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Good evening again, dear friends. Although I have posted all the movements of the sonata separately, here I am sharing the entire sonata, where you can listen to all the movements one after the other for a better experience and appreciation of the work. It may not be something innovative, but it is the musical language that expresses me, and that musical language is classical pre-romantic. I hope you enjoy it. Thank you once again.

🎄🌲🎄🌲---=== It's time for our annual Christmas Music Event!!! ===--- 🎄🌲🎄🌲 It's that season of the year again and time to write music in your adored wintry (or summery for those in the southern hemisphere), Christmas-y, Hanukkah-y, or Kwanzaa-y style! The only rule is that this is not a competition!!! So please review the pieces casually, only using the competition reviewing template on those who have expressed a desire/interest in having their music reviewed in this way! 🎅 In this event - anything goes! Submit music in the spirit of the holiday season of any duration or instrumentation! There will be badges given out for all the participants, of course! We will also give out "Ardent Reviewer" badges for those who take it upon themselves to review all the participants' music! This thread will double as the submissions thread as well as the event announcement. Please post only links to your music posted elsewhere in the forum (so that it may be properly reviewed in its own dedicated topic). The following members have thus far expressed interest in participating: @PeterthePapercomPoser @Monarcheon @TristanTheTristan @AngelCityOutlaw @PCC @Crescent Roulade @Mooravioli @Wieland Handke @gaspard @therealAJGS @Vavrinec The event opens on Black Friday, right after Thanksgiving! And closes on December 31st! Excited to see what we all come up with this year!

“ The calm before the storm, the feeling of eating gas station sushi except instead of intestinal problems it’s your ears getting that treatment. Sonic diarrhea is a seven minute work consisting of random noises, groovy melodies, and the sonic equivalent of having a horrible stomach ache… it’s great for the performers too. They get to have a little bit of fun. Structure: this is treated like a Rondo if you may, (ABACA) we have the sonic diarrhea theme (A) , a calmer theme (B) and a very jazzy theme unexpectedly (c). Enjoy!”

not sure if I can meet the deadline, I guess I might be able to share a part of a multisection comp

Happy Winterval to all! This is a work I posted previously in the incomplete section, and it takes the form of a mini-concerto for violin (with the movements indicated by the rehearsal marks). It's more or less finished now; though I may still have to tweak some of the voice leading, and haven't started writing in the slurs yet. Since I last posted it, have added a coda at the end, and a whole bunch of counterpoint throughout the piece. (N.B. Rehearsal mark C indicates the start of the coda.) The work was inspired by Vivaldi, along with a modern work called "The Gold Standard" by Richard Harvey. (The latter was the main inspiration for the coda.) Think the most successful melody-line is in the second movement, as this carries emotional weight for me. The other two movements are more like baroque dance music. (I could imagine the cast of "Bridgerton" dancing to them at a ball!) I may have to cut the work down, as we're not really supposed to go over 5 minutes, and I'm now at 6. So any suggestions about where I could cut would be very helpful. Not quite sure the structure is properly balanced at the moment, or whether the movements gel together as a coherent whole? Any suggestions on what to name the piece also welcome. N.B. The dynamics and articulation are intended for midi rendition, and will have to be adjusted before I send it to the orchestra who are performing it next year.

I am in 🙂

ill join.

Then you can take some of your time to review my works! They all have scores haha. Henry

i’m hoping to participate, itll be a long shot finishing everything up and recording it in time but yeah

After undergoing plenty of struggle to find a proper textual setting capable of matching the rhythmic patterns of this vocal fugue, I decided to settle for an altered version of the "Libera me" movement commonly found on Requiem masses. Despite the minor changes required for the text to fit the subject of the fugue, its treatment throughout has been a conscious attempt to make it as audibly intelligible as possible, as opposed to the vast majority of my previous vocal works, where any regard for the text was completely secondary to the music. YouTube video link:

I would enjoy to participate in this event, too. I hope that I can accomplish my contribution within the next two weeks. Looking forward for listening and reviewing the contributions of other participants

hello peter, I am interested in joining as well

yeah :D

I'll give it a shot

I'm game. Vamos a ver que podemos hacer.

