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Yo Vince! Yup I love solo wandering in recent months, it helps me get in touch with reality much more and inspire myself. I won’t be able to finish the Sextet without visiting different places! Yeah the set will be finished with the most dumbass piece of the set lol! Henry

Hey @Mooravioli! I don’t consciously use the themes and folklore of HK but maybe I subconsciously did so, just like the Sextet! For the list of techniques you find, I just use them because I feel like the music need it haha. I love that main melody of 2nd theme too. For me, maybe if I don’t care those 3 things I would easier show them out, because only someone lacks them seeks them. Only if you have something original to say in your music it will be original, not the vice versa. Henry

Yo Arjuna! Yup I definitely learn from that 2nd movement of that random music for the pentatonicism displayed here! The Joke would be just a really straight forward daddy joke I guess lol! Henry

Hi @user011235! I love the motive you quote as well! Henry

Yo Peter! I don’t force myself to imitate Debussy though, his influence however must show in this. I am stupid in those errors, b.49 it should be Eb in LH, b.54 an Eb. These errors happen because I didn’t update my score after recording and nuancing the details lol. An additional error would be in b.45 when I erroneously played a C instead of F for right hand. It happens because it’s a manual playing error lol. Yeah it’s a norm for me to combine ideas together simultaneously haha, and those imitations are deliberate! I love the canon too, it’s the thing I can’t do 10 years ago! Henry

Hi @Ferrum! Thx for your comment! That’s the first time I have seen you dropped comments on my works haha! Yup I wanna try a bit of the tonic pedal effect, maybe even a bit bitonal for a G pedal under an Ab major chord.That freaking quartal chord in b.33 is just a sudden thought when I reached that passage to modulate, and weirdly it works! I love that b.35 LH theme too, it’s a product comes from 10 years ago! The counterpoint in b.55 is new though, because I won’t have the technique for the canon LoL. I love the ending as well, I think a tonic chord ending would ruin the piece by sounding a bit too confirmed. I love you love the piece, thx for that! Henry

Hi Mike! You said that before for the pentatonic scale haha! Thx for your comment! Henry

Hi @guy500, You may check out @pateceramics’s vocal works, she makes great use of vocal samples there. Henry

Hi @user011235! The use of D minor reminds me of Brahms’s Lied on death, op.121 no.1: I like the first sentence with the repeated A, it depicts the stillness of death well. The ending of A and then lower an octave and then a fifth sounds a bit difficult for the vocalist for me. For me, maybe I would use C sharp instead of C natural in b.46. Thx for sharing! Henry

Hi @Frank Normandy! I love the simplicity and melancholy of the music! I love your modulation to C minor in 0:49 and a bit suspension! Moving up an octave for the melody is quite effective for me! Maybe for me I will change the left hand accompaniment for the latter part of the music, but that’s personal because it works absolutely fine here as well, giving the simplicity you wanna achieve! Thx for sharing! Henry

Hey @PCC! I am very grateful you have made this organ arrangement of my Moment Musical! I actually love the version you sent me before when the 1st theme is played by prinzipale, but for the 2nd themes I love your usage of different colours here more! I love that you add much more colour in your arrangement, while my original piano version is more contemplative and personal, here is more grand and colourful! Also I love your slight change of passages, for example b.32 and b.38 to 41. In fact the change of melody in b.32 is also suggested by a viewer on YouTube, I think the change is great! Though my original intention is to remain introspective with a lower arch of melody, here it’s more melodic. And I love your arrangement in b.34 to 41, very effective in organ, and in b.38 changing from original Bb minor to Eb minor add some varieties too. Thx very much for your arrangement. I deeply appreciate it! Henry

CHOPIN ETUDE OP.10 NO.3 TRISTESSE ...................No Piano

Hi Peter! I play it, but my piano is really bad with dynamic control and at such a quiet dynamic it's impossible to voice it properly with consistency :< So 8va means "Ottava" and can mean above or below depending on placement. It does not mean octave above. 8vb means "Ottava bassa" and is not a standard notation, though it's increasingly common in the United States. I think that's kind of unfortunate, because it's not supposed to be happy-go-lucky. I certainly don't hear it as such. I hear it as hopeful. I can see why it feels happy-go-lucky to you though: back and forth V-I, bouncy rhythm. Try not to think of it as bouncy though, more like the funeral march esque rhythm of the first theme. Maybe it'll make more sense that way. I actually like that idea. Thanks ❤️ Maybe. I thought the same but about the 3rd movement, which is kind of similar me too! Thanks for the review!!

i hope you can follow along with the audio, the staffs should be in a different horizontal align, but i think the notes are rendered correctly!

