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Bagatelle in G major is a piece I composed in 2011. I was inspired when listening to Beethoven’s Bagatelle in G minor, op. 119 no.1 in my music lesson, and I immediately composed this piece that night in less than two hours. Here is the YouTube video and score of the piece: Bagatelle in G major.pdf The piece is in simple ABABCoda form. The middle section in C minor is probably due to my fervent love with Beethovenian C minor LoL! i revisit this piece because of @PCC ‘s showing of his manuscript in the discord group. I also wanna use this piece to test the new microphone I just buy. It sounds much better than my crappy phone, although with my bad recording skill this recording still has some tears in it. For me the piece is just a banal one, but not bad for a teen. I just wonder how do I transform from this level of writing to the piano piece ( ) in a year LoL! Here’s the Beethoven Bagatelle for your reference: Hope you enjoy this little piece! Henry

I'm on a microtonal binge-composing streak and next I thought I'd try to use 1/6ths of a tone instead of just 1/4ths. I thought that Musescore Studio would have this capability built in as well but it doesn't. Instead, what I found works, and turned out to be a good enough compromise is using syntonic commas to lower or highten certain notes by about 20 cents. My goal was to use justly tuned minor and major 3rds in this which would necessitate lowering or heightening the equally tempered thirds by about 15 cents. If I had been able to use 1/6ths of a tone, I would be approximating that goal at 16.666 cents. But anyways, I wrote this invention for harpsichord as I've somehow fallen in love with microtonal harpsichord lately. There are in fact harpsichords built that can play microtones. Usually in 31edo they look like this: Edit: upon further listening and reflection I'm wondering whether this might not also have the character of an Allemande - a dance from a Baroque Dance Suite. What do you think? I would love to hear your input, observations, critiques or suggestions! Thanks for listening.

Hi everyone, this is my new composition, Autumn Leaves. I hope you like it!

Revisited this piece, after a few weeks off of messing with it. That always seems to give me a fresh perspective on things I've written, and helps me to identify areas where improvement could be made. I feel confident in saying that if I were to forget this piece, and return to it again, that I'd be happy with how it is in it's current state. As always, if there are any areas where someone with more expertise than I have is able to identify an issue or mistake, I'm all ears for the feedback! 🙂 Thanks, and I hope you all enjoy my little heartfelt piece of music Lamentation_-_Kyle_Hilton_UPDATED_with_Spitfire_Labs_VST3_Audio (4).pdf Lamentation_-_Kyle_Hilton_UPDATED_with_Spitfire_Labs_VST3_Audio.custom_score (1).mp3

What better way to announce my new YC account than with my latest composition? This little piece took me around 10 hours of work and I consider it has the most luminous climax I ever composed and one of the most intoxicating endings I have seen for violin and piano duo. I make use of a completely new vocabulary that I never used before or not in such a structured way. Let me know your thoughts. I personally thing the fragment between measures 20-25 could be improved, but I'm not sure how.

Hello everyone, this is my first time orchestrating a piano piece of mine and I wanted to go for an epic Straussian orchestration. Feel free to spot any mistakes or give me any advice, I'm still quite new to the world of orchestral music. 🙂 It took around 6 hours to orchestrate and I used basic knowledge, the Musescore playback and my intuition. The original piece was done at a very important time of my life and it symbolizes looking at he horizont of the dark past and remembering one last time before moving on. But feel free to let me know what it made you feel or imagine. 😁

Hello! I've been taking short respites from my next big variations project with some short pieces. This piece is one of those. It's my first attempt at using microtones. I'm just using 24TET and the piece is mostly conceived as a regular tonal piece of music with microtonal embellishments. I wrote it for string quartet since in such a chamber work for strings, microtones, I think, are the easiest to execute accurately. Let me know what you think, as I would appreciate any suggestions, critiques or even just observations! Thanks for listening. Edit: I've added a 2nd movement entitled Scherzo - Pizzicato Ostinato. Edit no.2: I've added a 3rd and final movement entitled Andantino Giocoso.