So the big news today is that Netflix will acquire Warner Bros. and will now own all sorts of IP including Lord of The Rings, Harry Potter, Mortal Kombat, Batman and so much more. Immediately, they wasted no time at all announcing "shortened theatrical release windows". In essence, they are aiming to kill movie theaters entirely. https://www.cbc.ca/news/entertainment/us-netflix-warner-bros-acquisition-9.7004170 This is going to put a tremendous amount of people out of work and lower wages across the industry just so that Netflix can increase subscriptions (and no doubt jack up the price further). Why is this bad for you, as a composer? Well, the TV and Film industries remain the most lucrative path for composers between not only composer fees, but longtail royalty payments. Even mid-tier indie films have the potential to pull in millions of dollars in revenue against tiny budgets at theaters. For example, at a film festival I recently attended, some of the films that had been short films in prior years went on to become multi-million dollar projects. Simply put: Streaming means smaller budgets and as an individual film is no longer a product unto itself, especially not if you can only stream it on one service and not "rent" it like on Amazon Prime, the "profitability" of that film is essentially zero dollars now. Because everything is consolidated under one subscriber base. Even with hundreds of millions of subscribers, there is no way that this fixed income can be redistributed to fund anything resembling quality content in any sufficient amount. That means lower pay, lower budgets, and even less room for risks and originality than what Hollywood is already starved of. Regardless of what you think of him, now would be the time for the orange man to do something about these growing monopolies, but what he'll probably just do is more tariffs. Personally, I think this move is going to be a big, possibly final nail in the coffin of the American movie industry. The earning potential for everyone down to production assistants is going to plummet in the American movie industry, and I think you'll see all these people turning towards European and Asian markets. There will be even more creative brain-drain on North America than there already is. Curious to know what you think about this?

Hi @Alex Weidmann! About this I have a crazy suggestion. Maybe you can just cut out the whole first movement and leave the last 2 movements as a pair, because for me those 2 are better movements, while in baroque style they have modern touches. 1st movement also has its modern touches but is more traditional. Or just keep some passages of 1st movement as introduction, then enters the 2nd and 3rd movement in full. I do feel the emotional weight in 2nd movement and I like moments in b.58 when the soloist really sings. I also like the driving rhythm in both 1st and 3rd movements. Thx for sharing! Henry

I don't say blah blah blah.pdf nocturne in c sharp minor. op.13.mp3 composed this in around an hour, I'm actually quite proud of this for the time I put in it. thought I do feel like it's a bit too similer for comfert to chopin's nocturn in c# minor

Hi @Wieland Handke! It’s nice to see all those D major passages run into my favourite C sharp minor haha. Nice counterpoint, just beware that some C natural should be B sharp instead. Henry

I am back with yet another Muzoracle casting! This time Celery asked me when she will find true love. The whole casting ended up pertaining to her past so perhaps she may have already found it! (Muzoracle is a storytelling/fortune telling/divination tool similar to the Tarot card deck, but with cards with musical concepts and 12-sided Musician's dice and Solfege dice. Perhaps it may be thought of as a special musical Oracle card deck.) My interpretation of the cards and dice are displayed below. Since castings in the key of F are associated with the Heart Chakra, they accord with the emotional suit of Strings, so I decided to include a Violin and Cello, since Celery also used to play Violin as a kid. Then, in the 2nd position we drew a Perfect 5th of Voices card, so I included prominent open 5th's in the piece and a Soprano singing Celery's question "When will I find true love?" as lyrics. If you'd like to find out more about Muzoracle and how castings are interpreted go here: https://muzoracle.net/ This short musical interpretation of Celery's Casting is about ~1:15 long. Since the black 12-sided Musician's Die landed on F, the piece is in the key of F major. I created the following melodic/harmonic underdrawing guided by the cards and dice. The first solfege die landed on Le, and the second on Ti with a Perfect 5th card in that position allowing me to use the tones Db, E and B natural. In order to smoothly connect to the tonic chord of F major I included the first two positions transposed down a half-step allowing me access to C, Bb, and Eb. The Tuning card gave me the idea of changing the tuning of the piece microtonally. So I decided to bring the tonic chord down a quarter-step momentarily. But all the tones were brought down by a quarter-step, so the intervals used were still your basic 12TET intervals. In order to extend the piece I also transposed the whole pattern up a half step to F# before concluding on a regular F major chord. Also, since I extended the number of positions in the casting to a total of 5 I decided to use 5/8 for the meter of the piece. If you've gotten this far, thanks for reading! And I hope you enjoy listening to this short vocal chamber work I wrote to represent Celery's Casting. Comments, critiques, suggestions, or observations are of course, always welcome. Thanks for listening!

