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Hello @Gwendolyn Przyjazna! I am always interested in pieces featuring „exotic scales“ and modes and so I was excited to find out how your „progressive rock instrumental“ would sound like. Since you didn’t provide a score I could concentrate on listening: My impression is, that the harmonies sound very smooth together – not as dissonantly as in some of @PeterthePapercomPoser’s Persichetti excercises, for example „Persichetti Exercise 2 - 56 for Clarinet Duo“. Thus, producing a dreamy, melancholic sound where especially the transition section from 01:52 to 02:26 reminded me indeed at Kate Bush! I must admit that I had to lookup what the Lydian Augmented and the Spanish Phrygian scales are all about. And so I found the reason why they are gentler or even more similar each other than I expected in the pair Lydian/Phrygian: The Lydian Augmented scale is more „darker“ than the traditional bright Lydian mode (which sounds paradoxical at first glance), while the Spanish Phrygian scale sounds much more „brighter“ than the original Phrygian one due to its major third. You added the tag „counterpoint“ to the piece so that I was curious how a counterpuntual rock instrumental would sound like. But to be honest, I get the impression that for most of the piece, you only had one voice with a melody, while the other instruments accompanied in chords or long notes, so I have to admit that I didn't really understand what you meant by “counterpoint”. Thank you for sharing, I very enjoyed it!

Hello @MK_Piano! Yes, that’s really a good swinging big band piece which immediately reminds at Glenn Miller’s „Chattanooga Choo Choo“. Good old steam trains seem to have inspired many composers and musicians because of their „sound“ which comprises „rhythmic“ elements (the start of the locomotive, increasing and decreasing speed, the rattling noise when driving over the track joints) and melodic elements (the puffing of steam, the whistling of the locomotive, or the squeaking of the wheels when braking) which animate to be imitated musically. Who would write a piece inspired by the noises a nowadays train produces? Another good example of a piece dedicated to a steam locomotive is Arthur Honnegger's “Pacific 231”, which is not a jazz piece, but rather a dramatic symphonic work. I liked it very much and I must say that the repetitive character mentioned by @PeterthePapercomPoser didn’t bother me, especially taken into account the purpose of the piece as soundtrack for a movie where it does not appear in its entirety but is cut into parts to underpin the individual scenes. Or whenever it would be played in a bar as the background music, the most visitors would not even notice it.

Wow this is great! And you're getting a performance? Very happy for you, you should update this with the audio once you get it! I've made edits to my music posts too, and I think it's easiest to add the revised audio to your original post, or just remove the old one and replace with the new. That way when people click on your music they're greeted with the version you want them to hear 🙂 Great stuff, looking forward to hearing more from you

Dude these are hard to keep up with lol... but I guess I've been busy and haven't been on here as much... sorry! Listening... Ok cool! I'm almost finished with a counterpoint in two voice piano type of piece, so this is right up my alley. The language is different, but the upper part kinda looks familiar lol. I really wonder if it would have sounded better having the intervals closer together, but with them far apart it was like an eerie bi-tonal carnival ride to me or something 😄Were you mainly thinking of the consonance of intervals? It was dissonant but smooth. I know it was just an exercise and you had a prompt, but what about texture change? I'd love to hear staccato bass or something, even if just a segue in the middle. Cool piece! Have any of these exercises given you grander ideas for the themes you've used? What do you feel you've gained so far in these compositional studies? Hopefully your next major work has even more craftsmanship from your work. Well done!

Some badges must me earned. Some are given freely, but there is one badge that rules them all. Legend holds that a mysterious "better than thatguy" badge is given only to a chosen few. You must search through the members profiles and sift through their badges to gain further knowledge. I wish you well in your quest.

