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Hello people! I just wanted to share a quote from a musical book that was recommended to me by @Thatguy v2.0 "The magic strings of Frankie Presto" by Mitch Albom about a fictional character (Franke Presto) who was purported to be the greatest guitar player to ever walk the Earth, told from the perspective of music itself, narrating. Feel free to share your own favorite quotes from books you've read about music! And if you got this far, thanks for reading! Peter

I was recently inspired by @gaspard's vision for a "Space Battle" variation of Brahms' Lullaby (for @chopin's Lullaby Challenge): I also link his YouTube video here: Brahms Lullaby, Space Opera Version (not orchestrated) You may also view his hand-written score here: And you may also listen to his performance of this variation on his clavichord below. In my orchestration of the piece I tried to channel @gaspard's vision for a "Space Battle" variation. I added some dissonance in certain places and tried to make the orchestration overall sound as big as possible. Let me know what you think of this collaboration! I really got a kick out of writing this orchestration. In the spirit of the original poster, I have included my hand-written score as well as a score exported from Musescore. I hope you don't lose yourself in the mess of files! LoL Edit: Also, it would be useful to know if the original Brahms' Lullaby is still audible in both the original and orchestral version. Thanks for any comments, suggestions or critiques!

@gaspard I don't see a stand alone post of yours for the entry, so I'll just say here that your entry is awesome to me. It's very colorful and jaunty, and even if I didn't know the space battle theme beforehand, I would've definitely stood in favor of it depicting a battle. Very cool music! Your writing is superb, and only outshined by your handwriting. The score is beautiful 😄 Peter, your orchestration is awesome too, and really brought Gaspard's music to life. It's very rich and heavy, but lighter when it needs to be. I like when you took out the clarinets and trumpets, that seemed like a wise orchestration decision to make the music more gentle over the flurry of harp notes. I think the theme could be easily heard with both versions. Maybe a little easier with the orchestra since it's not all homogenous in sound.

I haven’t pondered on ‘goals’ too much as I’ve ben involved with music in some way as far back as I can remember. It was a assumed I’d be a composer, an amateur, rather than performer, administrator, impresario or technician. No one ever asked me. If there are goals: 1 Yes - portray aural illusion but of a kind that ignites visuals in listeners’ imaginations. (synaesthesia, I suppose). 2 Musically capture moods and impressions without being programmatic. 3 Write the sound tracks to dreams. 4 Write music for modern dance. 5 Keep in touch with standard (if modern) forms and tonality. 6 Experiment, including electronics and dice. 7. But above all, to borrow PeterthePapercomPoser’s words: ultimately to write from the heart. A goal? Yes, because it means clearing the pitch of debris on the way. Whether I’ll ever achieve 1-4 is debatable but it’s worth a try. I simply can’t put music down in spite of so many other things needing to be done!

@Henry Ng Tsz Kiu recommended me a fictional novel, "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" by Milan Kundera and I happened to find a great musical example/discussion about Beethoven in it!

A few more. Here's what the book says about Mahler: Mahler had an incurable ambition to write the longest, noisiest and most expensive symphonies in the world. This he actually achieved several times and not surprisingly, it was a long time before people could be persuaded to listen to them or that impresarios felt like trying to make them do so. It was suddenly realised that Mahler had not written long, boring symphonies of the Brahms type which you have to listen to carefully from beginning to end in order not to miss the themes, but had, in fact, simply strung together hundreds of attractive little tunes, and it was possible to go into a coma for a lot of the symphony and still get involved when you came to again. It is possible to switch on the car radio in the depths of Surrey to what appears to be a Mahler symphony well in its stride and to arrive in London and find a parking place with it still going on in a forgetfully energetic way that suggests it might still be in progress at 5.30. It is quite obvious that all conductors get lost during a work like the 7th which Mr Cooke has now called the ‘Mad’. No doubt someone will prove one day that Mahler was crazy. If not, why did he go to such trouble to write so much when he achieved better results in his short symphonies like the 1st and 4th. ABOUT Bruckner: "It is generally said that Bruckner was a simple man - practically a Nature Boy, you would gather from some writers. If, after listening to one of his symphonies, you still feel that he was simple, then we must all be gibbering idiots - well, perhaps there is something in that. In fact Bruckner was as deep as the Ocean. He was also an organist and organists are far from simple men. / Another misrepresentation of Bruckner is to bracket him with Mahler. The only thing they had in common was a liking for long symphonies.....(etc) = = = = And another couple of definitions: Pentatonic: Music that can be played on bagpipes. Perfect Interval: A period of time long enough to queue up for and consume a cup of coffee. .

here’s my other variation. It’s supposed to be in a “space battle” style and is definitely supposed to be orchestrated but as i haven’t done any orchestrating in quite a while i don’t feel confident about doing it myself.