Hi Peter! With the strong slurs and the microtone it makes me imagine Celery chasing a ghostly love lol! It’s effective but sounds more like the love in the film Ghost even tho there’s “Oh My Love My Darling” there lol. Thx for sharing! Henry

Hi! I'm looking for any feedback on a string quartet that I composed so that I can make some refinements before entering it in a few competitions. Thanks!

Why hello @Vasilis Michael I rather speechless here! This sonata is truly showcases the classical style. MVT 1: Sonta I did not expect the PT to return after the transition and musical pause (MC). That is a lovely twist on traditional form. I also enjoyed how you connected the repeat of PT to ST then to closing section. Everything flows so nicely. The 16th notes run reminds me of Mozart! Even your themes, do. They are so simple and effective. MVT2: Ronodo This reminds, in a way, either one of Beethoven rondos or Mozart's. I just do not know which one. I enjoy simple chorale, homophonic texture and how they slowly evolve thorough out the movement. MVT3: Minuet and trio This well written minuet with a trio. Great work.

This one is a little bit minor, little bit dorian, kept it on the simpler side. 😄 I hope you enjoy, and as always all comments and thoughts are welcome! EDIT: Added Henry's performance... thanks Henry!!

Thank you, I'm glad you enjoyed it! Also, added some wonderful playing by Henry 😄

Hi @Tunndy, Just beware of the parallel 8ves like those in b.1 between violin and viola (A-G), b.2 (F-G and F#-G!). And those dissonance of minor 2nds like in b.5 wouldn’t sound good as well. Henry

Hello folks! Been a little bit (always is a little bit between when I talk on here it seems) I've been hard at work at college writing all sorts of stuff, but amid all the music I'm writing and playing for school, I've also been working on a personal piece for solo piano. Dedicated to someone I love very much, the piece is an exploration of love. Movement 1 is the only movement written so far, and it is about passionate love (maybe I'll call it Eros. Still figuring out names or if I even want names for the movements.) I'll explain the movement's structure so you can maybe understand what I'm trying to do. Intro: It starts floating on an A dominant 7 chord, overtop of which soars a delicate but sometimes dissonant melody with huge leaps. It remains in this uncertain space a little while. Then it bursts into arpeggios and a fanfare-like triplet motif in F Major, gradually building more and more, before collapsing into the exposition. Exposition: The first theme in F minor is fiery and built from two motifs, the passionate right hand and the rumbling left hand. Cadencing in the relative major, the motifs then set off to transition to the next area. The second theme is in the distant key of D major and is a beautiful transformation of the melody from the introduction. A recurring turn motif brings the melody to its PAC and the closing theme commences with triumphant arpeggios (you will hear the inspiration from Chopin Ballade no. 4) but is suddenly overturned by D minor with the rumbling left hand motif of the first theme, ending the exposition dramatically in Bb Major!! Unlike I think literally all of my other sonata form pieces, there is no exposition repeat before the development. Development: In the soundscape of the exposition's closing chord, the developed introductory melody quietly emerges, again unsure, interwoven with fragments of the first theme. Eventually the second theme's rumbling motif takes hold, and a series of violent sequences commences. At its climax, it collapses again in a whirlwind. Out of the bleak, emerges now the second theme, in a hopeful manner, modulating from Ab Major to E minor, and finally culminating in the most passionate and beautiful variation in G Major, with repeated chords and heavy rubato. It reaches its turn motif and PACs in G Major erupting into the closing theme arpeggios, but now being derailed again, even earlier than last time into C minor! And now we're at the Fugue, based on the same rumbling left hand motif that's been so persistent in the development. After reaching its peak, it sequences a little more and is now in C Major and has successfully set up the dominant retransition to the tonic F minor! Recapitulation: First theme is mostly the same as before. The transition is however different and more "bravura" than before. The second theme tragically is now in F minor, and doesn't get its old turn motif to cadence, and instead prepares to close the movement in the drama of the first theme. But it's diverged! We move away from that extreme low register now into the highest register as we hear one last time the full second theme in F Major, much barer and more suspended, but again with its cadence motif. But it doesn't finish quite yet. It repeats the motif, before slipping back into an A dominant 7 chord for the coda. Coda: Largely an exact repeat of the introduction, but what was before a solid dominant pedal, is now broken up by the tonic in the bass, giving a more resolved sound. With no more burst into F major, the movement closes on low D Major chords. Now the reason I really want your guys' feedback is because I want to play this for the dedicatee soon, and I just want to make sure it's perfect before I present it to him. I did show the piece to my professor, but he said it sounded too traditional and suggested I listen to Sciarrino for inspiration 🥲 Let's just say I have different taste than him lol. The performance isn't perfect, and the score is very unpolished! But everything should come across pretty well hopefully. Thank you in advance! 😄

