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Here is my A level composition. I'm doing it roughly in the style of Chopin, but the overall style is just trying to be romantic. The structure is ABA, and the B theme is highly similar to the A theme. Things the exam board focus on are: 'Motivic development, form and structure, harmony, and texture. The time limit is 2 minutes 30, so I'll probably just play some parts quicker next time. Any feedback would be appreciated!Elegy in G#m.pdfWhatsApp Audio 2026-03-31 at 16.37.38.mp3

[INFO DUMP - WARNING ] You play this very wonderfully. Without the score, it is very pleasing to just close your eyes and listen. Easily very romantic, and as you said, very Chopinistic sounding. As an observation, Chopin's Op.48 no.1 Nocturne in C-minor feels like the source for your compositional style in this work; especially with the triplet recapitulation. Now to my raw comments, I have a range of things from literal score engraving and my own interpretation of the score from the eyes of another pianist: First thing from the score is the meter changes. I personally do not think you need to change the meter at all. Since you are imitating romantic style, I think it best to truly adhere to those compositional trends before breaking them. More specifically, the 2/4 bar at measure 5. It turns your 4-bar phrase into a 4 1/2-bar phrase and it only happens once? It is very atypical for that style. To add, you do not restate your opening melodic idea except the very beginning and the A' recap. Seeing the score, it does not imply a strong sense of A-B-A', but instead, a through-composed improvisation session that was transcribed. Even with 2 minutes & 30 seconds for this, I think you can bring the opening theme back to end the first A section, however, by modulating to the Dominant (As you did originally). With the B section, it seems more often than not, the left hand is the only hand doing 12/8. The right hand is still in 4/4 (or 2/2) as evident by all your duples. Just keep the same meter, and add triplets in the left hand, keep the right hand in a simple meter, and just re-add your 6-tuplets or other spots as you originally have. It will make the whole piece look and feel more cohesive to an outside view. Nearing the end, your "Recap" is not as strong or decisive as you think. We hear the opening material/ motif come back, but what about the harmony? Your piece is in G#-minor, so doesn't it make sense to end either in G#-minor or Ab-major? Instead, you never resolved the work by ending on an Eb-major chord, which is the enharmonic dominant of G#-minor. For musical clarity, please find a way to get us back to G#-minor. It is very common to use the END of the B-section as a transition into the opening key. Reference the Op.48 Nocturne I mentioned for this point. Lastly, the meter: You mark Alle Breve with Largo. If your reference Chopin Op.28, no.4 Prelude in E-minor, we see the same technique. If you play this, you need to keep the half-note intact; thus, it should be played faster. Your triplets in the B-section were too slow for the meter you picked. Alright, time to end! A nice work and very refreshing to hear. May these comments serve you well and if you would like to see these comments annotated for visual aid, let me know! Good luck in your exam and keep up the good work!

This score was conceived on the idea of building a chord using an interval pattern built as: Root (Any note) > Perfect 5th > Perfect 5th (from the prev. note) > # Semi Tone > Perfect 5th. I found that this gives you (X)min9 every time, regardless of what note you start it on. But built with intervals like this gives it a very wide, open, airy, ethereal sound that I just couldn't get enough of. Additionally, there is some personalized nuance included in the direction and theming of this piece, that is intended to depict a feeling of melancholy, mixed with a sense of hopefulness; It tells a story of losing one's purpose within their life, and struggling to find their way back to a specific goal again. I am having a difficult time sticking myself to a certain structure/form, and struggling to find more direction as to where this piece could go... Any suggestions or comments are highly appreciated :) 32468483.mp3 Aurora.pdf

Thank you! I'm glad I was able to capture the intended mood of the overall work. Found the pattern while messing around on my MIDI keyboard the other day, playing with spitfire LABS VST3 piano sounds. Also, if you've seen any of my other works, you'll notice I tend to have a bit of favoritism for open-spelling chords & triplets / tuplets in general. 😅 I like the suggestions for the form, here. I sort of just allowed my ear to guide it up to the point seen in the post. If you have the time, I have an entirely different conceptualized structure written out in a separate score file, that was inspired by some creative liberty granted to @MK_Piano while in a discord call the other day. I will share this new info right here: Aurora-UpdatedVersion.pdf Aurora-UpdatedVersion.mp3