Hello all, First post here. I wrote this short piece about morality and inner moral conflict. Hoping for some feedback. Cheers!

Hello there I thought the ending figure was cool, but maybe out of place. Like Peter said, you could scrap it all together, or you could incorporate that into your previous cadences. Give a reason to have it as the ending, you know? Some time has passed since you posted this... are you revising it or moving on to other works? Regardless, you seemed to be concentrating on practicing developing your material with this one, and I think you achieved that to some degree. I'm curious on how it sounds after some revisions with the feedback you've received. Nice work 🙂

These are so cool! I honestly like the strings over the harpsichord with microtones... I'm not sure why. Maybe because the style of writing was different? I thought each movement highlighted a different pursuit or thought which was cool. Smart to do little movements instead of trying to cram a bunch of experiments into one. You have a talent for scherzos; they're always fun and jovial. I think the chromaticism really leads to a better use of microtones, they just felt more necessary to me than with the harpsichord piece. But both were good imo. I'd maybe experiment with other scales too in your studies. Dig into Indian music if you haven't already, it's big on it. I know you know this, but if you're ever writing bends and such for guitar or winds, you could dabble at giving quarter tone notation for it. All in all though, well done Peter. I'm sure it's been a nice escape from working on a top secret big piece.

Hi @Mooravioli, Given what @UncleRed99 and Peter have said, I almost have nothing to add. I usually don't like microtones at all, but the beginning microtones really make the music more like in the other world! Your use of harp, and also the twirling figure like in b.80 really sounds like ocean waves. I think so too, it sounds vivacious here like the oceanic habitat for me. For me I would hope the piece to last a bit longer! The ending doesn't seem conclusive to me, though it's a magical way to end all of a sudden. Thx for sharing! Henry

It is a beautiful piece. It sounds totally Debussy. I think the treatment of the piano all the time in quasi-percussive mode, except at some points like at the end, detract a bit. It reminds me a lot of Cathédrale Engloutie. A different matter is the violin. I guess you have mastered its possibilities... Those glissandos with harmonics and glissandos in opposite directions...., are possible. I imagine they are. Regards.

Done

Yes! Musescore has this feature. Makes a score look a lot prettier many times 🙂 A very easy way to achieve this without having to dig through the formatting windows, is to make sure you have nothing selected in the score, press F8, (or Fn+F8 for laptop), and then click the "eyeball" icon next to "Empty Staves". I typically leave the properties panel open all the time anyhow. It's a useful toolbar!

Hi @Jackie! What a wonderful chromatic piece that perfectly reflects the programmatic title! If you have one available I would love to see the score for this and follow along with it while listening. Great job and thank you for sharing such a melancholy miniature!

Hi @Mooravioli! Great job on this piece! I really like the micro-tonal touches you add to it. I can hear that you're using Musesounds. Does this mean that Musescore Studio now supports micro-tones? That's a pretty exciting feature if so! I like how underwhelming the piece is in the beginning. But it develops and flourishes quite well and dramatically even with those crescendoing brass chords that give it a kind of cinematic vibe. You make great use of space throughout the piece, with sparse orchestration until the piece really comes into its own at 4:09 which is my favorite part. It's more fully orchestrated and the theme really sings beautifully there. The only engraving nit-pick that I just noticed after having glanced at the score the first time I listened is that the piece seems to be notated in 4/4 in the beginning, even though the phrasing seems to suggest that it should be in 3/4. Also - Musescore has the feature of displaying only the instruments that are playing at any given point in the score which would make your score that much easier to peruse. Thanks for sharing!

