato grandioso) sonata written for piano and harpsichord(part three coming soon). Opus 7-1.mp3 Opus 7-2.mp3

Opus 11, written for piano, flute, harp, triangle, glockenspiel, harp and violoncello. You can take a listen to this piece here :

Hello, this is my Ragtime No. 22; I'd like to know how it makes you feel, what impressions it gives you aurally, as a listener.

Some piano music....open to new music opportunities. www.carldoesmusic.com

This is a lullaby I wrote a while back that I recorded and performed myself granted I am not a concert pianist :P I feel it sounds similar to maybe Dave Grusin or something of that sort other than being a lullaby. It's You I Adore.mp3 My personal criticisms: Maybe too many block chords Overusing the pedal, however it does enforce that soothing feel. Maybe too slow however yet again it reinforces the form of the lullaby. Now for your feedback and listening :)

I wrote this piano solo composition in April, released it in May on iTunes and made a video for it in June. Would appreciate your feedback!

So, I recently started getting into composing music, and thought starting out with piano might be a good idea. I felt like this is a good place to get some feedback, though I did see most people post scores of their pieces. I don't really have any, since I made this in FL Studio. I hope that's not a problem? Anyway, some thoughts would be much appreciated, personally I felt like I may have had too many repetitions, but I really have no idea.

On a whim awhile back, I worked on a set three pieces with the goal that each hand would use a fixed interval to see what I could come up with. I finished two, the first using only thirds and the second using only octaves. I started another etude using sixths, but tabled it after my initial efforts seemed uninspiring. The first etude in thirds is a simple barcarolle which I think would be easy to play. The other etude in octaves, intended to be the third of the set, is a scherzo that probably is unplayable and would break the hands of any performer than tried it. At the time I wrote it, I was studying the piano works of the French composer Charles-Valentin Alkan whose works are notoriously difficult so I think there may have been some influence from that.

Written on piano, used Mixcraft for editing.

This is a set of three pieces, though composed individually, that I put together as a single opus number, each reflecting an attempt to compose within a specific style. The first is a "sonata" akin to the single movement works of Domenico Scarlatti. It originally started as a possible movement for my harpsichord concerto which I later just used as a stand alone solo keyboard piece. It is playable for harpsichord or piano. The second is a movement in classical sonata form that was originally an assignment for a music theory class. It's probably the most "pedantic" of the group being in very tight sonata form. The last is a romantic style prelude. It is a piano transcription of the cadenza to the ending of Fantasy for violin and orchestra that I wrote about 5 years ago.

Hi everyone! This is a piano piece from my debut EP and It's called "Impression". Althought I'm not very good at determining certain styles,I think it has elements of contemporary piano music and impressionism. I recorded it by myself. Please let me know how you like it!