This original piano piece has very simple chords and melody, with the goal to create a soft, intimate and peaceful mood. Yet also with some underlying uplifting feeling and emotion. Simple, with 'stirring' quality if you know what I mean. Hope I achieved that. Let me know. 2019: This is an improvisation I made in 2019, recording live into my DAW without following the DAW metronome. So I had it in midi but measures do not follow a metronome beat. I couldn't record to a metronome anyway because there is much intentional rubato in this piece. 2026: Now I wanted to use a better piano sound and that was easy- just play the midi file with a good piano vst. The piano you hear is the UVI Model D Piano vst playing the original midi file I improvised in 2019 (with some minor note improvements) However what was not easy is creating the score! Which requires quantized notes. So I had a lot of work remaking every measure to have midi notes quantized, not for playing, but for the score. So the score does not play the piano but does show the accurate notes of the midi file that is playing the piano. Comments and suggestions welcome! score available for purchase at: https://www.sheetmusicdirect.com/se/ID_No/1956655/Product.aspx Follow score pdf:

Your charisma is noteworthy 😀 Also... I got a WWE Intercontinental championship belt from the last competition. Winner gets it... but ask Peter, he has it.

I very agree with your approach to create a new piece having a musical idea in mind, if not yet a melody or motif to be used as the main subject, but a rather „technically“ one – here your choice of the interval pattern you described. Even if you did not invent a new chord or a new scale, this is a unique, this interval pattern is a „unique selling point“ of the piece and creates the mood of the piece which is indeed „ethereal“. And with your realization and recording so far, you have really caught this melancholic feeling with the warm timbre of the cello and the soft piano. I especially liked the small details such as the grace notes, the arpeggiated two-note-“chords“ and the triplets. Now, to get the piece continued and finished, I think it’s time to think about the form. Since it is already lengthy and although it has just separate sections, the listener is somewhat lost not exactly recognizing the structure and find out where the climax is. And in that sense it becomes a bit repetitive because there is a lack of contrast to the overall calm and „airy“ mood. Therefore, I would suggest to consider to put the piece, for example, in Rondo form where you could use the existing material for the different A (or A’) sections and there were room to introduce sections with a contrasting mood (in the B and C sections). For such a contrast I could imagine passages with a more dramatic expression or a final, triumphant resolution. Another possibility would be to have a section with a more distinctive and memorable melody (e.g. a „real theme“).

Hello @MichaelJohn A beautiful piece with a calm, serene mood which I very enjoyed to listen! I must say that I did not spend many attention – when reading the score – to the harmonic structure of the piece (as Peter did), because I was really captivated and fascinated about the detailed performance concerning articulation, dynamics and tempo! I would love if every piano piece presented here at the forum had that quality. I especially like the accentuation of the melody which is interwoven in the triplets, so that even if the score looks „simple“, I had the impression that were more voices involved as one could think from a short look at the score. I just did not understand completely your comments how you created the score and recording: The recording is a live recording resulting into a midi file which you have now reproduced with a better piano sound. That’s great, so we know that you are not only able to compose or improvise that piece but also to play it in that intense and expressive quality. But what about the „quantized notes“? I can’t imagine what a software would produce for a „score“ from a live recording with such an amount of rubato, fermatas and accentuation … I’m asking such silly questions since my approach to compose is quite opposite. I first write the notes down (even not as a „paper composer“) but using notation software and produce my score and midi files from that input. And, yes, I’ve always the intention in mind how I would interpret it on the piano. Therefore I always maintain two scores, one to print out and one for the recording with a huge amount of additional articulation, dynamics and time changes to achieve a satisfying recording result. And I must admit, it would a hard work to encode that amount of interpretation you gave your piece!

Hey @Alex Weidmann ! I love this orchestration - you've included lots of clever voice exchanges between the flute, oboe and clarinet that really create a kind of klangfarbenmelodie out of Mendelssohn's original piece. So great job there! I personally like your choices of pitched percussion in this piece - in my opinion the xylophone has too sharp of an attack and brings to mind Saint-Seans' usage in the Danse Macabre where it very effectively symbolizes the dancing of the skeletons and percussive effect of bones hitting the instrument instead of mallets. Vibraphone and glockenspiel are much more mellow and sparkly (respectively speaking) which I think is appropriate for this piece! Thanks for sharing!

