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Evenin'! Its been a while since i've been here. Good to be back and also surprised they changed the look of the site. I thought i'd throw a little challenge for those who are currently unnocupied. Write a short (1 minute?) piece based on the following duo: The instruments must correspond to your birthdate. January: Timpani February: Oboe March: Glockenspiel April: Flute May: Violin June: Horn July: Bassoon August: Celesta September: Bass Clarinet October: Tenor Sax November: Contrabass December: Cor Anglais 1:Marimba; 2:Horn; 3:Bass Clarinet; 4:Piccolo; 5:Viola; 6:Bass Trombone; 7:Clarinet; 8:Vibraphone; 9:Euphonium; 10:Glockenspiel; 11:Timpani; 12:Tuba; 13:Violin; 14:Oboe; 15:Cello; 16:Tubular Bells; 17:Melodica; 18:Cor Anglais 19:Tenor Sax; 20:Bass Clarinet 21:Bassoon; 22:Trumpet; 23:Eletric Bass; 24:Piano; 25:Harpsichord; 26:Flute; 27:Organ; 28:Trombone; 29:Guitar; 30:Soprano Sax; 31:Celesta

Thank you both for replying! Wow-this seems like it's going to be much harder than I anticipated, and you're right, Monarcheon, I didn't understand half of your critiques. My main reason for going to college for composition is to learn this stuff--but I'm finding out more and more you basically have to be an expert before you can even get in (which seems like a catch-22, in my opinion)! Is there anything I can do to learn some of this information and apply it to my pieces before I attempt college? One thing I do know is that music is my passion, and I'm not about to give up when I've barely started just because I don't know how to do it. (By the way, some of the critiques that I did understand are not really in my control because I don't know how to fix it in MuseScore. My handwritten copy doesn't have some of the things that you pointed out. And some of the left-hand notes are meant to be an octave lower, I just forgot to put that in there.) Maarten Bauer, I was thinking of six different colleges: Oberlin (the hardest to get into, I know), Whitworth University, Biola University, Liberty University, Texas Christian College, and Belmont University. I am not financially able to visit any except a slight chance at visiting Whitworth. Also, I have been researching this for a long time and I have heard that it's almost impossible to make a living out of composing, but I've also read that the only ones who manage to make it work are the ones that hang their entire career on composition with no plan B. I'm not saying that I honestly have no plan B--I have very good grades and I could do virtually anything--but film music is the only thing I'm really passionate about. Do either of you have suggestions on how to turn these ideas into something good enough to submit?

VI to i chords are generally considered a little bit odd in functional harmony (until the end of the Renaissance era), without any sort of dominant backup. I have no idea what happened around 1:15; if they're wrong notes, or you wanted a double layered major minor dominant chord, but it was a mess. The repetition of rhythmic is good, but might be too much; you only really give 16 bars of actual differing chordal harmony until the end which is a shame. It's fine, but arcs don't always need that long to build. It sounds like a good introduction to something else.