Leaderboard

Just a simple piano romance for my girlfriend Julia (for her birthday). Thanks for listening and I hope you enjoy and let me know what you think! A Romance.mp3 A Romance.pdf

Dear fellow composers, I’m pleased to present you today my submission to the YCF 2026 Spring Competition! Here is the picture showing a historic city rail (S-Bahn) train and a nightingale capturing the sounds of spring in Berlin. The idea behind the piece is to describe the contrast between the noise of the big city and the tranquility of nature. I know that some of you, especially if you’re from Asia or the U.S. will smile when I refer to a city with not even 4 million inhabitants as a “big city.” And yes, that’s actually the case: Berlin is indeed a “huge village” with a surprising number of green and quiet areas. The piece tells the story of a journey with the city rail from the crowded city center to a suburb where are allotment garden communities are located. Since modern trains are more or less „sterile“ and lack their unique sound, I imagined taking this trip on a historic train, like the ones that ran in Berlin from the 1920s through the 1990s and were known for their characteristic noises, such as the slamming of doors and the typical hissing sound when compressed air escapes. Once you’ve arrived in the suburbs—so the story goes—you leave the station and head to the allotment garden complex. As you stroll along the garden paths, you’re surprised to notice nightingales giving their evening concert. And yes, it’s actually true that throughout Berlin, from April through June, you can hear many nightingales every evening and every night. The nightingales are really loud and have a distinctive song, so I’m very surprised that there are so many people who tell me they’ve never heard a nightingale before. The piece is a string quintet featuring a violin, a viola, and a cello, accompanied by two pianos. I have decided to use two pianos so that they can share the extensive tremolo and trill passages, which improves playability. It has an A–B–A form, with the A sections representing the S-Bahn ride. I’ve chosen the unusual 13/16 time signature—initially as a challenge to myself— but while working on it, I realized that the 13/16 time signature can be considered as a compound meter of 3 + 4 + 6, which evokes the idea of acceleration (of the train), and, when reversed to 6 + 4 + 3, that of deceleration (as the train enters the station). The B-part is in 12/8 time signature with a lovely, lulling siciliano rhythm, thus emphasizing the calm scenario while walking through the gardens. I hope you’ll enjoy the piece as much as I enjoyed working on it (although I somewhat underestimated the effort needed …). The YouTube video is coming soon. Thus, stay tuned! Praeludium-XVII-A-flat-major-quintet-mix.mp3 Praeludium-XVII-A-flat-major-quintet-with-coversheet.pdf

This is nice! I really like when the strings enter at m 16, it’s a really nice color. If it were me I would move the Horn 1 part in m19-21 to the 2nd Trumpet. Then maybe bring the 2nd trombone at m22 down a fourth so it doubles the 2nd trumpet at the octave (or maybe even remove it altogether…?) Also, why does Trombone 2 have that part instead of Trombone 1? Overall really nice arrangement, I enjoyed listening!

yes! im still intending on submitting!

Yes I still intend to submit a piece :) I also have a question: will there be a period after submissions are done to allow me and others to review the other pieces?

@MK_Piano , @UncleRed99 , @MrBelegro , @Luis Hernández , @Some Guy That writes Music , @ferrum.wav , @Monarcheon , @mercurypickles , @apple , @ComposaBoi , @HoYin Cheung , @Oak , @Brandon S Could you let us know if you still plan on submitting music to the competition? The competition will close to further submissions on Tuesday!

Hello my dear friends. Here my latest binary Sonata no 24. I hope you like it.

Hi Music Maestros! Just wanted to post my latest orchestration, which I only started on Thursday: so it every rough and ready. This is from a piano piece in three movements by Frank Bridge, and I've so far tackled only the first movement. Planning to do the rest soon. I think it's a beautiful piece, that's not very well known, and has, to my knowledge, never been orchestrated before. I'm hoping Peter may be able to give some advice on whether my French horn parts are playable, because they go a bit high. Also my trombone and viola parts are sometimes in the uppermost range. Have taken quite a few liberties with my arrangement, including tempo adjustments, additional notes, retiming transitions, and new counter-melodic lines. Without these changes, the orchestration doesn't work well, as it's quite challenging to adapt from piano. Some of my fermatas will be replaced by ten. markings (which Bridge himself uses in the original). Dynamic markings are intended for midi playback only: so I will be adjusting those. My flute is getting buried in the mix towards the end: so I will be adjusting that. But any other mix advice would be very helpful. I wonder, should I lower the threshold on my compressor, as the dynamic range is very wide? Anyway, hope you enjoy, and hopefully I've introduced some new people to this lovely work. Frank Bridge - Dusk #24 (added ZL compressor).mp3 Frank Bridge - Dusk #24 (added ZL compressor).pdf

A little Feedback on Melody lines :

Yusss... Have been quite behind, juggling my attempt at this score, and "life". It'll be in, on time :')

I'm 100% sure our Boss @chopin won't make silly mistake like this in Music Jotter ^0^

You're welcome. Musescore is wrong. There's some kind of glitch in the horns where if you go up to concert Bb in the treble clef it marks it as outside the range. It's because someone programmed it wrong where a concert F should be the top of the range rather than the written F (transposed into F Horn). It's just a mistake they haven't remedied yet.