Yo, Since some people have asked about what I'm up to for film scoring I figured now would be a good time to make a thread. Firstly, I am scoring a very cool action/horror film that begins shooting next month, but they are looking to raise some additional funds. Check out this spoiler-free (mostly), behind-the-scenes video (which I also scored). The film stars stuntwoman and actress Alleya Bourne, whose work you may have seen on "The Last of Us" and the film's effects, including the animatronic creature itself are all practical and provided by an Emmy-winning team who have also lent their talents in prosthetics, makeup and puppeteering to Hollywood films like "Sonic The Hedgehog" and "Child's Play". The entire cast and crew would greatly appreciate any support you might able to offer, which you can do so at this link: The Customer - Film and Storytelling | Seed&Spark Oh and you can check out the teaser trailer (which features a heavily-reverbed version of a vocal track I wrote for it) for another film I composed for, a dark supernatural drama called "Crossroads" starring Dave Greason (MGM+'s Billy The Kid) Both will be doing the festival tours in North America later this year so you can catch them in a number of major cities! Thank you for checking it out and all the support the Young Composers community has given me over the years!

I wrote this song with the idea of going to basic mechanic movements in music. The idea was a piston engine that creates momentum. It works overall. Attached is the score I used along with the prompt. If you think it's that easy, you have to consider that this song went through a critical rasterization process before completion. Numerous renderings were created before this final version. I used my website to create the pitch pallete then composed from there to create mechanical alliteration. Piston_Vonias.mp3 Piston.pdf

All that hurts logic, Interlect. If you overthink it too much, then yes the computer composed it. If I overthing too much, I'm left vulnerable to where people can steal my music and do whatever they want with it, because thus they've proven that I don't own it. See where the problem is? I'll go with the ethics class I attended, as it's more rational by that point to provide ownership to the artist. I also stand by my work.

I’m trying to improve at improvising. I’d appreciate any feedback. Also im curious what kind of style of piano music this improvisation would fall into?

It’s been over a month and no one has to reply, so let me be the first! I am a professional pianist and Improvise all the time in my practice sessions. In my opinion, it helps to know certain structures or musical devices. If you know a chord progression, play the chords in the left hand on loop and practice a loose melody on top. From there, switch the roles and try to improvise the bass. Little by little, you can develop your technique as we do with all things, but to improvise well and fluently, you need to train your mind. You need to have knowledge and confidence in your music skill to execute complex passages. Start simple and get more complex over time. Attached is my little demo just doing C-F-G chords in the left hand and going for it with my right hand. YCF | Sample Improv.mp3

Found the manuscript...

I absolutely created it. In my AI ethics course, any user that creates with AI is the sole author. I'm also liable and held accountable if anything goes wrong, you know? But, if you must know, SunoAI had a hand in it, too. But then, that would be very confusing to give it to the robot. Think of it as a complement to the music I created. Thank you, @interlect !

Hello It sounds really nice and pleasant. It’s also very straightforward. The harp takes the place of the left hand, and the bass provides reinforcement. The strings accompany the melody, and at times they reinforce it in homophony. I think orchestrating this kind of “flat” music, with few dynamic contrasts, is difficult. But there are many resources in the strings that can be used. I’m no expert at orchestrating either; I’m still learning.

I'm an "older youngser" too - started at 52, but with much less experience than you....

I began composing 16 years ago. I got started on the craft much later in life than most people who write music. That has left me with a lot of catching up to do, to say the least. It also means I'm not exactly a "young" composer, although I still choose to use this website from time to time.

"Jesus was Born this Day," is a hymnal song that includes, Euouae. Haven't heard the amen since the medieval times, thought I'd bring it back to present. The chords are adventurous and don't make much sense. However, this was the palette that I wanted for artificial intelligence to include. AI, did pick up the tune very well, except for the Euouae that was wanted for Descant. Anyone know how to do that in a prompt for AI? I'm out of ideas, I even used the braille's "In accord," to get AI to pick up the command. Other than that, the chorus was botched to good effect, read as the melody after a vowel chant. In effect, AI made a new chorus. Overall, the song is represented well, and I am happy with that. Enjoy! Jesus Was Born this Day_Harper.mid Jesus Was Born this Day_Harper.mid Jesus Was Born on this Day (David Harper) - MSMT.mid

Yep, go back to menu, and go to the fractal fugue generator. It will 'remember' the set you used, then click 'generate fugue' then 'play.'