Hi @ComposaBoi! I know I've heard the 1st movement before but am not sure if I reviewed it. I don't hear the following chord in your performance: I just hear a Db both in the left and right hands. Also, didn't you mean to mark this as 8vb? 8vb means an octave lower while 8va means an octave higher: That aside, I find the main theme to be so happy-go-lucky in comparison to the bleak introduction! LoL I think the way you present the main theme in measure 78 is more appropriate to be the main theme proper, being darker and more suited to follow the bleak introduction. I know you said you won't be changing it but I'm going to give you my impressions nonetheless. The version of the main theme at 151 is also nice - not overly happy-go-lucky but rather, bittersweet. The version of the main theme at 220 where it is used as a modulating sequence is really good! I much prefer this treatment of the happy-go-lucky material as it sounds more developmental and suited for modulation. When you return to the material of the bleak introduction the 2nd time it sounds really empty and like the momentum of the piece just stops and falls dead (especially with the left hand staccato notes). The 2nd movement waltz sounds like it really flourishes perfectly out of the 1st movement! It really creates a lucid listening experience. The only thing that brings me out of it is the allegro furioso. I think it sounds way too fast and intense for the bittersweet mood you set with the beginning of the waltz. I like how you reference back to your 1st movement material with the molto meno mosso part. With how fast and furious this part gets it's amazing that you managed to perform it! I think bringing back the dreamy main waltz theme towards the end really releases some of the furious tension you build up with the fast tempo sections. Great job with these two movements! I'm looking forward to reviewing the last two at another time. Thanks for sharing!

Hello @Alant! To me the combination of instruments, especially the trombone and pitched percussion with the electric bass is especially reminiscent of the SimCity3000 soundtrack. It's very nostalgic to me! Great job and I was sorry to hear it end. I think the track could be continued for much longer just adding more and more instrumental forces like @Henry Ng Tsz Kiu mentioned! Thanks for sharing.

Completed piece:

Wow I did not expect this to be completed in such a short amount of time after I had posted the work in progress thread a week ago. That's a record. Though, I guess I did work on in beforehand. Still though, glad this one is not stuck in work-in-progress purgatory, just like the others... Anyways, since the latest progress, I've modified the return to the first theme, most notably, a flurry of ascending scale on b.105 followed by a trilled downward passage of the theme. This is done to kick start the momentum of the piano's spotlight on the proceeding bar instead of just the piano reciting the theme alone in the 2022 version. Another drastic change is that I've turned the passage from b.112 onwards to be a build-up for a proper, actual climax at b.118. Additionally, I've fixed the many of the pitch spelling errors and, of course, tidied up the score as well. There are other smaller changes on the piece as whole, but I'm not gonna list them here. I'm really really happy I did this revision 'cus, again, I just love the themes in this and it's worth putting it to my current musical knowledge. It feels satisfying and gratifying. Old version for comparison: Progress Thread (wow i posted only two progresses on there) Hope you all enjoyed this and lemme know what you think! Thank youuuu

Hello everyone, I've been working quietly behind the scenes away from Young Composers for the past couple of weeks, working on my compositions and even having occasional practice sessions on my violin and piano. One day, I improvised on my piano and recorded it. I played back the video to myself and found the result so touching that I decided to create a complete composition of it on my Finale software. I'm really happy with this work and dream it will be the next "Song from a Secret Garden," both pieces having origins as solo piano pieces and eventually becoming full-blown orchestral works (in my case, "will" become). Yeah, that's a bit too ambitious, but a guy could always dream, right?! 😄 Your feedback is welcome!(: ~Frank

If you were going for a movie score feel then you got it, because it sounds like the soundtrack for a Marvel movie (not meant as a slight). I do agree with what Peter is saying about the accompaniment overpowering the melodic lines. This is something I have struggled with as well, in sometimes layering too much, and ending up with a muddy mess. It sounds good, but it hinders the ability to focus. I would suggest going through, the softer moments especially, and seeing where you can edit out some of the underscoring, to let the melody shine through a little better.

In the Mood for Love is always my fxxking all time favourite film. I watched it several before but only at home’s small screen. Last week I watched the 4K restoration of director’s cut in cinema’s big screen, and fxxk! I got the music much more! I used to feel like this music boring and only functional, but when I got to the cinema, those pizzicatios are really powerful to reflect what the main characters were thinking! And this must be one of my all time fxxking favourite music. The music matches so well with the film itself (in the video it doesn’t correspond though), and I used to cry watching this scene, this time no exception. Also, freakingly beautiful Maggie Cheng and handsome Tony Leung!! As well as the cinematography and direction and art design and costume design!

Next is Porco Rossi. I have never heard of this until recently even though it’s a miyazaki film! My favourite must be this one, with the piano version arranged as the set piece for ABRSM grade 8 piece lol: To be honest I love this only after watching the film. I got the resigned and helpless feeling of the music only after watching the film, knowing what Porco Rosso had faced. It’s an insanely good film as well, very unexpected to what I expect in Miyazaki’s film!

I have watched quite a lot of films these few weeks and I will share the music one by one! First is Kiki the Delivery Service. Probably this is my favourite. It’s the agitated version of the main theme of the film music when there’s a disaster happening in the town. I love how the danger is depicted with some sort of funniness.

Hi Luis! Thank you! I just try my newly acquired style after the Sextet and I quite like the result here. Never listen to Cowell’s piece even though his name is the same as me lol, but honestly I don’t like his idea to hurt the piano strings! Henry

Hi my bro, As I have heard all of these before, I think they would be suitable for intermediate children pianist. I like you’re trying to vary your style which is always nice for a composer no matter the result is, and the result here is good. My favourite is poem no.1. No.2 and 3 are quickly funny and I like them too. Thx for sharing! Henry