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Really? That sounds like a very harsh critique. To be truthful, I think your work is good; it simply reflects your good style. Your melodies have a certain melancholic quality, yet they still feel energetic and full of hope—Specifically, in version 80, the first 27 seconds have a bit of a lonely, melancholic atmosphere. But starting with the note at 0:28, it feels as if the music begins to take a step forward with a sense of hope. It’s hard to put into words, but that’s the impression I get. Whether that was intentional or not, your music is capable of telling a story, and I think that’s great. I’m also interested to hear how others feel about it, not just me.

Could you tell me, for example, what kind of criticisms you received? Personally, I think it’s good overall!! If I had to point something out, I’d say the melodic phrasing feels a bit similar throughout, which makes the development feel a little thin. Among the new melodies, I really like measure 90. Personally, I thought it might be interesting to try swapping the left-hand accompaniment of 90 with something like what's in measure 96! By the way, if you don't mind, could you tell me the name of that forum? I’d love to take a look myself.

Just had a listen to it. I'm not sure if it's stimulating but I found it funny (in the good way) at times. I can get why it's called "noise": the piece ended, and youtube directly put "Studie 1" from Stockhausen next. I couldn't have told that it was a diferent piece if they were both presented in the same mp3. I would say this is a matter of finding your public. Value is relative, and subjective. There's always a non-zero chance that some may find your work (the one you submitted) interesting or even beautiful. In fact, you can prove this yourself by making something you may find most terrible and sharing it. Sooner or later, someone may appear and praise it. Keep following the path you like. Kind regards!

Hey there! I am new to this forum and would like to present my piano ballad (version 86). It was critized strongly in another forum, mainly because of the piano melody. The piece isn't completed in full. From 1:53 on the dynamics of the topline strings aren't edited yet. Because of the many critics I composed 3 new piano melodys (version 90,96,101). What is your hearing impression? How do you find the 3 melodys? Piano Ballade_86.mp3 Piano Ballade_90.mp3 Piano Ballade_96.mp3 Piano Ballade_101.mp3

Hi Sera, welcome to the forums! Just as an advice, many of us like to read the sheet music in case there's any. Maybe it's not the case here? Did you use a DAW to make this directly in MIDI + VSTs? Hmmm. Still in the first mp3 you attached. I guess I should read these criticisms more in depth in order to see how much I would agree or disagree with them. Often, the definitions of what X or Y are depend widely on the person using them. I would be inclined to think that when somebody told you that there's "no melody" they tried to convey something a bit deeper than "there's absence of a melodic line". Maybe they themselves don't even know how any better way to tell you their thoughts, but again I am not sure since I did not read these comments myself. There's obviously a melody in the sense there's an horizontal line in the piano (and later, on the strings) that's intentionally put on top of the rest of the sound mix, and there is some motive repeating here and there but it is shadowed by the —I would say, evident— vertical design of the piece in one hand, and also by the repetitive nature of the piece itself, a repetition that does not rely on the melody but that is commanded by that vertical design. The block-ish simple 4-chord progression/wheel harmony (Em G Bm D, with ocassional variations G-> Am, Bm-> Eb), to me and in this very case, competes against the melody here, and successfully (to some of your critics disgrace) robs a good chunk of its prominence. Adding variations and ostinatos on top of or next to said melodic line does not help. On top of that, the dynamics that are not built by layering instruments/voices are in my opinion either very subtle or inexistent. All in all, I can get people saying: "there's no melody" as an oversimplification of "this piece lacks a strong melodic line leading it". In fact, the harmony itself leads (or restricts) the melody. As much as there's rhytmic movement in the upper voice in the piano, it always stays inside of each bar. The piece barely moves from that so what the brain ultimately gets is "| Things | Things | Things | Things |". The melody is not on top of that, but constrained to that rigid sub-structure. Your alternative three "melodies" suffer from that. You build vertically, vertical sub-structure commands over horizontal movements, and thus the melody you build doesn't escape and get the prominence it needs to be righteously called a "melody". This does not mean that any piece with these characteristics will have no distinguishable melody, but that this happens in this particular case. Let's stop a bit at the "it's just tinkling", I would not say that but I kind of get where this may come from too. Keeping in mind what I discussed in last paragraph, if you combine "melodic line not leading", "ostinatos & small variations" and we consider that the piano resorts to it's high register in order to make that melodic line more prominent, we get something that we could indeed call "piano tinkle". I would say it can be cantabile, but it can also feel easily forgettable because it again gets diluted by the things I have been pointing out in this message. But wait a minute: do you intend this piece to have a prominent melodic line to begin with? After 3-4 listenings, it strikes me as a piece with (strong?) influence of the style of L. Einaudi (and the likes) . I'm not a fan, but it's yet another way to build music and it doesn't neccesarily rely on a melodic line to move things forward. For certain purposes, you don't even want things to "move forward". You may want to create an "atmosphere", or simply something whose main source of movement &/or development is not concentrated in the melody. You do you. Finally: it doesn't strike me as a Ballade but I'm not sure if there's a clear defintion of that so no big deal. Did you yourself think: "I want to make a piece with a clear, distinguishable melody."? Just curious. Best regards, Daniel–Ø.

Hi Lithl, welcome to the forums! As an experiment, I'm sure it's been entertaining and enriching for you. For me, the result is just a noise crescendo, I don't find it interesting at all. The processes that lead to it may be, though. I don't think that what you did proves or disproves that you lack talent. From this alone it's impossible to tell. Talent for what exactly, though? What are you pursuing? Are the other contestants' works similar to yours? How important is it to you to provide value to the listener? Best regards, Daniel–Ø.

It's a German forum. They said things like:"There is no melody." "That's just tinkling." "I can't sing to this melody."

Here another example with text in Latin.

This is the best, Intellect! I cannot love it enough!

Highly mesmerizing. Highly entertaining. Is this going to be a full fledged show?

Hello there! Here is the latest installment of preludes, no.16. This one deals with a lot of two voice counterpoint and a relentless ramble on one theme. As a personal side note, these have been a lot of fun to write, and it's been great simultaneously writing a bunch at once. I had a sporadic burst of ideas when I started this one, and it lead to a lot of spread out writing. I guess what I'm SAYIN' is... more to come! :D Thanks for listening and reading... any comments of any kind are welcome! P.S. some of those tempo markings are to mimic rubato, dunno I suck as an editor Edit: 🔥 @Henry Ng Tsz Kiu 🔥 Prelude No 16 - Score.pdf Henry Prelude no.16.mp3

I have no idea why I did not post this here, but I am going to start up a string of tutorials on my Youtube channel. I talk about tuplets at the very basic level, and why you may want to use them in your writing. Give the video a thumbs up, comment if you wish, and don't forget to subscribe if you want to see more of this type of content from me. Video is really long, but I break all my content up into chapters. I'm open to suggestions on how to improve my videos. For example, if there's too much dead space I can try to make my videos progress a little faster. Or if the videos are just too long, I can break them up into smaller segments. I'm literally experimenting with video length.