Reflections of a Thunderstorm (first finished peice!)

Greetings to all! Well today I decided to concentrate hard and actually write a complete piece from beginning to end, as opposed to several random lines or exercises. I'm pleased with how it turned out, especially the first minute, although after that I'm not so sure. In some parts I can't help get the feeling that the idea has been used before by someone else (do you guys ever get that feeling?). I certainly hope it hasn't.

Anyway, I've attached both the .mus file and a link to the mp3, which is really a recording of the Finale midi playback off my soundcard using Audacity. You see, my Allegro trial period ran out a while back and so I've been having to make due with Notepad, which is far from ideal. I can't get the dynamics and all to play back the way I want to and on top of that after using Allegro the lack of features in Notepad becomes sorely obvious.

Comments and criticism welcome!

-Landon

freewebs.com/eternal_galaxies/Reflections%20of%20a%20Thunderstorm.mp3

(copy and paste, for some reason hyperlink wasn't working)

Rain.mus

Excellent effort for a first piece, IMO. My main complaint is that I don't find your transitions very convincing. You sort of jump from one idea to the next, without preparing the listener for the next idea. So that's something that you may want to focus on in the future.

Not bad. Good first piece. I agree that the transitions are a little weak. The accompaniment was a little repetitive, and the melody went off on a tangent sometimes, at times it seemed detached from the rest of the piece. :40 - :44 is a very familiar melody. There were a few places that were very familiar. Almost like you had another song stuck in your head when writing this. The ending was nice.