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Me too! Thanks for your encouragement! Exactly. I had to move on to bigger and better things. I'm already brainstorming some ideas for my next piece. I would love to keep exploring "lush" harmony and chamber ensembles. I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed writing for this ensemble. Umm b/c it's the BEST lol. I was originally going to start with just the tonic maj7 chord, but I felt like the dominant-suspended harmony just set the tone better for the rest of the piece. I'm open to receiving any feedback that anyone has - I want to keep improving my orchestration, harmony writing, form, etc. basically everything

as the title suggests, for 4 months (pretty much exactly) since july 1st to yesterday, ive been working pretty non-stop on this scherzo. it has been a crazy ride, full of adventure and auto-pilot composing. many times where i just composed without thinking, and somehow it resulted in something good, maybe i should hone in on that... anyways, this was a lot of exploring uncharted territory for me. for starters, this is the first time ive ever composed something this fast, in terms of tempo (ideal tempo is ♩. = 210). used to sticking to my slow tempos, always found them easy to write in, but i thought i would use this opportunity to push myself. the other thing is ive never written a piece so non-linearly. i started the piece by writing the first 46 measures of the tempo primo after the slower trio-esque section (which i will from now call the trio). then i moved to the first fast scherzo section, in the middle of which i began writing the beginning and the final climax of the trio. sort of near the end of the first fast section, i wrote the final 21 measures of the piece. after that it was completely linear work. im definitely warming up to that process, it's the second time ive used it for a major piece of mine. all being said and done, 4 months, 1096 measures, and 17 minutes later, ive finished my scherzo (my longest purely developmental piece yet)! a big inspiration came from suk's scherzo fantastique and the scherzos from shostakovich's 6th (i think the 2nd mvmt counts as a scherzo) and 9th symphonies. generally, the point of this scherzo was to have lots of completely unexpected but natural things, and a lot of jokes, and to never take itself too seriously. even the slow section is, at least the way i look it, light-hearted, not deeply emotional or intense. i am EXTREMELY proud of this piece, though this is before any cleanup and editing, still have that adrenaline rush and love eyes/ears that come from finishing a piece lol (though im open to feedback of course). would love if you could take 20 minutes to listen to it, i hope you enjoy it as much as i enjoyed writing it!

I just have one very trivial comment about your scoring. Like me, you use rehearsal marks to delineate motivic changes. I too used to put my first mark (A) at the beginning of the score. Then I sent my work to an orchestra for the first time, and was told the first mark never goes at the beginning of the piece. That's because the conductor will say "go from the top" if they want to start over. I then had a look at some works by famous composers, and found this was true: they never put the A rehearsal mark at the start of the work.

Thank you to everyone who gave me feedback - this is the final piece! Program Notes: "Beauty for Ashes" draws inspiration from Isaiah 61:3: "To appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that He might be glorified." This piece reflects the contrast between sadness and joy, crafted through Louis's signature blend of traditional and modern harmony; inspired by jazz harmony and film scores. The main motif, a 5-measure phrase, ascends with leaps and scalar motion, symbolizing the climb towards joy and redemption. Secondary material navigates unexpected harmonic terrain, briefly shifting to evoke turmoil before returning to the main theme, restored and renewed. Louis uses modern harmony, secondary dominants, and modal mixture, creating a nuanced emotional landscape in which sorrow's depth and hope's radiance intertwine. The piece culminates in a triumphant, cinematic chorale finale, symbolizing hope and victory. Sweeping dynamics converge with moving harmony lines, resolving to a radiant major 7th chord, evoking flourishing "trees of righteousness" – roots deepened by sorrow, branches stretching toward light. Duration: 5:22 Instrumentation: 1 Flute, 1 Bb Clarinet, 2 Violins,1 Viola, 1 Cello

Don't forget about this community. We have a Discord too, which might suit your style better. Did you make the recording more dynamic? Whatever change you made, I think it made the recording sound a lot better. Your chord changes definitely give this piece a very movie-like feel to it. If you are going to get an orchestra to play this, I'd love for you to post the recording of it here when finished.

The beginning is very strong, and love your chord progressions. You have a very nice rhythm along with a beautiful melody, and I feel the buildup works really well. When you change things up around 1:40 I felt like it was a great way to break things up. I wish you had more of these instances where you changed things up though. The recapitulation of your intro at around 4:20 is beautifully done. I literally have 0 criticisms with how you ended this piece, probably because you ended it with a recap of your intro, which I feel is very strong. The intro, 1:40, and the ending are by far my favorite parts. The only minor criticism I have would be to break up the momentum just a little more in the body of the piece.