Awesome work, and beautiful transitions, colorful and interesting rhythms. Truly sounds like something I'd have heard in an old Disney animated film on VHS. I really like this piece 🙂 However, just a couple of things to point out to ya. Some places, your rhythm notation, while the playback will play it correctly, and it's also technically right in terms of the notes covering all the beats in the measure, lets look at Measure 8 for the harp's Treble Clef staff. The rhythm notation there should be: ( ♩ ♩ 𝄾 ♪_♩ ) instead of ( ♩ ♩ 𝄾 ♩. ) because of that eighth note rest. gotta finish beat 3 off with an 8th, then tie into beat 4 with the quarter note 🙂 It's much more legible that way for a player, and it's just simply proper. This same thing happens in a good few other places in the score, from what I'm seeing. Although, while you don't have to do it that way, it's considered the formal grammar for rhythm notation, and if this were to be performed, the instrumentalists would appreciate it more that way! Also, the other thing I caught, was starting at b.32, with the violin solo there, ALL those accidentals!! You're still in the key of Db Major during that statement, except your notation reflects C# Major instead, hence the excessive amount of sharps and naturals seen there. Based on the playback sound, I'd assume you're using MuseScore Studio 4.4.4? If you select all bars within the sections with those accidentals, click the "Tools" tab at the top, and select "Respell Pitches" it should automatically correct all of that for you, in case you hadn't ever used those utilities before. But overall, my observations are just what I'd be sure to correct, if it were my score. I'm not an expert composer, just a musician with a knack for composition, who's untrained in the craft of doing so. The piece sounds wonderful, and I think would be an awesome piece to be played live and recorded. Appears to be pretty fun for all parts involved, and has a nice, well rounded and imaginative vibe to it, that I think is fairly brilliant! Do some'ore stuff!

Hello everyone, I hope you are doing well. This simple lullaby on a single chord to illustrate my father's photos. This little thing comes from an improvisation at the beginning. Don't look for more than a contemplative moment in the service of images.

I had developed many of the ideas in this work back in 2018 but having recently revisited it I found myself unsatisfied with the result. Curiously, while I have been an ardent perfectionist for as long as I can remember, and I believed the standards lived up to my expectations at the time, there were numerous errors! It just shows how irrational perfectionism can be around skills that essentially develop with experience. One by-product of perfectionism can also be that one leaves many unfinished works that had hit a brick wall. in some ways, this was one of them. This exercise in revisiting such projects was enjoyable and I will need to dig out more unfinished works to look at. Hope you enjoy, and please subscribe to my channel if you like.

I much enjoyed your bagatelle, particularly its classical roots and later deviation into something quirky and at times comical 🙂 Very well done indeed, and impressive you did it in under three hours.

Thank you for listening! The reason why I switched it to piano was because the choral sounds in musescore couldn’t play back the music. I’d post a sample here, but I don’t want to make your ears bleed. 😂

This was excellent, I really enjoyed all of your movements. I know that if you had higher quality playback or sounds, this would be even better! SATB sounded really good to my ears, and the time signature of your first movement is really interesting. Love the complex meter! Maybe you can explain why you decided to use the piano on the last movement though. Even though you warned us about it, I still was a little startled when I got to the piano section, because I wasn't expecting it after about 14 minutes of this choral.

Good catch, thanks for the correction. I was at a walmart parking lot when I was initially scanning it over.🤣 lol Was moving pretty quick. So I must've missed that! So I'll correct myself, and suggest maybe modulate to Db Minor instead, and change the key signature to the corresponding Major chord (Think a major 3rd interval above the note Db. That note's major key signature is your Db minor key signature) which would be the key of Bb. So you'd change the key signature to Bb Major (3 Flats), and respell your pitches to conform to that. You'll have much less accidentals 🙂

I hope you get a chance to do an actual recording of this! The vocal midis always seem to be the least satisfying of all the midi instrumental fonts, we singers get neglected, but it should be much more emotionally nuanced with a real voice, and it's such a lovely text. Thanks for sharing!

