The Great Lighthouse - Part I

Hello everone 🙂

My first post here is part one of larger composition I am currently working on. The composition is called The Great Lighthouse and is inspired by Christopher Paolini's book Fractal Noise.

Part one is written in largo - A minor and is called Discovery.

Please enjoy and any feedback would be appreciated 🙂

Musescore: https://musescore.com/user/60829534/scores/32485457

Hey! I feel like I am called to reply as I too just published (on this site) a piece about the Ocean. While not directly similar, I find the coincidence of seeing another work detailing a small part or structure of the sea too good to not look at! 

I have a few things to say about the score: Engraving, orchestration, and motif usage. I have downloaded the score off musescore and am currently writing annotations on the work. I will share my annotations in a separate comment. However, for my own knowledge, can I ask how far you are in music? Are you a pianist, woodwind, brasswind player, etc? Are you experienced in theory, orchestration,etc?

Just looking to know about your background as I wish to avoid possible obvious comments. 🙂

6 hours ago, MK_Piano said:

Hey! I feel like I am called to reply as I too just published (on this site) a piece about the Ocean. While not directly similar, I find the coincidence of seeing another work detailing a small part or structure of the sea too good to not look at! 

I have a few things to say about the score: Engraving, orchestration, and motif usage. I have downloaded the score off musescore and am currently writing annotations on the work. I will share my annotations in a separate comment. However, for my own knowledge, can I ask how far you are in music? Are you a pianist, woodwind, brasswind player, etc? Are you experienced in theory, orchestration,etc?

Just looking to know about your background as I wish to avoid possible obvious comments. 🙂

 

Thirty years ago, I was an accordionist. Now I’m just a hobbyist. Feel free to leave any comments, they might not be so obvious to me 🙂

21 hours ago, Marek said:

Thirty years ago, I was an accordionist. Now I’m just a hobbyist. Feel free to leave any comments, they might not be so obvious to me 🙂

 

Hello again! I just finished my comments and am eager to share. Please find this PDF for your convenience! Go to the end of the score to see the final comments.

May anyone else on this thread also consider checking out the comments and share your thoughts!

M. Neupauer - The Great Lighthouse (ANNOTATED).Pdf

7 hours ago, MK_Piano said:

Hello again! I just finished my comments and am eager to share. Please find this PDF for your convenience! Go to the end of the score to see the final comments.

May anyone else on this thread also consider checking out the comments and share your thoughts!

M. Neupauer - The Great Lighthouse (ANNOTATED).Pdf

PDF

• M. Neupauer - The Great Lighthouse (ANNOTATED)

First of all, I want to thank you for the review.

- "diminuendo al niente" is exactly what I was looking for, thank you 🙂 Fixing this will be laborious, but relatively simple.

- theme - I thought I had a theme, but apparently not, since several people, including you, have confirmed that they didn’t recognize it.
This will be difficult to fix, as it disrupts the overall flow and feel of the piece. Actually, I’ll have to redo the whole thing.

- accompaniment - This is my nightmare; I’m still struggling with it. Personally, I can’t stand whole notes anymore, but so far I haven’t been able to come up with anything interesting.

In any case, thanks again, your review really helped me 🙂

Translated with DeepL.com (free version)

Hello Marek

Please don't despair or feel Broken hearted, for trying hard to make a composition be appreciated, for being Special .

It is appreciated and special , because its Totally Unique, your the one who created it.

Medicine can taste Horrible, and make you feel ill, but in the Long-Term, it can actually help.

and its the same with advice from those who are qualified to give it ,and without payment required, so thats a good thing. 

This is your First Post, and it was good, but MK's  advice can also lead you to better things in future posts , so please don't be too despondent

There's even greater scores for you to discover , in your future compositions.

i wish you luck.

MK.............. Im pleased your  post was recognized by PeterthePapercomPoser!

Edited Monday at 01:40 PM4 days by interlect

2 hours ago, Marek said:

First of all, I want to thank you for the review.

 

- "diminuendo al niente" is exactly what I was looking for, thank you 🙂 Fixing this will be laborious, but relatively simple.

- theme - I thought I had a theme, but apparently not, since several people, including you, have confirmed that they didn’t recognize it.
This will be difficult to fix, as it disrupts the overall flow and feel of the piece. Actually, I’ll have to redo the whole thing.

- accompaniment - This is my nightmare; I’m still struggling with it. Personally, I can’t stand whole notes anymore, but so far I haven’t been able to come up with anything interesting.