Hi @MrBelegro! Welcome to the forum! For the Outstanding Orchestrator badge, you may look into pieces below which are awarded the badge for your reference: For the "Better than Thatguy" badge, actually it's named so because one of our moderator's username is @Thatguy v2.0, so you may check out his works to see if you are better than him or not lol! Henry

Hello @Tunndy! You have picked the perhaps most covered or orchestrated rock/pop song ever, the iconic Bohemian Rhapsody, which I consider to be a huge challenge. Everyone who hears the piece knows it and has its own expectations in the sense of „does it sound like the original“. I had the chance two years ago to attend a live performance of an orchestra and choir, and I was impressed how realistic that was performed - very close to Queen’s original sound. But that's also the problem when everyone is sensitized to noticing every little “mistake” or deviation from the original: you're faced with the challenge of bringing your own personal touch or interpretation to it. And that's exactly what you've done very well. The longer I listen to your orchestration, the more I notice some beautiful interpretations that really make it “your” piece. I particularly liked the ending, from bar 103 onwards! However, I could imagine that this personal interpretation could go even further. Therefore, as an inspiration, I have linked a YouTube video of David Bennet who reinterprets Bohemian Rhapsody in different modes or scales, which I find very fascinating. Thank you for sharing, I very enjoyed it!

Mother and Son 12-9-25.pdfHi all, Once again I resurrected an old work which needed a dusting off and a new look. It's called Mother and Son ... I describe the playful and sentimental interactions of a Mother and child as they play/interact in the park. Mark

Hi Tunndy, I notice your glissando lines have gone a bit haywire in Bars 54-55. Also in Bars 23 and 41 Violin II, you should flip the direction of the note stalks to make it clear what's going on there. Same in Bar 61 Violin I. Bar 55: some rests need deleting in the harp and Violin I. Same in Bar 66 Bass Drum, and Bar 69 various instruments. Plus a few more places where you have unnecessary rests. Bar 74: voices need tidying. Other than that good job! Also liked your recent Liszt orchestration of "La Campanella".

Another Persichetti prompted piano piece. This time the prompt was "24. Extend the following chromatically ornamented piano passage." The form ended up being ABACBA. Thanks for listening and I hope you enjoy and let me know what you think!

I don't know why, but it sounds neoclassical to me. I imagine this piece in an 18th-century drawing room. I think it has an intimate, somewhat playful feel to it. Good work on these exercises.

I‘m glad to hear that, and to see that you are not too „disappointed“ or overwhelmed by the discussions. Since I see that you are (again) in „good hands“ with @muchen_ continuing a detailed discussion, I will not go so much in detail, but give only some more general thoughts. I‘ve noticed your new version (v3.mp3 – not yet v3m.mp3). Will say that I put it together with the first one on my playlist and listened them, in a loop, perhaps a dozen times while walking. I do the same with my own compositions (where I use different piano soundfonts producing 10 different recordings of the same piece) and listen to them extensively while I take a long walk. This approach helps me to judge the piece whether it is fluent and I get distracted from my thoughts every time something „rattles“. Will say, a more relaxed review on the work thru listening only – being away from the score – is very useful to find out bars which need overhaul or get new ideas how a piece could be continued. Coming to the two versions of your invention I‘ve listened, I must say they are only slightly different (which is good in the sense that your corrections/modifications had no impact on the overall mood). The longer I listened them, the more I loved the subject with the repeated notes! Yes, in the first version there are the few bars, where the „octaves“ produced a bit „thin“ sound in the counterpoint. They have gone away in the newer version (what is good) except of – in my listening impression - two bars, one at the first subject entry in the lower voice and one bar nearly the end. So, I will now look to the score to see whether I can find out what I thought to have heard. ... The one bar which retains to sound „thin“ is bar 4 and the other one is bar 22. Yes there is an octave on an A on the second of the repeated notes. But I think, it‘s not the octave only - there are other ones on a C in bar 3, last of the repeated notes and on a F# in bar 5, second of the repeated notes – which don‘t need „correction“ in my listening impression. I think the „problem“ in bars 4 and 22 is more harmonic nature, I would replace the three sixteenth notes in the upper voice [G A B] with [E# F# G#] emphasizing the dissonance between B major and the four repeated A naturals. Because this was more detailed than I initially intended to be in this repost, so take it not too seriously. The more general question I have – and you probably have yourself – is what do you intend with, for example, this particular invention. If it is an exercise, you‘ll have learned something, especially about „octaves“ – and can leave it at that, going to the next one. But perhaps this is not the best idea to continue with the 1601st exercise, as you seems to me to be already somewhat „overteached“ and „overpracticed“. If you are about to create a „full fledged“ composition of it, we could further talk about episodes, cadences and a more elaborated ending. However, I suspect that you would prefer for that purpose another piece with a subject of your own, which than will be „complete your baby“. For that case, I would suggest you to put your composition in a more larger „framework“, such as in a cycle of, for example of six or twelve inventions, calling it somewhat like „Mein Notenbüchlein“ 😅. I think, that‘s quite enough for today! Greetings, Wieland.