Hello Kyle, Thank you so much for this detailed post. I very much appreciate the fact that you clarified issues with notation, since that will help me a lot with the engraving process(which is not my forte at all). The solo at bar 32 has actually modulated to C sharp minor but I see your point on overloading the players with too many sharps. Will definitely revise my score for the rhythm you've mentioned, because there are probably a few other spots with this notation problem. Very glad you enjoyed this piece, you can always check out more works in my YC profile(recently made a corny about section). I shall get to listening to your recent work too.

@Markus Boyd Yes.... The point is that it sounds very coherent both stylistically and for the transitions between parts, which are always fundamental. To me it reminds me of what Bellini did with the melodies, he prolonged them, lengthened them....

It is a work that I liked quite a lot. Although this style close to classicism is not my favorite, it has caught my attention. One thing I've noticed, or it's my perception, is that the format is rather free, it sounds like a little fantasy. The beginning has a 4 bar phrase, then another one with a similar response, but it starts to evolve without stopping until the second part. This one is also very free. All in all, it sounds very good.

Whipped this up super fast 😄

No! Technically, the event is open until New Year's Day! So you can still make a submission and receive a participant badge before then.

Ever since listening to music I loved in childhood, I felt like I could easily come up with really great music in my imagination and thought that it would be awesome and fulfilling to be able to actually create that music in real life. Now I consider musical composition my 'originative intellectual work' and listening to my own music induces great fulfillment and 'peak experiences'. Check out this pertinent book quote I shared that's related to this topic: No, but you can add the option "other - please reply to the topic!" and when people suggest other answers you can edit the questions to include answers that they mentioned.

This is something I decided to work on for a very limited amount of time over the past two days for the Christmas Event this year! It's a variations piece on the famous Polish Christmas Carol "Gloria in excelsis Deo". Those eponymous words are actually in Latin, but the rest of the carol is in Polish, and I made sure to go in and include all the proper accent marks and special characters which is actually a little tricky to enter into Musescore. This is one of those rare pieces that I wish I had Cantamus for, since it would increase the realism of the piece to have the actual words sung, especially when the Tenors and Basses are in canonic imitation with the Sopranos and Altos. I would really appreciate any comments, critiques, feedback or even just observations that you may have. Thanks for listening and Merry Christmas!

I'm sorry. I was talking about the carol, "Angels we have heard on high". This is about something different?

Despite the digital instruments, it sounds great. Before listening to it I thought that adding a fifth voice to a counterpoint didn't make much sense in principle. But in this case it does add content. Very clever to start with such dissonance, one on top of the other, as it works well as a delay. I liked it very much. Feliz Navidad.

I don't have an exact preference, though I'd lean most ( of all the options ) to constructive feedback Voted for these: Any publicity is good publicity, even if negative - this has more to do with algorithm and traffic haha, cos at least it shows there are ppl browsing the content I prefer only constructive critiques. - I think this goes without saying, who ( anyone who is sincere inn composing and making them better ) doesn't want constructive feedback? I'd rather only hear good, positive opinions of my work. - I think same here, go ahead and enjoy the positivity which can help motivate you further as long as it does not become an echo chamber where you do not even hear constructive feedback at all such that you do not improve at all. If nobody leaves any comment then at least it means nobody hated it - well, while this could mean less information for you, less information is not always a bad thing - on your end you do not know how ppl receive your content but with no additional negative information, other than perhaps the absence of comments, people could just be busy and what not and yes ppl may not want to say it in public but need not for insidious reasons, rather than outright roast you. Of course, it can be a subtle sign of the need for improvement to bring about positive comments.

Oh so very lovely ...... Mark

Since I don't know where to post this, I'll just post it here. I've actually been working on a revision of the Alula Variations, and so far, I've done a ton of progress. New transitions, replacing (what I think are) bad variations, enhancing already existing variations (haven't revised the ending yet though). I'm very excited to share it sometime in the near future!