I want to preface by saying that this sounds, and looks, very well done. Though, there are some areas of repetition, it's not too much and is pleasing to a listeners ear. The differences in mode without actually changing the mode, in some areas is also very cleverly done! Overall, the sound of it is pretty great, my friend! However (I know, I'm sorry. lol), In my personal opinion... Percussion parts being written in, such as Timpani, Sus. Cymb., Concert Bass, and/or Grand Staff Marimba, I think, could benefit the piece greatly. I kept hearing bits of percussion parts in my head that would've added much more emphasis on some of the phrasing you have here, and would've overall given it a more grandiose sound, all together. One thing I've noticed... (There's more than one phrase within the composition that does this, but this example is just the one that I see, most conveniently at the time of typing this) on page 27 of the score, in measure 197, for Violins 1 & 2, and Viola, the rhythm notation is incorrect for these passages. If you start a measure in 4/4 with an eighth note, it's typically seen as improper to immediately follow that eighth note with a quarter note. You're essentially notating a quarter note, starting on the up-beat of beat 1, and this is confusing to players, and to anyone reading along, since a quarter note will always start on a down beat, in any given score 😅.. Instead, replace each quarter note with 2 eighth notes tied together. It helps the player to subdivide the syncopation that you have, there. Secondly, a piece this long, really should have Rehearsal marks for when/if an ensemble may pick this piece up to perform at some point. Otherwise, the conductor and players will all have to look at each page, or, count bars to find a specific place in the music to go back and practice through. I usually break rehearsal marks up into sections/sub-sections. (When transitioning to a new phrase/variation of the motif, would be section A-Z, and subsections would be A1-10 - Z1-10 to mark areas of note that involve any variation OF the variation sections, if you understand what I mean by that. Take a look at my piece, here, for reference. Look for A, A1, A2 etc.. You'll see what I mean lol)The Long, Arctic Midnight.pdf Lastly, I observed that the Oboe and Horn parts have a lot of areas where a player may strain themselves early on in the piece, resulting in fatigued embouchure muscles before the piece has ended. This would make for a higher chance of players making a mistake in intonation, or even playing higher pitches with any sort of power or emphasis, nearing the end of the performance. There was also a moment there, in the first section of the piece, within the repeat bars, where the Horn has a very long set of tied whole notes. Players have to breathe! (Unless they learned how to circular breathe, but in my experience, as a trumpeter, most people aren't too privy to having any desire to learn that skill, so not a lot of wind instrument players can do that.) To conclude, the symphony you've written here has a very traditional sound to it, the writing is complex and for the most part, done really well. Honestly, the type of music written here isn't something that I'd ever pull off with any effectiveness... lol but Take what I say with a grain of salt... I'm also someone who's been out of the music game for a long time, and only within the last 6 months have I picked things up again. I'm not even back where I "left off" at. I dropped out of college pursuing a bachelors in Music Theory & Trumpet Performance, after the 1st year, and became a mechanic shortly after. So I'm still kicking the rust off my brain for my music theory knowledge. And have also never been "instructed" in composition methods, and I'm more of an autodidact who can read music well, and who likes to poke around on a score sometimes. Someone else here, with a high probability, would be able to give you even more to consider, than I will, certainly. Anyway. I like what you've done here, and just take my words into consideration at your own convenience. 🙂 Goojahb. 😉

Hi @GospelPiano12! I'm glad you finally decided to finish and submit this piece to the competition! I think it's important to move on in music sometimes. You might not even be aware of the things you've learned from this composition until you try your hand at your next big project. But if you had stayed in revision mode with this piece you'd never be able to leave this piece behind you and go on to something new and better. I love how you start the piece right away with your self-professed favorite chord - the Gmaj7add6 over A, creating that suspended dominant sonority you like so much. There's perhaps no particular problem with that choice, except that usually composers choose particular harmonies for their effect in relation to the theme or guided by the melodic necessity. If you don't guide yourself by your themes/motives then your piece might just be a collection of favorite harmonies without any semblance of logic. But the themes/motives can be the guideposts for your harmonies and rationalize them. Because otherwise the possibilities of the different extensions and alterations of the sonorities are so great that one can have a hard time picking them. Thanks for sharing and keep going! I'm stoked to hear your next piece!

saw this a little late, but still managed to get it in a couple days with something im happy with. definitely leaned into more of a scary atmosphere rather than a lighthearted scare that halloween probably merits, but im not good at that sort of stuff, so i thought i would lean into using orchestrational-ostinato to create a brooding atmosphere. hope you guys like it!

yeah, via the title you may gather that i have not decided on a name for this piece. i may say that ive been working on this piece for half a year now, but in reality it's been about 4 years since i began work on the piece. i initially started backwards, writing the coda section, but i wrote it as if it were the beginning section, but sounded very much like a natural ending to a piece it just didn't really work out, and for all 4 years, i had been working, actively and inactively, on trying to find out how to flesh this out into a full work, until i had the fantastic idea to stick at the end of the piece and figure out what comes before it. it's the first time i've ever worked "backwards" on a piece, but it's been quite rewarding, i very much enjoyed figuring out how to connect the themes of the end to the rest of the piece, and the joy of finally being able to use that piece i wrote four years ago is a sense of joy that's not very easily put into words lol. but anyways, open to criticism, specific and general. feel free to access the kinda rough and ready score i've provided, there may be a bunch of errors, but anyone else who's able to offer engraving feedback please do!

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