Hallo @TristanTheTristan! Even your Sonatina has a length of a Sonata, I think it was wise to call it „Sonatina“ only, due to its youthful spirit and its refrain from the drama and heaviness of a „full-fledged“ sonata. So it is a cheerful, enjoying piece at all! However, what refuses me to count it as a piece that I would enjoy to put in my playing list is its hyperactivity expressed by the much to fast and repeating passages with ornamentations (trills, tremolos etc.) which heavily remind me on your signature „TristanTheTristanTristanTheTristanTristanTheTristanTristanTheTristanTristanTheTristanTristanTheTristanTristanTheTristanTristanTheTristanTristanTheTristanTristanTheTristanTristanTheTristanTristanTheTristanTristanTheTristanTristanTheTristanTristanTheTristanTristanTheTristanTristanTheTristanTristanTheTristanTristanTheTristanTristanTheTristanTristanTheTristanTristanTheTristanTristanTheTristanTristanTheTristanTristanTheTristan ….“. I can therefore only emphasize @PeterthePapercomPoser' questions about playability for a human performer and would love to hear the piece as it would be interpreted by a real pianist, whether it's a live recording or a recording from a MIDI file. In the latter case, however, more sensitivity to the technical abilities of a human pianist and their enormous nuances in articulation, dynamics, tempo, etc. would be required.

38 years or so, this was 1997!

That sounds fantastic. Perhaps a version without so many annotations would be clearer. Although for educational purposes it's great. And well, you've left me wanting the second part.

I made this very small renaissance motet for 4 voices, Cantus, Altus, Tenor and Bassus. However my stupid brain wrote the text wrong and instead of "Sicut LILIUM" it became "Sicut ILIUM", I only noticed it after finishing the motet! But besides that part everything is in accordance to what it should be. Enjoy! Text: Sicut [l]ilium inter spinas Sic amica mea inter filias

MP3 Play / pause Persichetti Exercise 2 - 57 0:39 1:25 volume > next menu Persichetti Exercise 2 - 57 > next PDF Persichetti Exercise 2 - 57 Nice! You have a nice sense of atonalism. It has an eerie and mysterious feel to me. (ending on a V7? That is one reason.) Also the use of the whole tone scale is nice and surreal. It is not fully used, but definitely has the characteristics of it.

It'll take some time though.

Oh yes, please do. I'm convinced it will sound different - and better.

Here is an extended and revised version of the piece. I’m still experimenting with having a wider variety of instruments, for now they are the same. I’m in over my head with making arrangements like this so all feedback is appreciated

This time I share with you a musical quote from "The Occult" by Colin Wilson. And if you've gotten this far, thanks for reading!

“It’s a huge…comment!” Lol. Thanks for the supportive and constructive feedback. I have inserted my comments inside brackets: “It's a huge improvement from the previous piece. The countersubject you've written is very melodious, and you've exploited its scalar nature and its rhythm very well for the rest of the piece.” [The original motive is longer than you thought. There is an important stretto in this #10 (see pic) and I cannot take full credit for the scalar line and the rhythm]. “ The harmony in your counterpoint is very apparent and well-constructed too: the first bar outlines descending thirds, and the second bar is a dominant chord. The issues regarding accented 8ves are also no longer there. You can refine your countersubject slightly though. All of the semiquavers in bar 4 should be raised by 1 pitch. This will both highlight the underlying dominant harmony, and also lead to the E in the following bar more smoothly. “ [yes it sounds better! I made this change to bar 4, 10 & 22. I have also changed some registers because it became too high or separated. Then I made a few adjustments in bar 10.17 and 12.83 (see v3m.mp3) ] “With this change, your solution will be perfectly acceptable, but a slightly more musically "interesting" solution will be to turn the beginning of bars 3 and 4 into 4-3 suspensions.” [The motive ‘forbids’ that change, I suppose. It could be possible at bar 3. For bar 4, on the other hand, I cannot have there a 4-3 suspension because the 3 doesn’t belong to the V chord. In fact there was a 4|7 at bar 4 in the original motive, but I cheated and replaced it with a 8|7 because I wanted a VI, not a iv or a ii° chord. Am I wrong? Should I bring back the 4 of aiv or ii°? ] [And for the 3 other points, I’ll look at it closely and rework my piece. Thanks a lot for this precious advice ;)]