You're absolutely right. I left aside all irony and the squeaks that are familiar to me for this evocation of my father's work. He is a very sweet person, very quiet, who tirelessly travels his country paths with his camera on his shoulder. When he was young, he took a lot of street photos, in Montparnasse, in Paris, in the suburbs, scenes of daily life near where we lived. It was the 50s, 60s, 70s, a time today very distant so much the cities have changed here in France. In the 1970s, in France, the physiognomy of some suburbs was still almost rural, often working-class neighbourhoods, a very popular France, immortalised by the great post-war photographers, humanist and realistic. My father, some of whose photos were used for press publications because he was in an agency, belongs to a generation younger than this current, but his expression was still impregnated with it. Today, of more fragile health, his approach is calm, as I said. Paths, nature, and this small plant world has become the theatre of its colourist, impressionist expression, and its portraits are no longer humans but flowers, leaves, trees. With this in mind when writing my notes, I could not imagine anything other than a lullaby. The Lydian is very soft, very posed to my ears, despite the attraction towards the fifth that adds like a sensitive second in the scale. A doubly sensitive to express sensitive things... That's it, in any case thank you and thank you again for your beautiful comment!

Hello There, It's been a while since I posted here but just wanted to share a few works I've been working on thus far They are quite short and are meant to be pleasant + enjoyable; the works are based on themes by classical composers which may sound familiar. Since I am dealing with a new idiom, I'd love feedback on my approach to jazz harmony and ensemble balance. Just giving a few general impressions should be fine Thank you peeps.

Hey Jean @Krisp, It’s a piece I admire. As I have mentioned on YouTube, for me it’s a bit different from your usual style as you take a warmer approach here, but no less (or for even more) wonderful. It’s a great piece built with a seemingly simple harmonic structure. The Lydian A major is very nice and the beginning piano solo is already very captivating. Those rests, as you mentioned are very contemplative. For me it even creates the aura like Debussy’s Cathedral Prelude. The joining of the strings makes it even more amazing, first the double bass, and those wonderful flute-like artificial harmonies of the violins! The development is so well paved here, never abrupt or unreasonable but only makes the music slightly more and more climactic. I wholeheartedly enjoy the music and feel myself fully immerse in it, in addition to the wonderful pictures your father took. And happy birthday to your father! Thx for sharing this wonderful music to us! Henry

I really like this version more than the version with double bass and drum! It sounds more contemplative here and even reminds me of Joe Hisaishi. I still don’t recall which Beethoven piece you quote from haha! Thx for the update! Henry

Hey Henry, long time no see, happy to hear from you as always. These were originally meant to be solo pieces for piano but I ended up adding the doublebass and drums, in an effort "spice" things up. I don't recall both solo versions on Musescore but here is an audio to the second piece(piano solo version): https://drive.google.com/file/d/1YybhwuMLZqaY29YAJJiRn-7UStDwPFHK/view?usp=sharing.

Well, all my variations projects tend to snowball into giant projects and I didn't want that to happen with this piece. I just wanted it to be a short Christmas diversion before going back to my main variation work that I'm working on right now which is much more substantial. It's possible that I'll pick this piece up again in the future. Thanks for listening and commenting!

Like Henry, I would have liked the piano to come back, but as is it serves as a nice intro to the piece. I'm curious on the form. It feels unfinished to me, like you were experimenting with reharming a tune you knew well. Why only two variations, and why the ones you chose? I'm assuming it's because you were having fun with a just for fun thing we do here, but maybe you'll add variations in the future? Is it because variations can get stale after a while? Doesn't matter really. You have a way with harmony, and this was no exception. Well done mate 👍

I love the simplicity of this, but it's interesting musically too. I've relistened a few times now, and each time I caught something new. Arvo Part is someone I've revisited here and there, and you inspired me to go back once again. Thanks for sharing

Did you delete it? It was probably miles better than my first

Nice, really gives out a devilish style.

