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Probably my best/most expressive work so far. I would love to get a feedback on this!

Decorate_(Yuto).pdfare these better?

It won’t be hard to read without the octave lower sign! The lowest note of the passage will be a G sharp which only needs two ledger lines. It would be better than to use a bass clef or the octave sign now. Same for the other two instances, it won’t have too many ledger lines even without the octave signs! If he can’t read that, don’t be a pianist then LoL! Henry

Wow, myself being a Michigan native, I do get the sense of our Great Lakes beauty from this. I would still say try to add a little more counterpoint to bridge your ideas. Still, VERY strong writing in this piece. You study with Bill Ryan? I haven't met him but I certainly know of him.

Hello everyone, Since this is my first post here, I will add a small background of myself. I am 17 years old, a senior, and have been composing since 8th grade. I have had little music theory training up until last year when I took AP Music theory. I have additionally been playing trumpet for 8 years. I drew inspiration for this work after hearing the genius of Václav Nelhýbel in his work, Symphonic Movement, as well as the works of Danny Elfman and his various film scores. The main premise of the piece is to convey the mystery and intensity of the night, with a pseudo chase theme in the beginning, fading away to a calm yet unsettling theme, that builds into a dramatic climax. After the climax, a more evil chase takes place, leading to the finale, which briefly recapitulates on the cascading woodwind motif in the beginning, and ends with quite a punch. I hope I did an alright job explaining the general structure, and I would greatly appreciate any feedback I have attached the score and MP3 file in a Google Drive folder. The sound engine is NotePerformer 4 and Finale 27 is the notation software

Great teaching here!! Five drums are becoming more standard, especially with the bands that could play this piece. Make sure you put five drums on this one. Also, You REALLY need to put rehearsal numbers on your pieces. The lack thereof will make band's life a living Hades if you don't. This composition has some straight fire in it. Make sure you put in competitions!

1) Instead of divisi, consider, putting the top part n the viola and divide within the violins. Makes it even thicker with a great depth of sound. 2) Put a double bar break at Measure 11. This will let the musicians subliminally know something is going on there. I would also put "!!" as a rehearsal bar there. Also, instead of doubling, maybe harmonize? counterpoint there? build vertical not just horizontally. 3.) Your divisi beaming should be split to allow for ease of reading. 4.) When the stings enter, don't be afraid to take that harp solo up and octave. The range of the harp is GRAND! use it1. It will cut through even more. 5.) Overall, you have a great sense of melody. I strongly recommend you added more counterpoint here. It was the piece so much stronger and it give the musical edge . My $0.02

Very nice work! The only notational issue I can spot with the harp, is that you haven't included pedal diagrams (which composers are normally expected to provide). One other minor issue, is that some of your hairpins have no target dynamic at the end. If you do that, the musicians within the section could each make different decisions about where to go.

Simply, a nice work, very good use of silences and dynamics. Sometimes the texture is almost transparent and rather beautiful. Good rendering. I felt the storm could have been more tempestuous but you declare it to be brief. The close was magical except the final chord was perhaps a bit too powerful. An easy work to which to listen. Most enjoyable.

Great job! I've already expressed how effective I think this music is at its storytelling. I think my favorite part of the piece is the heroic brass choir melodies. Those parts actually remind me a bit of James Horner's score to Apollo 13. I do wonder how you produced this rendition of this piece - maybe it contains a combination of artificial and recorded sounds? Like the shushing and the snapping of the fingers to signify the waves and the rain, respectively, is very creative, but hard to accomplish in a computer rendition of the music. I also thought the ending crescendo was a bit unexpected and inappropriate for a calm sunset. Maybe you just wanted to let the audience know when they should clap? LoL Thanks for sharing!

Hello @JordanRoberts, For me this is quite a beautiful descriptive piece depicting the scenes! The beginning Sunrise is beautiful, though I think the splashy sound effect seems unnecessary for me. It reminds me more a fairy than a lake to be honest. I love the awakening effect by having notes and instruments gradually join in like the beginning of the slow movement of Beethoven's op.135. The crescendo is very effective to the next section! I like how bright the brass is in b.35; however I think the woodwind in b.40 seems overwhelmed. The clarinet in section 3 is beautiful! But I really hate that splashy sound effect!!!!!🤣 It makes the music more artificial instead of more natural. For me personally I don't think the trumpet theme develops well since it appears in too short of amount of time and then the swelling comes. You can explore more on the theme and have it end properly before getting to the thunderstorm in my opinion. The thunderstorm for me is too brief. Maybe you are trying to imitate Beethoven's Pastoral here? Since there's no tremolo here as there's no strings as in Bee's piece, and the whirling of woodwinds isn't a good substitution for it. And it's not as climactic as it's promised! That makes the subsequent conclusion weaker since the climax is not pushed for me. The clarinet of the gentle evening part is lovely! It's quite rare to have woodwinds featured in the piece though as you are a brass player? But the ending is perfect for the serene atmosphere, except for the sea, raining and splashy sound effect. I like you are connecting the sunset with sunrise by having similar sustained notes, but here it's only in the woodwinds. Then suddenly the crescendo at the end ruins the serene mood and for me it's not quite reasonable. I may just have the music ends in ppp instead. Why do you choose to end in fff for a sunset? For me this is an unnatural and strange choice. I may be nitpicky, but I do enjoy this piece. Thanks for sharing and don't forget to press the button for reputation point lol! Henry

Hey @Gabriel Carlisle, I would like to ask something first. In the Decorate one, what is the octave sign in the middle mean in b.1-15? I think the octave signs in b.31-34 of Decorate and b.1-5 of Relics and Sorrows unnecessary though. Henry