No, unfortunately not this time. I am away and unable to finish the work I started.

I wrote another Romance for my girlfriend Julia's birthday. I hope you enjoy and let me know what you think! Romance No. 2.mp3 Romance No. 2.pdf

Wow even more attractive haha!

Can be Fattening.................................If you have more than 10 Packets a day

Hello I’ll share my experiences as an amateur ‘composer’, though I do have extensive training (both self-taught and formal) in harmony, counterpoint, fugue, etc... and I’m currently working on orchestration. At first glance, it might seem that a concerto for a solo instrument and orchestra is easier than writing for an orchestra on its own. Because you think: “Ah, as there’s a soloist, it’s easy for them to take the lead and develop everything, etc.” But I believe the opposite is true. With a solo instrument and orchestra, the compositional difficulty multiplies, unless you want to limit yourself to a soloist and a few instruments playing chords. I think a good progression for composing is: 1) Write for piano. Even if it isn’t your main instrument, get hold of a MIDI piano, study how the classical composers wrote, and keep practising until your piano writing sounds natural (like proper piano music, not just a series of chord blocks). I see it this way because the piano is polyphonic and allows you to sketch out anything. 2) Write for small ensembles: string orchestra, small early classical-style orchestra. 3) Expand your palette by thoughtfully enlarging the orchestra. More instruments doesn’t necessarily make it better. 4) I always study the orchestration. Know about each instrument, its origin (which explains a lot about why an instrument is the way it is), what dynamics, ranges and articulations are possible, and at a ‘normal’ orchestral level. It makes no sense to write extremely difficult parts for orchestral sections. 5) And finally. Add a solo instrument. You can write short pieces. That’s what I’ve done so far with soloists. You need to understand very, very well how an instrument works to develop it as a solo part. Even Brahms consulted the violinist J. Joachim on his violin concerto.

The YCF chocolate looks really yummy!

@BipolarComposer Hello, perhaps I didn’t explain myself clearly. I didn’t mean that the register is too high for the bassoon in that passage, but rather that in such high passages, the part is usually written in tenor clef.

Also for @Luis Hernández bringing up the instrumental issue, I think Stravinsky intentionally used the high register of Bassoon for that nasal timbre, which works really well for being the “Augurs” of spring in the introduction and for later movement. I think Stravinsky works really well there. I don't think it's hard for Bassoonist to play mp in high register, since in the high register it’s easier for them to play mp than f, given the nature of double reed instruments (same for oboe and cor anglais.) Henry

For the Bassoon, I get your point, however, in the Rite of Spring, Stravinsky has the Bassoon start on a high F at mezzo-piano and in the “Kiss of the Earth” section, he has it hold a high E for three measures at piano. So, it is possible.

Melodies Themes Motives Harmony Chords Textures Form Development Structure Time Originality Creativity Score Presentation Instrumentation Orchestration Playability Execution of Given Challenge Taste 9 9 9.5 10 10 6 8.5 9 Avg: 8.9 Your Melody, Theme, Motive is wonderful. Right away I could hear what you were doing in the bass. Extremely clear and intentional, and it's a beautiful entry. Also in the intro I like how you seem to interweave the theme while modulating upwards. I can see this representing a sunset in an old western movie perhaps. The biggest criticism here would be playability. Is it playable? Sure, but the way it's written, its for a larger ensemble. This most likely could be formatted for a proper quintent and not lose too much of its texture.

Melodies Themes Motives Harmony Chords Textures Form Development Structure Time Originality Creativity Score Presentation Instrumentation Orchestration Playability Execution of Given Challenge Taste 8 6.5 9 7 10 10 7.5 7.5 Avg: 8.2 I think your scene is incredibly difficult to portray, but I hear the cultural influence of your piece. It brings me back to perhaps the 1500s. Definitely a solid melody, and fugue-like parts (perhaps more like a hybrid fugue - invention maybe?) Nevertheless, even though your harmony is simple, I do like that you changed keys halfway through.