It's a huge improvement from the previous piece. The countersubject you've written is very melodious, and you've exploited its scalar nature and its rhythm very well for the rest of the piece. The harmony in your counterpoint is very apparent and well-constructed too: the first bar outlines descending thirds, and the second bar is a dominant chord. The issues regarding accented 8ves are also no longer there. You can refine your countersubject slightly though. All of the semiquavers in bar 4 should be raised by 1 pitch. This will both highlight the underlying dominant harmony, and also lead to the E in the following bar more smoothly. With this change, your solution will be perfectly acceptable, but a slightly more musically "interesting" solution will be to turn the beginning of bars 3 and 4 into 4-3 suspensions. Then I'd raise the following points about the rest of your piece: As mentioned before, your piece needs strong cadences to serve as musical punctuations. You need a V - i (or I) in the tonic key at the end. You also preferably need another in a different key somewhere else. The tonal scheme of your work is perfectly sensible: tonic - dominant - relative - tonic, and so a second V - i at the end of either the dominant or relative section is desirable. A third or fourth strong cadence may also be added at your discretion. Your subject + countersubject together is invertible (in the sense of exchanging bass with soprano and so on) and so you should invert it! Every opportunity you've had (bars 7, 13, 19) you've presented us with a modified version of the subject and countersubject instead. You are allowed to do these pitch modifications (and I indeed like them), but given you have presented the theme consistently throughout the work as soprano -> bass pairs, you should also present these modified themes as pairs. Utilising these modified pitches as new motifs in your episodes would also be desirable. Whilst you will find episodes like these (i.e. repetition of one passage, with slight modifications) in the oeuvre, far more commonly you will see different episodes being constructed completely differently. They have different lengths, and are based on different harmonic progressions. Melodically they generally still play from the pool of the motivic material in the theme, but the exact details vary from episode to episode. The reason why is not because repetition is bad - repetition is good if done sensibly! But the journey you take to get from the tonic to the dominant must clearly be different from the journey from the dominant to the relative, so a different approach is needed each time. Writing different episodes will also allow you to place the much-needed cadences at will. When you can employ this repetition technique however, is when your starting and ending keys are separated by the same interval. In your case, this means you can reuse your episode between the dominant - relative (v to III) as an episode between the relative - tonic (III - i). If the subdominant was part of your tonal scheme as well then it means you can reuse a tonic - dominant (i - v) episode as a subdominant - tonic (iv - i) episode.

Hi @TristanTheTristan! It's a vigorous sonatina brimming with your youthful energy! The only thing I didn't care for was the meaningless shows of impossible virtuosity. I think you are not composing for a human being but rather for the computer program which is a shame. Making music possible to be played does not make it worse which is something I don't think that you understand. But even with that - I enjoyed many parts of the piece - the adventurousness of the 3rd movement especially. But the 2nd movement was horribly boring and the melodies in the 1st movement were meaningless scalar passages. There are so many parts of your piece that are mechanical and robotic that I won't go through mentioning them by measure number as it would be too herculean a task. I don't know - don't you want to write music that could someday be performed? Or do you want to be known as a midi or Musescore composer for the rest of your life? Thanks for sharing.

