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I'm in too!

I’m in! Curious to see my work judged on a professional level.

The original: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=im6tbN9SZXs Regarding ornamentation: this is very stylistic and I added it to imitate a live performance, where the performer would sometimes elect to add their own flourishes in the repeats of the music for interest. Sometimes there are no such flourishes, sometimes the flourishes are subtle, and sometimes they are very elaborate, as in here (e.g. listen to any recording of any English Suite by Hantaï or Schiff). But these flourishes are almost never written down explicitly (e.g. out of the 18 complete keyboard suites by Bach, he only "fully wrote out" two Sarabandes). This is very much alike the choice of tempo and articulation - which there are plenty in the playback, but not in the score. I've attached the score of the playback for your interest. Hopefully you can see why the score is presented the way it is.

Would you mind sharing the score? It might be the key, dunno, but it doesn't remind me too much of anything in particular. Perhaps Plants vs Zombies main theme because of the chords and the way it's "enveloped", but in my honest opinion, don't worry. I understand your feeling though, my first nocturne has a certain section where I cannot avoid thinking "darn, was this resembling Haendel's Sarabande all the time or is it just me?". It was nice piece to listen to. If I had to criticize anything that would definitely be the ending: it felt a bit lacking and disconnected from the rest of the piece, but it might just be the lack of humanity MIDI playback has and in any case, this is just my humble opinion :B. Kind regards.

I accidentally broke some glass one day and I arranged the pieces on a shogi board as a sort of sculpture. It occurred to me later on that you can sometimes find things of great beauty after other things have been destroyed. This is not a comment on this piece, as far as I can tell I never attempt programme music. I just hope that whatever I do that I do it in an original 'voice'. I don't mean 'better' or 'nice' or 'original for originality's sake' but only something that has not been heard before, otherwise what is the point? No warmed-over Chopin or Beethoven or Old-Time fiddle music for me. Then again, the last cadence was a bit conventional albeit in a somewhat cool kind of way.

This is a wind band arrangement of a choir piece I did a couple years ago. (That piece is also on this site!) The original choral version was for a Hallowe'en virtual choir, and in this arrangement, I tried to use the expanded palette of the wind band to evoke even more spookiness. I'm fortunate that most of my choir works are performed live--but the same can't be said for my band music! So I spent an inordinate amount of time making this recording in my DAW with samples from VSL Special Editions v. 1-2. The sequencing process took considerably longer than actually orchestrating the piece did. It nearly destroyed me. I don't know how people who create entire orchestral film scores in DAWs do it. So... if you're one of those people, feel free to comment on the sequencing/mixing as well. I tried to make it sound as realistic as possible. I hope you enjoy it! (ALSO! The link to the original choral version is here: https://www.youngcomposers.com/t41687/strange-is-the-night-halloween-virtual-choir/#comment-1186698054)

I love this piece.

This is very good work, especially for one of your first choral pieces. The vocal lines are all very singable and, despite the "free counterpoint" feel of most of the piece, there's still a good sense of melodic cohesion. The big pauses help define the form and prevent the listener from getting lost. But you could try preceding some of them with more unresolved harmonies for more of a sense of momentum and continuity (as it is, I think the form stagnates a little because every section ends on some kind of D minor or F major harmony, both of which feel like a tonic in this key). When setting a text in a language you don't speak, it's always good to say the words out loud (silly as it may seem) while you're coming up with melodies--and generally make sure you know where the emphasis happens on every word. Most of the text setting here was all right, but there were a few things that might seem awkward to someone familiar with this text (especially when you emphasize and draw out the first syllable of "Maria", even though the 2nd syllable of that word is emphasized in speech!)