"The Calamity" - Kyle Hilton (UncleRed99) [[Finally did a new piece... Couldn't get my head out of the last two...]]

Here's a new score (Finally). 
Written for String Quintet x Piano. Wrote it as a representation of how tense things are in the world nowadays. The mystery of not really knowing where things will go, from here. The rhythm / pulse throughout the piece signifies the ever-long march of time, that no one can run away from. Time that we all are limited in. The key change to A minor at the return to the motif signifies a slight feeling of hope among the tension, I feel, currently, in that I hope that things will become more bearable as time moves forward. Hope y'all enjoy this one. (I may or may not make updates to it, periodically, for the next couple weeks. Y'all know how I be at this point... lolol but I feel this one is as done as I can make it, at this moment.)

The Calamity.pdf

Hey @UncleRed99!

Glad to see/hear that you've finally moved on to a new piece!  I think the proper name for a string quintet + piano combination would be "Piano Sextet".  Traditionally for example, a duet of Violin and Cello with Piano is called a "Piano Trio", a trio of Violin, Viola and Cello with Piano would be a "Piano Quartet" and a quartet of 2 Violins, Viola, Cello with Piano would be a "Piano Quintet".  So I'm just extrapolating that this would be a "Piano Sextet" based on those naming conventions.  I'll address a few things that bothered me about the score before actually talking about the music:

There's a few things to note here.  First, when writing pizzicato strings, you don't need to add a staccato marking for the pizzicato.  It's redundant considering that pizzicato is already a very percussive and separated effect.  Also, you have the Bartok pizzicato at mf, followed by a regular pizzicato at forte.  That doesn't really make sense considering that Bartok pizzicato is achieved by snapping the string as hard as possible so that it hits the fingerboard.  The Bartok pizzicato would naturally have to be louder than the regular pizzicato just by the nature of the effect.  Also, there's a special symbol for Bartok pizzicato that string players recognize:  I think it would be more concise to use this symbol.

 Here you have the indication to play legato contradicted by the separated 8th notes.  If you want the player to cancel their pizzicato playing and return to bowing you can put "arco" or "ord.".

Now about the music.  The first thing I noticed is that this is a very quiet piece.  I had to listen to it on my Bluetooth speaker to really hear it better.  But I think the problem is also that when the piano is playing the melody alone without the support of the strings, the piano melody is often simply inaudible above the accompaniment.  Especially the grace notes are lost because they go by so quickly.  The way to counteract that is to of course use MS Basic soundfonts for the piano so you can bring out the melody in high relief by using higher velocity values for those notes (which you can edit in the "properties" tab).  Unfortunately, the Musesounds samples don't currently respond to velocity changes so you'd be forced to use the MS Basic soundfont for piano.  But imo (since I do this all the time) I think the clarity of the melodic line is to me a much more sought after commodity in music than the supposedly "better" sounding Musesound sample.  But that might be just me.

Overall, I like the melancholy vibe of the piece!  The only thing that bothers me is that the key changes seem to be inserted into the piece just for their own sake.  And the modulations should be led by the melody for them to make audible sense and create a more breathtaking effect.  Thanks for sharing!