Hi @ComposedBySam, The piece is so soothing to listen to.The texture in b.13 sounds so well! Cello melody, then joined by a conversation with clarinet and the piano accompaniment. I think you can use a clarinet in A to avoid a 5 sharp key signature! Also I think you can explore the higher regtister of the clarinet too, though it may ruin the hazy feeling here. Thx for sharing! I like it. Henry

Hi @UncleRed99, I like the arrangement! I think it sounds good. All those F naturals should be written as E# as it's in F# major at the beginning! I think in b.52 you can use a key signature with one sharp since the music is in E minor. Thx for sharing! Henry

I guess there are advantages and disadvantages to anyone's composing work ethic. But in this topic I will be talking about why I compose on paper and why it has proven so advantageous to me. There is perhaps a certain legend about composing on paper that it results in music that sounds more inspired. For me it's more that when composing on paper, my musical imagination has more free reign and can't be fooled by the sound of the composition. And I do think that "fooled" is the right word here because it can be very easy to have one's musical decision making disadvantageously swayed by the immediate feedback of sound while one is in the process of composing. Silence also allows me to compose music from a more dispassionate angle without feeling anything that the music might make me feel. And I think that helps me have a more objective relationship to the musical material and use better creative judgment. Sometimes I might whistle or hum the melodies to myself. I rarely need the help of any instrument as even vertical sonorities can be whistled/hummed or imagined (exception: writing music for instruments I'm not familiar enough with like guitar). But if I let myself feel the emotions of the music while I'm composing they interfere with the process and I start to build up too much expectation and pressure to put out the finished final product. While if I write the whole piece out on paper without listening I feel like I have all the time in the world to organize things the way I want before calling it "finished" and there's no pressure (which sometimes can also be a drawback as it can be easy to lose motivation). But I have resorted to going back and forth between computer and paper where I had listened to part of a composition before finishing it on paper. Usually I have done that (even very recently) because I was losing interest in a composition and hearing it provided a certain infusion of excitement and motivation to finish it. Usually in my style of composing (which has to a degree become accustomed to composing on paper) the melodic and contrapuntal lines take precedence and justify the harmonies. Even very unusual or dissonant sonorities can in this way be confidently (I hope) and deliberately written since the logic of the melodic line leads the ear and justifies the harmonies. Of course, the assumption behind composing only on paper is that the result will be simpler and to that effect, better conceived. Although as I have already mentioned, hearing an unfinished composition can also be advantageous as long as one has the self discipline to tear oneself away from the computer and return to the notepad (that's at least very important for me). The reason why I find it also inconvenient to start the whole process of composing on the computer is because it's not as easy to sketch things out on the computer. I have a small 8 in. by 3 in. notepad in which I jot my ideas down everywhere I go that I can keep in my pocket. It's really convenient for brainstorming. Later I set those ideas harmonically or for various instrumentations and variations. It's a longer process but it's easier than having fragments in a midi or other file form on the computer (for me). Back in the day I used to compose exclusively into the sequencer but circumstances in which I did not have access to a computer for extended periods of time forced me to write only on paper and I came to prefer it. Don't get me wrong though - I have tried to return to composing on the computer. I found it to be a very aimless and fruitless experience. The things that I "composed" in this way were more like improvisations that lacked any kind of musical direction or logic. Maybe I have just gotten old or something, but I much prefer my new way of composing on paper. Please share if any of this is relatable to you - or share your own composing work ethic and why it works (or doesn't work) for you! Thanks for reading if you've gotten this far! Peter

This is a wind quintet I've just finished (my first attempt at writing for wind quintet). It incorporates more "modern" (20th century) harmonic techniques than much of what I write, particularly an emphasis on quartal and quintal harmonies, but it's still firmly tonal and based (loosely) on Classical formal structures. It's in four movements, and the whole thing's about twenty minutes long, but even if you just listen to one movement, I'd really appreciate any comments or feedback. Thanks!