Melodies Themes Motives Harmony Chords Textures Form Development Structure Time Originality Creativity Score Presentation Instrumentation Orchestration Playability Execution of Given Challenge Taste 8.5 5 10 8.5 10 10 10 8.5 Avg: 8.8 I think you nailed the challenge with this, the mood in my view really captures the image / scene. I know I marked you down for harmony, and normally for a mood piece like this it wouldn't be a big deal. However perhaps you could have implemented even just 1 transition (from early morning to mid morning), especially on a 5 minute piece. Other than that though, this is a very beautiful musical scene!

Melodies Themes Motives Harmony Chords Textures Form Development Structure Time Originality Creativity Score Presentation Instrumentation Orchestration Playability Execution of Given Challenge Taste 7.5 6 9 10 10 10? 9 8 Avg: 8.67 Really good job on portraying the scene, which is the whole point of this challenge. And executed with custom percussion sounds nonetheless! While the score is hard to follow, clearly you needed that setup to execute the musical output. I gave you a 10 anyway because you communicated your intent, and you clearly cared about the musical output, which is important to me as a listener. I have no idea if this is playable, but assuming yes, so you get a 10 with a question mark. This reminded me of a jungle scene which is close enough to your image! And I even hear what sounds like water in your music which I would imagine represents the reservoir. VERY well done!

I like your theme here very much. It would give you lots of interesting room for development. As for the voice software, I do think it can really help people understand how a piece will sound all put together. Even among professionals working in the arts, not everyone is good at visualizing a finished product, so anything that pushes a demo towards accurate representation of the performed work can be helpful for people checking out your work. How much work and expense is it to put this extra layer into the recording? For something like this, where you have orchestra plus soloists and choir, it may be more worth it than for smaller works, because if you didn't, it might be hard to choose an instrument to represent the voices that would stand out in the mix, particularly for someone who was trying to read across the full orchestral score and pay attention to everything at once. Looking forward to seeing the development of this project!

Honestly, very stupid question if not a much more stupider idea. But is it possible if someone for a competition brings in a piece of music that they have already written prior to the competition, and if it coincidentally fits the criteria they could enter it. This sort of makes sense if they want that piece of music if they’re confident in it to get it judged in a different way.

Hello, I listen to this a few days ago in the car so my memory may not be as fresh, but I didn’t have time to actually review anything. From what I could remember, the composition technique was good and the piece itself was good. It’s just good to keep note that you’re using multiple string instruments per section. At most, this is supposed to be a quintet. You’re calling for multiple violins, violas, and cellos as well with the samples corresponding to such. Anyways, I’m going to be listening to your piece again and I’ll give feedback there. Score presentation is also kind of interesting. A lot of the notation you use isn’t usually found in modern string Orchestra stuff for example like those repetition things that you put into the following measure in a lot of octave lines that’s usually used only for piano stuff. Also, some of the stuff that you may have presented may be difficult for some string players along with some double stops you have presented Your score average is 7.45 Like always keep up the good work MelodiesThemes Motives Harmony Chords Textures Form Development Structure Time Originality Creativity Score Presentation Instrumentation Orchestration Playability Execution of Given Challenge Taste 8.7 9 8.5 7.9 6.5 6.8 5 7.2

Happy Birthday Julia ....................and what a lovely Birthday Present from Peter.

i have not taken any composition classes before and also the title of the piece is just a placeholder, the reason why it's called Fiesta is that that it's the name of the song the melody originated from (also if u cant tell, the audio is just extracted from musescore) any feedback would be appreciated! thanks for checking it out! advanced.mp3 advanced.pdf

Hello, everyone! How are you all doing? I’m happy to present my latest composition to you. This time it’s my second Concertino for oboe and harp: https://youtu.be/JxpGgbgH_Y4?is=gqxZEb_TLF88EW9e Thank you to everyone who listens to the piece, I really appreciate it!

Thx Vasilis, I am happy you enjoy it! Henry

Hi @Vasilis Michael ! Lots of nice harmony like sudden nepolitan chords, modal borrowings (usually from minor keys) and unexpected modulation throughout the work, in a nice hunting rhythm. Thx for sharing! I haven't written a score for many years given my bad handwritting haha, unlike our PaperthePetercomposer a.k.a@PeterthePapercomPoser lol. Henry

Sorry, I kind of ran out of inspiration and even though I never forgot about the competition and even composed a draft I couldn't really go any farther than that. Thanks for understanding in advance.

Thanks Peter! MuseScore was telling me the horn part was straying into "expert range": so it's good to know it's ok.