Symphony-Concerto In A Major For Electric Guitar And Orchestra-1 Free Sheet Music by Robert C. Fox for Various Instruments | Noteflight Symphony-Concerto In A Major For Electric Guitar And Orchestra-2 Free Sheet Music by Robert C. Fox for Various Instruments | Noteflight Symphony-Concerto In A Major For Electric Guitar And Orchestra-3 Free Sheet Music by Robert C. Fox for Various Instruments | Noteflight Symphony-Concerto In A Major For Electric Guitar And Orchestra-4 Free Sheet Music by Robert C. Fox for Various Instruments | Noteflight

I would be more along the lines of giving a good classical guitarist an electric to play around with for a couple of months.

Greetings @Wieland Handke! The F-natural in bars 3 and 4 of the 1st and 2nd entry is very much intentional, even though it does generate a certain degree of instability not present in the original, fully tonal rendition of Mozart's own canon. In fact, I should thank you for highlighting the matter of accidentals, as the previous version did not, in fact, feature completely real transpositions of the theme. There were a handful of mistakes every 3rd bar, not contrapuntal, but harmonic and thematic, as the continuity and integrity of the transpositions was broken with leading tone and its minor 3rd/5th of a dominant chord being raised a semitone higher. All of that has now been corrected, so unless any more oversights of mine were to resurface, every single entry should now be a real transposition to the lower major 2nd of the main 18-bar-long subject. I'm glad to learn that the current length of this canon would prevent it from seeming far too repetitive to the eyes of an educated listener. Indeed, I was worried it might end up sounding excessively mechanical despite the flowing timbre of legato strings, as monotony may distort even the most sophisticated of musical devices into pure pure noise after far too many identical, tiresome reiterations. It's a relief to know that to you it did not appear to be the case here, and I must thank you for your acute observations, for otherwise I might not have come to realize that the transpositions were not 100% exact. I should also probably check @PeterthePapercomPoser's take on the Persichetti exercises, especially considering this canon on different scales you just mentioned. I'm anticipating a gold mine of modal/post-tonal contrapuntal solutions! Thank you for this recommendation as well.

Oh that's a difficult question about the differences and preferences between the two versions! For the first impression, they sound similar. And that is not meant as superficial impression, but rather I'm all the more amazed at how these three different scales retain their personality while now acting together (or against each other) in a different distance and relation. Maybe the tertian variant is more melancholic and serene, while the quartal one has a more excited character. This impression might be emphasized by the fact that the three voices are now narrower together in the tertian version and the sopranino clarinet does not play in such a high register and is less shrill. (By the way, I like that you’ve used three instruments with different registers, so that the voices are clearly separated, despite the somewhat annoying sound.)

Hallo @Fugax Contrapunctus! I’m astonished how it works to create such a harmonically balanced piece while stepping down a whole note for each subsequent voice entry! Since @PeterthePapercomPoser also presented a canon based on different scales in one of his recent Persichetti exercises, I would like to know if you transposed some of the canon imitations into other modes or scales to achieve this harmonic consistency? I didn't check it out thoroughly, as I initially thought you had changed from minor to major to minor in the first three entries, without noticing that there is no F# in violin 2 in bar 4. No, the three entries are identical. But now, I think I’ve probably figured out the trick: The theme starts on the lydian fourth, F# in the theme being in C major – at least for the first four bars. However, a few bars later the melody starts to descend to the flats handing over the harmonic center to the next voice. So the descent is inherent in the melody which might be a bit difficult to learn due to its harmonic instability. While being heavily repetitive by its nature, the entire canon is not boring – at least not at this length. If being part of a larger work, such as an oratorio, I could imagine that it would be contrasted by a more declarative and stable section.

Yeah. It is also tremendously difficult... Let's say two guitarists somehow managed to premiere it by playing the main part together.

The really! How? Is how someone would actually perform this...😦

Firstly, You combine the symphony and the concerto, and the you add an electrical guitar. wow. i am IMPRESSED. (really! How?)

just checked this out and damn the orchestration rocks. Keeps that cute vibe from the original but makes it way bigger and emotional. Solid work!

MP3 Play / pause DDLC Your Reality FINAL 0:00 0:00 volume > next menu DDLC Your Reality FINAL > next PDF Your Reality just checked this out and damn the orchestration rocks. Keeps that cute vibe from the original but makes it way bigger and emotional. Solid work!

