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A short piece, inspired by Schubert's Moments Musciaux (in this case no. 4). I dug out an old sketch from years ago, dusted it off, managed to have enough of a spark to finish it. That's why I save everything!

A short little waltz I made up. It’s no “Blue Danube” but it is blue. Done in the piano roll of Sonar 8.5.

Yeah what? Shouldn't he be categorized as an "intermediate composer"?

No, in fact I'm trying to get a more modern sound in the harmonies while still not having it be too dissonant as the most dissonant movement comes after it. When the Bass Clarinet and English Horn along with other instruments come in in later movements, it will be more obvious that I'm working with a modern orchestra rather than a classical orchestra. Yes. Holst was the main inspiration for this piece and some movements like Mercury, Jupiter, and Saturn have similarities to the same movements in Holst, and others like Venus and Mars are opposite that of Holst in my suite. For Mercury, the similarities to Holst are: 6/8 time signature Smaller orchestra Sharps/Flats key contrast -> though this is also different in terms of scale, Instrumental in Holst, non-repeating Binary Form in my suite Hemiolas and other complex rhythms Fast tempo Some harmonic dissonance, but not a lot compared to one of the other movements. As for the opposites, you know how Holst's Mars is basically a 5/4 march through hell with all that dissonance, even atonality and Holst's Venus is relatively bare in comparison, peaceful, almost melancholic, and more consonant? In my suite, those are reversed, so Venus is the dissonant march through hell and Mars is the instrumentally barren and more consonant of the 2 movements. Those similarities and opposites come from one thing, Holst going with the Astrology/Mythology interpretation and me going with the Astronomy interpretation. Sometimes they align quite a bit, like with Mercury and sometimes they don't align at all like with Venus and Mars. And I'm also including Earth and Pluto in my suite, which Holst never bothered to do.

Thank you! Yep I understand the concern! I do think that it is not high enough to make the fingers hit the bow, I just tried it with my violin and it wasn't impossible. But I definitely agree that the effect may not be as noticeable in that range, I think for the sul tasto sections in upper registers I will alter it for future drafts! Hmm yea I get your point, and definitely this movement I am still very unsure on the title to give this piece in particular, especially given the whole tone nature and I can't really pinpoint on what effect specifically I am going for as of yet. Worst comes to worst, I will scrap the title and just label it as absolute music (although I feel this piece is really suited for an overarching theme) Yep I understand your point! My compositional style is strongly late romantic-early 20th cen. in nature, and I definitely do want to try composing in the style of Messiaen and other contemporary composers! Well the good thing is that the criterion isn't necessarily requiring me to compose in the style of Messiaen but rather just using his modes of limited transposition. Thank you for the feedback! Dorico is a very interesting notational software! The pricetag was really steep and was only slightly less than Sibelius, so yea I would suggest you try Dorico on a free trial first before fully committing to it. It has its set of advantages and disadvantages. First of all, User interface is really really really streamlined. It feels so much less clunky compared to the infamous Sibelius interface. The engraving tool in Dorico is particularly easy to use and powerful, and I was amazed that I intuitively understood how to use the engraving tool without needing to check a tutorial, so formatting scores and making score videos are a breeze. The presets of specific instrument techniques were also really helpful and the keybinds for certain things like key signatures triplets and text were easy to figure out! The whole software felt much cleaner compared to Sibelius and However, there's some drawbacks compared to Sibelius. While Dorico is already very advanced, there are still some minute stuff that Sibelius has and Dorico doesn't. Free meter compo is much more complicated on Dorico for one, and it doesn't have certain features I would like. Noteperformer works far better on Sibelius than Dorico as Dorico doesn't support some techniques compared to Sibelius, such as glissandos (which I often use and it is so annoying to not have its playback capability), artificial harmonics, molto vib and slap bass. But overall I still really enjoy Dorico and it is really a joy to use compared to Sibelius! true haha I originally meant the piece much slower so I will probably change the title in future drafts.