Hey Jonathon @ComposaBoi, I would have commented earlier if not 1) for my consistent illness 2) The tragic HK fire. Very passionate playing and forget all those wrong notes, as the power really reaches me. I will just take note from start to end. The whole first D Major section sounds like a Barcarolle to me with the dominant pedal, and b.3 and b.5 flourishing sounds like Hisashi to me with the dreamy mood. For the b.21 section with that agitato mood I won’t write Lento on it with 32nd notes. I may just augment on the notes by 2 and put an allegro agitato there. Like the solemn and furious F minor theme. I actually find the 2nd subject too short and the triumph arriving too early, and then the breakdown to D minor too early. I love the key changing in your development (for example to C minor), but I do think that left hand triplets motive can be used less frequently, since it sounds a bit predictable at the end for me. I like the Ab major section but again I think you can augment the note value and put an Allegro there. Like that you bring the triumph of the 2nd subject before the fugato. I feel like the fugato here not developed enough just like the fugato in my Nocturne lol. And basically that triplets motive dominates the whole development and maybe you can use a different subject? I really like the Grave Mystico (or Misterioso?) passage with the higher register melody, contrasting the middle to low register used mostly in the piece. I only feel the D Major ending unsatisfied since it’s really unrelated to what happen between. But maybe it’s right here with later movements. Thx for sharing. Henry

Hey Pabio @Fugax Contrapunctus, I really enjoy this older style counterpoint. The subject strongly reminds me of the first subject of Contapunctu XIV in Bach’s Die Kunst der Fuge. May this piece also dedicated to the victims of the Hong Kong fire recently happened. Henry

Hi Peter, Really enjoy this one and it sounds especially calm when it’s much needed. Like Mike noted the two Melodies sound so well together just like any good counterpoint. Adding those flats near the end of each phrase really helps push the climax. Thx for sharing. Henry

inspired by Adrian Von Ziegler check him out my fav Celtic artist

That’s true with the first clarinet part there’s sometimes where it gets very high. If I remembered correctly, I added some optional lower octave material just in case if that gets too much for them.

