Leaderboard

I think as long as it is recognizable as the theme, it should be fine. That being said, I would caution anyone against being too liberal with their creativity. I can't adequately judge your ability to use the theme if I can't find it in your submission!

Ah, that makes sense. Thanks for the info!

The legend returns! And with new music in his innovative harmonic language too. I don't think you need to think of this a "settling" for something lesser, I found it to be quite fascinating and enjoyable. The harmonic language is unconventional, but it is held together by clear motives and good thematic development. My favorite part was the climax at m.42 that leads back to the "bell tones" at m.47. Out of curiosity, is this the mode you used? If I'm not mistaken it looks like this was the mode used from the beginning up to m.22, where you started using this mode transposed down half a step. I noticed several other transpositions throughout the piece as well. The neat thing about these kinds of modes is they are symmetrical about the tritone, so you can transpose a passage up/down by a tritone while still being in the same mode - a trick I noticed you cleverly used throughout the piece. (m.8 & 9 for example) It looks like you used a ternary ABA form, with a climax around m.42 at the end of the second theme, which I thought was an effective way to lead back into the first theme. I really liked the contrast between the two themes. The only thing that felt a little unbalanced to me was m.8-11 (and m.53-56 in the recap.) - I felt like these four bars need a complementary four bar phrase after them before you get into the rit. at m.12. To me this rit. came a little to soon after the fermata at m.7, and I think a complementary phrase that mimics m.8-11 with slight variation would solidify this theme a little better. This is of course only a suggestion, feel free to ignore if you disagree. I also noticed at m.48 and m.50 it looks like you have a Cb and B natural sounded simultaneously, is the B natural supposed to be a B flat to match the beginning? Let me ask you this: since these modes are symmetric, how do you view the functional role of each scale degree? Do you see each degree in the mode as having its own independent function, or do you see degrees and their symmetrical counterparts as having complementary (or even the same) functional role. For example, in the mode I posted above, do you see the E natural and B flat having distinct, independent roles, or do they have some kind of similarity or relationship due to the symmetrical nature of the mode? This might send us down a rabbit hole, but I'm interested in your thoughts. Thanks for sharing! It's good to see new music from you, and I look forward to the remainder of the suite.

I don't normally listen to contemporary music but I listen to everyone's music here and I really liked your theme here, and I wrote something 'like' a var. (short). thanks for sharing

I love the jazz harmony that comes in and out throughout the piece. The B section offers a really nice contrast to the beginning and end sections. It's dark and rich, very nice.

It makes a lot of sense if you think about it. In classical days, singers read off single sheet voice parts. The tenors just had the tenor part, no indication of what anyone else was doing, the basses just had the bass part, and likely all the basses were looking over each other's shoulders at a single copy by the light of one flickering candle... Think of how difficult it is to sight read if all you have is your part, without being able to relate it to the rest of what's going on. If you play the violin, you put your finger in the right place on the right string and you reliably get a certain note, but if you are a singer, you have to pluck your note out of thin air. It's really hard to do accurately without being able to see the complete structure of the harmony you are a part of unless you happen to have perfect pitch, which is a rare gift. Modern sheet music always gives singers all the choral parts together plus a reduction of any instrumental parts. We're in the age of modern printing. It's cheap and easy to do. Classical period's solution to save time laboriously copying notes onto handwritten sheets was to have the brass double the singers so they couldn't get lost, and to strictly enforce voice leading rules so that parts tended to move by predictable stepwise motion as much as possible, rather than by leaps, which people are more likely to misjudge. It was sheer self-preservation on the point of composers. The alternative was a train wreck every time you premiered a new piece. It's not like singers could go out and listen to a recording of the thing before they tried to sing it either.