 

In any case, thanks again, your review really helped me 🙂

 

Translated with DeepL.com (free version)

 

 

The beauty about music is that even simple things can sound complex or can be just as effective. Before you completely scrap your work (as we all know that is annoying to do), with the theme consider writing a 2-bar version, 4-bar version, and 8-bar version. You already have a motif or material to base from. You can do this separately on a manuscript or other file before the main work too.

With the accompaniment parts:

To Me, sometimes long sustains in the orchestra translate to when I use the sustain pedal on the piano. Where I take the long harmony I am sustaining from my improv and translate it to paper. The French Horns are great for gestures like this, or even simpler, the strings. (Bassoon + clarinets are good too!) 

Take whatever harmony, divide between the accompaniment instruments and just hit the harmony every few beats or on the beats. It’s probably the most basic way to pulse harmony. 

Edited Monday at 02:33 PM4 days by MK_Piano

Nice mysterious, atmospheric intro. I really like it!

Hello @Marek ,

I see, that you have joined the forum recently and now at the first topic you have the fortune – or even the evil – that you’ve received a very detailed review which is not only intended as suggestion on the improvement of your particular piece but useful to all other members in this forum. So I could imagine, that there will be many replies on this topic in the future – perhaps a discussion or even a little dispute about the issues MK_Piano pointed out, especially on engraving.

So there is my advice, take that serious, but not personal. I remember on a topic by Frederic Gill where some members had (their own) conversation about details he surely had not in mind and finally was a bit overwhelmed and „overteached“, so that I was a bit afraid he would be too disappointed and would leave the forum at all.

Therefore, I now come first to your music, where I only speak from my listening impression: I can really imagine a shore in the morning where the fog is slowly lifting and the sun comes on shining through the clouds. It’s a very calm and serene moment, in which the perception of time seems to be gone away. After you’ve walked an endlessly seeming time at the shore, you turn your head and look back – now discovering the great lighthouse you hadn’t seen before, since it was hidden by the cliffs above, you now have passed.

I tell that story to express the sole criticism which I have, and that is the length of the piece in comparison with the things that happen. And in this I can only agree with MK_Piano’s comments on his final pages of the annotated score.

Now to the comments concerning engraving:

Hello @MK_Piano, thank you for your effort you have put into annotating the score. I think this is helpful not only for Marek, but also to me and many other forum members.

There are a few general rules you pointed out which one should follow to achieve a clear score presentation, for example

• No dynamics on rests.

• Not to prolong notes using ties whenever it is possible to notate otherwise, for example with dotted notes.

• No separated rests whenever it is possible to combine them into a larger rest.

• No diminuendo to „nothing“ (e.g. unplayable dynamic marks like „pianississimo“).

• Some aesthetics (clashing dynamics symbols).

And in the examples in that particular score, it is „obvious“ to follow that rules would be a huge improvement.

However, as I remember at some of my piano preludes and fugues, there are some situations where I intentionally violated that rules in situations where I find that the score becomes more readable when using tied notes instead of dotted ones or when separating longer rests and put the shorter against the notes of the same length in another voice – to mention some examples.

I don’t want to go into detail with this at Marek’s thread here, so I would ask you whether I could discuss that topic with you in the future, for example when I’m about to present that respective pieces here on the forum.

One advice I can really emphasize, is to maintain two different scores. One as the „printing“ score to be used for playing from, and one solely for the purpose of recording in your software. I do so with all of my pieces, and the „recording“ score is full of exaggerated articulations, dynamic marks and even micro tempo changes to achieve a satisfying, more realistic recording result wherein I can express my ideas about the interpretation.

@Wieland Handke

Of course! Feel free to message me here, on discord or other!

As a brief reply:

With all the rules or trends in music, it is equally often to see breaks in the trends. If you know the product will be effective, then it is only in your best interest to do so!

Again, @Marek, I am eager to see how your music will change. Even me, if I shared my first attempts…. It would be bad. 😅

As smooth as the rolling seas with the fog. -fruit hunter approves! I’m a serious note even with MuseScore basic sounds this sounds amazing. This is definitely a good ballad to program into a concert orchestra and we need more music like this although that I may say that the orchestra is kind of a dying art in itself hopefully in the future change will be made that academic full orchestra’s can be existing and play music by composers and just not arrangers

This would sound incredibly beautiful with real instruments or even just muse sounds