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A blues-rock tune I composed inspired by classic bands like ZZTop as well as 70s/80s American car chase movies. Let me know what you think! A friend of mine from a local metal band recorded the electric guitar parts.

Hi everyone! I've been thinking about writing some stuff for fantasy inspired settings (like WoW, Skyrim etc.). I've come up with these ideas and there were quite a few of them, and thus I decided to put them all together in one suite. Any feedback is appreciated!

Hello, this is a piece I’ve been working on and it’s unfinished so the scoring and details haven’t been completed but the basic outline of the song is there. I’m looking for suggestions on a title and just to see what you think. I recommend listening on the muse score website because the sound font is included and sounds a little better. Thankshttps://musescore.com/user/1990646/scores/6093018

Some years ago, while reflecting on the needlessness of poverty, this little piece bubbled up inside me. Hope it doesn't make you too sad! Many thanks!

Thanks for commenting, @PaperComposer! I'm glad you enjoyed the piece and the performance! I'm glad you found the harmonic progressions interesting! I think I've heard of this technique, under the name "Neo-Riemannian Theory", where seemingly-distant harmonies can be found to be related to the tonic, without necessarily referencing it. While I wasn't really thinking about this technique while writing the piece (as I mostly chose these harmonic progressions for their emotional qualities), I guess I can also take pride in providing an interesting piece for analytical study! I'm glad you liked the climax and closure! Though I should mention this theme appears earlier in the piece, at around 6:00; this is actually the second theme I was referring to in the description.

I may drop this down a tone to the key of C and also rewrite the into into 4/4 time. As you say, I must stop relying on unisons, octaves and homophony so much. Thanks for the review!

I enjoyed your un-traditional linearly derived harmonies in this piece which were very effective at conveying some dark emotions especially once the cello came in and took over the thematic material. Somehow you still manage to stay in a specific key as you seem to return to that key despite many chromatic detractions from the tonality. If I am not mistaken some of your harmonic ideas can be more easily understood through the technique of "harmonic relativity" where two chords are related to one another not through functional analysis but through understanding their quality and chromatic distance from eachother and whether or not they have any tones in common. The particular relations between two chords can give a very unique feeling depending on which two chords one chooses of course. I love the development that you start at 9:13 - it is not entirely a logical choice given the previous melodic material which makes it a kind of elaboration I guess. Then you kind of meld the two ideas together at 10:31 which is always a great lucid moment in a work when two ideas are combined. At 11:34 you seem to introduce fresh material at the climax which is unexpected. Using that new material to close the piece off peacefully is a nice touch. The piece starts very dark but ends solemn. Great job and thanks for sharing! Great performances by both you and the cellist!

Thank you ! 🙂 I'm happy to hear that you think I've succeeded in what I was trying to do here. I don't think I intended it to be so "busy" when I set out to compose it. It just got composed that way haha.. I rely primarily on intuition and my experience at the piano while composing. I understand though that some parts may sound too busy to some. This, I'm aware of. There are definitely imperfections in the recording ..And I play on a mid of the line digital piano... It does what it can. I'd like to have recorded this on a Steinway grand or something. But I won't blame it all on the piano 😄 , the pedalling required for the correct sustain in certain sections is quite tricky to pull off too and I probably messed up here and there. I do have to mention that's exactly what I wanted though. Maybe that sounds odd, but it was the idea of contrasting themes that still flow or lead smoothly into each other but in a "one directional flow" kind of way, is what I was going for. I was actually quite sure of receiving this criticism 😄 . But yes, I purposely didn't use the common methods often used for achieving "thematic unification". For a piece that does that though (atleast I was told it does that ! ), please listen to my previous piece "The drifting waltz" on my channel. Ravel is my favourite composer. I've played Ondine and I could not dream of achieving that level of awesomeness and perfection haha. ( I have a performance of his Jeux d'eau on my channel too if you'd like to hear). I must have heard Gaspard de la Nuit countless times, its an absolutely untouchable masterpiece. Us mortals can only aspire to that level. Ravel has talked about how his first goal was achieving technical perfection. He certainly did or got as close to it as a human could ! I want to really thank you for your critique. Its always nice to get some detailed feedback. Gives me something to work with. I'm glad you still enjoyed the pieces despite its imperfections 🙂

This is lovely! The themes are quite beautiful, and the orchestration is very attractive and pleasant to listen to. I did notice in the first movement some of the chords look a little stretchy, I think they can be simplified a little bit. The fourth movement is my favorite, the melodies and harmonies are gorgeous, and nicely expressed with the long lines and countermelodies in the strings. What makes the whole piece so good is the fact that you don't overcomplicate anything, instead keeping the music straightforward and clear. I personally don't think a concerto needs to have thematic development to be considered "legitimate", but the title 'Popular Suite' works too. I hope it gets performed by a real orchestra, this piece has all the potential to become very popular. I'm looking forward to hearing more of your music!

I think you succeeded in that undertaking. It definitely feels like the unstoppable onslaught of water through your constant driving ostinato rhythms. I once wrote a piece for piano in this kind of style and showed it to my composition teacher and he said "why don't you try writing something un-metered?" I was kind of flabbergasted by that but it made sense. I have yet to write an un-metered piece but I understand that even with all of the rhythmic variety that I (and you in this piece) employ, there's a kind of exhaustion that one experiences in listening to something that is constantly so busy. Also the sound of the piano does not sustain for a sufficiently long enough time to make some of your melodic statements seem connected. On the whole this piece also does not seem very thematically unified. You certainly seem to be quite an accomplished pianist for being self-taught though. For an example of a piano piece that still manages to have a very lucid and connected melody despite many arpeggiations and complex figurations listen to Ravel's Gaspard de la Nuit - Ondine (ironically this piece is also concerned with portraying water). Overall it was still an enjoyable musical adventure! Thanks for sharing!