And I thought those low D-sharps on the basses were far too excessive! I couldn't even bring myself to sing below a very awkward-sounding E despite technically being a baritone. I wonder how potent of a voice a deep bass singer must have for such a B-flat to be remotely audible as pitch instead of pure vibration. To me, such extended ranges seem far more extreme than the usual alto-contralto range, which I believed is usually cited to reach down to an F below the staff. In any case, the concern is understandable. This fugue was originally set for D minor, as much of a nod to Mozart's heavy association of death with this particular key as a matter of convenience in order to adhere to the standard ranges for vocal music, which as we know often tend to require more conservative estimates in choral settings. Unfortunately the digital choir soundbanks I'm using struggled far more just a semitone above in certain passages, with certain octave leaps in the tenor part sounding especially screechy, so in the end I was forced to choose the lesser flaw and thus had to resort to lowering the whole piece to its current key. I hesitate to even call it a double fugue, as what might appear as the 2nd subject is in fact merely derived from the first, and I certainly would not dare label it a triple fugue, despite the relatively minor changes undergone by the subject that would normally not be explained by a conventional tonal answer. The stretto treatment is undergone first by what could be considered the 2nd subject following its own development section, and only then does the stretto for the original subject come about, thus helping cement an overarching ABA' superstructure that unifies the piece as a whole beyond mere exposition, development, stretti and codae in cycling motion. As for the Christmas Music Event, perhaps I might be able to submit a proper piece before the deadline. As of lately I've been considering a 5-part motet rendering of "O Magnum Mysterium", though I may consider other related texts to the same effect. In any case, I'll let you know in the dedicated thread if I manage to finish anything suitable in time. Thank you for your review!

Hey everyone 🙂 I've been slowly plugging away at a cycle of 24 preludes. I got pretty slow with this (ending up only writing like one prelude per year for the past couple of years) so hopefully I'll pick up the pace now that I'm pretty close to the end (8 left to go!) Bb Minor is maybe my favourite key signature, so it was pretty hard to decide what this prelude would be like. The theme is 'Masquerade', and I think the personality of the piece is quite hard to pin down, a mix of sarcasm and earnestness. Hope you enjoy! 🙂 this is my first piece I'm posting on this forum, but obviously feel free to check out anything else on my channel + especially the first fifteen preludes in the cycle so far, haha

It reminds me of 20th century neoclassical. Very nice.

I like how creepy it sounds and the dissonance you use! Kinda reminds me of shostakovich!

I couldn't help but fall in love with this track from Silksong - Cogwork Dancers after 8-bit music theory covered it:

Yes!! Anyway, the sounds you've got are nice.

Thanks Luis: that's exactly what I was aiming for! Can't wait to hear what it sounds like when played by real musicians.

Congratulations. I think it sounds great. I certainly think it has a very classical feel to it, but in many places it veers towards something more modern, such as some of the progressions in the slow section. I notice that it is treated mainly as melody plus accompaniment, which is quite light and with little emphasis on the counterpoint. All in all, it works wonderfully.

That sounds very pleasant. I always think these types of buildings are wonderful.

Here.

This is present because I tried to include the harmonic characteristics of both Carol's at once which didn't always result in nice consonances. Thank you for your review!

Pretty awesome how you were able to seamlessly merge the themes together. Fun dissonance sprinkled in every so often, which could very well be hints of a Bad Santa making his way through town. Or perhaps the Grinch is waiting nearby to cause mayhem. But overall the themes are pleasant and you changed them up to incorporate your own voice. The ending is very pleasant and have fun harmonies. But I do hear a tiny bit of sharp dissonance hidden in the passage. It sounds like something didn't quite go as planned, but it was too subtle for Santa to notice.

Here is my first submission!

I like this -- my 1st ends with the melody on Ab, so I will probably start the profession from the Ab instead of the Eb.

Thank you!! This sounds great Both songs are slower, slightly hymn-esque pieces

Another way would be to move to Abmin for a moment and then, from there, to its parallel major of Cbmaj (enharmonically equivalent to Bmaj). I think it could be quite smooth specially if you go through the V64 --> V progression (B/F# --> F#). For example: I guess this couldn't be considered a lush progression, though. As @Monarcheon suggested, for a lush progression it might be better to start with some line (maybe melody, or a strong bassline that you know points towards B major, or both) and start filling in the remaining voices in any way that sounds good.

I'm more of a voice-leading kinda gal, but I came up with this on the fly. I have no idea if it works in the context of your own work, but in general, I'd advise starting with moving lines that mesh well, then filling in gaps. Happy accidents happen all the time!