Hallo @Frederic Gill! I have read the thread about your „2-part invention in counterpoint“ and since there had already been lively discussions I decided to take a look on another piece which has not got a review yet. I like the motif (or „subject“) which is indeed somewhat „stubborn“ because of its repeated notes (but there are many famous fugues with repeated notes in the subject). And so, your decision to vary the motif sometimes to avoid that repeated notes is quite a good idea. The counterpoint is well chosen rhythmically, giving the entire piece a continuous flow and its „funny“ character. As far as I remember from the other thread, there were some dispute about „parallels“ and „octaves“ which was – also in my opinion – somewhat „overteaching“ (I couldn’t follow all arguments or „issues“ without going into detail too deep), so that I can understand that you’ve deleted most of the posts. But to be honest, after listening to your E minor invention, I can understand what the other commenters meant: Not „parallel octaves“ (or „parallel fifth“ as to be avoided in counterpoint generally) are problematic, but only the occurrence of the same note (in an octave) on a strong beat that makes the piece sound something „thin“ at that particular note. This is the case in a two-voice counterpoint only. If you had a third or fourth voice there would be enough harmonic material overall (and that might be the reason that writing a two-part fugue is much more challenging than a three- or four-voice fugue and why there are so few of them). I think, you can solve the problem, for example by varying your counter-motif in that places where it creates the octave. You will then lose the smooth motion at these points and have to insert a leap, but that might emphasize the humorous character of the entire piece!

I've used an 8-bit soundfont here because I have not found any orchestral soundfonts that I liked. Everything has just too much vibrato and too heavy a texture from a HIP (historically-informed performance) point of view. I think Bach works well realised as 8-bit music so this is the approach I took. If you prefer audio which is faithful to the original instrumentation then I've attached a version of it here.

This sounds really nice. How long have you been composing scores (just curious)?

You call the first theme folk melody...that's a compliment; I thought of it as a fugue subject in disguise! There are romantic-era nods as well. In the first movement, the slow intro sounds a bit like Tchaikovsky, and the final cadence is a direct rip-off (well, tribute to?) of the final cadence to C.M.V. Weber's Der Freischütz first act! Different key. It has always been my favorite opera!😉 It is not postmodern, but could that be true in a way? Basically a Nineteenth Century symphony, but has Baroque elements, even some Classical ones. We LIVING composers have the luxury, especially today with everything on the Internet, to be eclectic.

I saw the viola in the bass clef thing; just a Noteflight glitch, it likes to change things! It was on a measure rest so didn't make a difference in the sound, but of course I corrected it!

A lot of voice leading things that are weird. Very postmodern sounding to. I somewhat appreciate the dissonance. OK, I like the change to pace. I appreciate the different folk aspects of this piece. And I definitely like that electric guitar cadenza. A mixing issue with the winds burying the main theme. We are back at measure 59 with the folk melody There may be some difficulty at 83 and before that with the double tongue in the brass. I also like how some of the other instruments double the guitar with the runs. Why is the viola in the bass clef. I like the rhythmic interpretation and variation around 111. I enjoy the guitar solo and also the irregular variation with the rhythm although that the playback may not support this make sure you write some slurring around. At 179 a previous theme returns. Along with the folk melody running after that. Some of the guitar material had returned. And I like the end. Good job and I appreciate the amazing structure and the cool material that you have given throughout the first Movement

Sad, I'm too old for it!

scraggy!!!🤣

One more thing orchestral I can post, an opera overture from 1995. If I enter any of the opera, probably extract a suite or something if I don't feel like working myself to death! Overture to the Opera Hypochondria Free Sheet Music by Robert C. Fox for Various Instruments | Noteflight

Comment retracted...

No; two weeks ago: how time flies!

Chew on this, until I get an actual reply: Waltz in A Major Free Sheet Music by Robert C. Fox for Piano/Keyboard | Noteflight I simply LOVE A Major! And this was written a week ago or so, not in 1997-1998 like the symphony.

At least this site seems to be at least alive; a moderator seems to have removed my clumsy double-post, and I have a follower after 20 minutes! Glad you like my one and only symphony; too much work, I prefer chamber music, songs, piano pieces, etc...

Well, I'm 56 and not a young composer now, but I was 28-29 when I wrote this beast...