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I have written a quartet for strings on which I would like the honour of some of your criticisms. This work has sprouted from almost a year and a half of counterpoint study. It is similar to a fugue; that is, it does tend to have fugal aspects; however on the whole, this is mostly a work of counterpoint with many interesting hidden ideas embedded within it. I can understand if you are unable to listen to the entire work, as it is almost 16 minutes long; however, if you give me some feedback on even a single contrapuntal passage, I would be greatly indebted to you. Thank you for your time and I dearly hope you enjoy this work. On a side note, this recording that I have here does not take into consideration single note dynamics which is indeed frustrating; however, it is the only soundfont I could find that effectively does some of the counterpoint justice (that is, so it is not too muddy sounding).

Ever since I started composing, I've always been interesting in programmatic music – music that tells a story or represents an existing one. This waltz was inspired by Natasha Van Meer, a character from my favourite novel, 'Special Topics in Calamity Physics' by Marisha Pessl. This isn't strictly a programmatic piece in the sense of following the exact events of a story; it's more of an attempt to summarise the character in musical form. More details about that in the score's programme notes (but please feel free to listen without reading them!). As always, any feedback welcome!

Hi all, This is the final edit of the 3rd Movt of my 2nd piano Concerto. I've extended the cadenza and ironed out the wrinkles along the way. For some reason I couldn't stop twiddling with it until I got it to this point, but now that I have, I'm happy to think of it as finished and leave it without further twiddles! I've now started working the material I have for the 1st and 2nd movements so hopefully I might have a completed work in another couple of years 😂. Anyway, I hope you like it and if you did hear the first version, I'd be interested to know what you think of the differences. This particular movement started life a few years ago as a piano improvisation and gradually got molded into what it is now, as did most of the material for the other movements, let's see where they end up!

Nice job! I think it sounds better! If you want to tweak it some more you could add the same sort of dynamics to the recapitulation that you added to the exposition so it would sound less robotic with the constant 8th note accompaniment.

Thank you Papercomposer. I made the changes you suggested, when I played it back it made me smile because it sounded similar to how I play it on the piano with regards to the initial accent and dynamics.

Once again I think I detect a slight rhythmic illusion in your writing. Because the first four 8th notes are played without accompaniment in this it sounds like they might be pick-ups and beat 3 is to my ear interpreted as beat 1. I think the way to solve this problem is to place a slight accent on the very first 8th note and a decrescendo to the end of the bar starting the pattern over in the next measure. I think that's also how a pianist might decide to play this to give it more musicality in their interpretation. Of course, this illusion is dispelled and the strongest beat becomes apparent when the accompaniment and the melody play together at the beginning of bar 3. Also, in my opinion you really should start the accompaniment and the melody together right away on beat 1 of the recapitulation in bar 18. Overall a nice piece!

This is stunning! You obviously put a lot of thought and precision into this. Even though the piece is just three minutes long, the form holds together really well; The material doesn't change so fast as to be confusing, but it is never boring. I really like what you did at the end of bar 58 - that little pause in the rhythm prevents the melody from being a total information overload. I feel like you could have a few more moments like that throughout the piece. I would also suggest adding some dynamic markings here and there if that's possible, which would also help to give the piece more variety. Anyways, really nice work! I've always been fascinated by fugues, so this post caught my eye. 🙂

Very interesting to hear counterpoint in this tonal language. It definitely feels modern and new, in a good way. Cool! I love the point that the craft of polyphony is so powerful that it can make way for so much different music, that's my experience anyway. Maybe it can be a good idea to space out some lines, make some variations between more busy polyphonic parts and more simplistic (single lines). I think that way it's easier for the listener to focus on the lines and to register what's going on. Also see if you can build more continuity by re-using some ideas. Good luck.