Thank you so much for the kind words. Coming from you it's a great compliment, as I'm a huge fan of your work! I actually tried that brass arrangement in Bars 19-21 already; but much prefer the way I have it now. I found two trumpets together were a bit harsh, and the mellower tone of the horn created a better colour overall, when blended with the rest of the brass section. Think I also tried the trombone an octave lower in Bar 22, and switched it back; but will give it another shot. The Trombone 2 thing is just a temporary glitch in my score. I will be switching it to Trombone 1.

@ferrum.wav @ComposaBoi I can not wait to read your scores, listen your pieces, and then score it. :)

If you can't listen to it fully because you aren't masochistic enough, then you should better just stay out of it instead of making rootless criticism, as it won't make us happier seeing someone not enjoying their masochistic play. Henry

You don't explain anything by posting your own music in other member's post. Also since you are a new member here, please check out the forum etiquette in the link below: Forum etiquette and Code of Conduct - Advice and Techniques - Young Composers Music Forum If you click into it please check out rule 2b: So you should post your composition as a new dedicated topic, and then you explain why @Wieland Handke 's music is "bland and forgettable, have nothing enjoyable and is not interesting to listen", and maybe then quote your own work here, instead of just posting your work here with zero explanation. Henry

Why so? Could you explain and elaborate more on that? Henry

Great! Looking forward to hearing it! You will have a week (until June 9th) to review and vote for the winners.

It’s an interesting piece. I think you make excellent use of the dynamics and the rhythmic foundation, creating an intriguing yet effective contrast with the slow section. What I like most is that the piano really sounds like a piano; I mean, the writing is idiomatic for the instrument.

Melodies Themes Motives Harmony Chords Textures Form Development Structure Time Originality Creativity Score Presentation Instrumentation Orchestration Playability Execution of Given Challenge Taste 8 8.5 8 9 9.5 9 10 9 Average Score: 8.8 Review: Melodies/Themes/Motives - There are many recognisable motifs, quite a few of which take the form of trills, etc. Harmony/Chords/Textures - The texture feels rich yet dynamic. Form/Development/Structure/Time - Performed as described and for an appropriate duration.. Originality/Creativity - The choice of instruments, particularly the two pianos, is unusual, but having listened to the piece and looked at the score, I believe it is entirely justified. Score Presentation - The score is correct and easy to read. Instrumentation/Orchestration/Playability The score is very effective, but it seems entirely playable. Execution of Given Challenge - I think the author has succeeded in achieving his aim. Taste - I like this piece because of its unique flavor.

Good job my dear Henry. Always aprecciate your work. Well done

I would get to Transcendent rank in a much quicker pace if I posted like you haha.

Hi @Krisp Papa Jean! I always enjoying your composition and singing and this one is in no exception. I really love the color you use in the whole piece. The chromatic harmony is fascinating, the low register secco marcatos and stacatissimo from the piano in the first section, the more diatonic and flowing passage in 1:26 gives a really great contrast to the previous section. It's interesting in 0:58 when the lyrics is "Scales Old scales" there is a scale playing from the piano. The repetition of the Digadoden with the secco staccatos and low register notes (and later sweeter legatos) is very well managed. The ending is really nice as well, as I thought it would end in a false dream and serenity but finally it ends with what begins the piece. Thx very much for sharing! Henry

Hi @Markus Boyd ! A nice Classical String Quartet which displays great writing skills for chamber music, I like all those passages when all instruments are given their voice. B.99 of 1st movement sounds really interesting to me for a delaying of the recapitulation. It's interesting to revisit an old work for a revision right? I only know that when I'm revisiting my Clarinet Quintet in recent days. One sidenote: I still enjoy Noteperformer more than Musecore sounds especially for strings---Musescore always automatically add slides between non slur notes in different strings which sounds a bit off to me. Thx for sharing! Henry

Hey Pabio @Fugax Contrapunctus ! I thoroughly enjoy this one! I love your Die Kunst der Fuge like treatment of the canon themes when you keep adding complexity to the piece progressively. I don't calculate the counterpoint you use at all but only enjoy it without thinking. It's sad that Gerubach passed away this early. His contribution is significant since he may be the first one to post score videos on youtube which lots of people follow his tracks later on. Henry

I spend a lot of time refining this composition over a period of a few months. Working almost sorely on this piece alone. I also attached the first version of the composition so you can see the difference. Did I make real improvements? Any critique? Thanks in advance. Finale version draft 1War born re composed for orchestra draft 1 20-05-2026 - Flow 1.mp3 First version Like clock work - re write 3 - Flow 1.mp3 warborn revisited finale version.pdf First version Like clock work re write 3 . 18.03.2026.pdf

“Good evening, dear friends. Here is the scherzo from my third Sonata. I hope you like it.”