Artificial Intelligence Symphonic Composition ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE SYMPHONIC COMPOSITION.mp3

No instructions, yet. I'd be happy to oblige to creating them. Here's a background of the style of music the website was born from: Atonal Music | Definition, Examples & Background - Lesson | Study.com

Hey guys! So over the weekend I composed the first movement of my composition “Philly”. This first movement takes place is the serene and turbid wold of north western Philadelphia. I remember as a young child living there and walking in the cloud scaped hills, as well as getting lots of donuts and pickles during the weekend. I hope you’ll look into my composition and give me feedback. I’ve already submitted it to a few ensembles which I doubt will perform it but eventually I’d love to get it performed by an ensemble in Philadelphia. Take a listen and a look! Audio: https://drive.google.com/file/d/15NoNQ7O-ghsDeWHVtaEqCI8skRZ8HZYA/view?usp=drivesdk Score: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ri86LSqV7lzbPePIhvZUfSWYBEHnRsw6/view?usp=drivesdk

Thank you very much, MK Piano, for the lovely annotated document! Not only has this information been crucial to Philly but I was able to make meaningful changes to a piece I will have performed at Temple University for wind ensemble. Your mouth is very well rounded. Also, I greatly appreciate the harp demonstration video. Thank you for all your dedication and thought. I am always changing and hopefully improving.

Go to "Edit Profile Photo":

MK-Piano .... Thanks for the annotated review .... ! This is a lovely post-romantic work ..... e.g, Howard Hanson. Mark

the third piece of this set, "crazed capybara", performed by Pavle Cajic: https://youtu.be/jCbbFmt-lDg

Thanx Vonias...but for me....ai is a "secret serial Killer"

Thank you, Interlect! The same to you! Be sure to check out my website if you want to make some notes spiral out of control in music: www.atonalfugue.net

This would be cool under the bridge with the sound washing, laser lights and everything. Very cool.

Well, that is very nice! I just stumbled on it; I've been more in the keyboard forum since March 15, the ides of March, for some reason.

It becomes catchy quickly. I can't sleep after listening to it 15 hours ago.

To Beautiful not be scored to Film.

I get it! It's a choral arrangement, similar to the setting my college choir used! No need to worry about hand size. I just put it in piano score because I did it in two minutes.

Rachmaninoff? Look at my piano writing! Naw, I keep it simple. Great pianist/composers can write that "busy" stuff. Thank you for the compliment: I LOVE Rachmaninoff.

Thanks! (P. S. On the first beat, second bar, it should be tonic mode on the bass, and also, are you rachmaninoff?)

How very magnificent! It’s quite humble in its build, yet is grand and marvelous! I would just consider opening up your instrumentation, it would be great in a big orchestra.

Hey everyone! I am decided to go ahead and publish my finished works on the forum. I may re-upload some existing works to match this shift, however, let this score mark the second part of this series! No.2 - Ballade for the Dead A Ballade for the Dead was composed for a larger chamber orchestra in 2025 during their call for scores, and unfortunately, did not pass on to the final round of judging. A little defeated, I thought about what to do with the score, and thankfully found inspiration to use it as the first movement of a 3-part suite titled describing the afterlife. It is not yet finished as I am working on the subsequent movements, but am eager to share the start of the project. The pronunciation for the work is meant to be pronounced as the other version "Ballad" instead of "Ballade". I just liked the E better for the spelling 😅. To add, I have found inspiration for a possible choir version depicting the battle between God, Satan and a lonely Priest. Many possibilities to be had! Feel free to leave any comments about the work and I hope to see you all in the next one! (P.S. In my opinion, this work is complete and as of this post, I have no plans to update the score) _______________ PROGRAM NOTE: A Ballade for the Dead is a several-minute long work for chamber orchestra detailing the concept of Death. The piece does not follow a specific storyline, instead, it paints a dramatic and abstract journey through the afterlife. Join the orchestra as they paint the agony, dread, and quiet beauty that might be experienced by a soul as they cross over; whether wandering through Purgatory, facing judgment, or simply drifting beyond, they follow this Ballade of Death. no.7_A Ballade for the Dead.mp3 no.7_A Ballade for the Dead.pdf

Thanks for the comments! I must admit, nothing was intentional 😅. If I recreated a theme, then it was purely by coincidence. The most obvious one to me is the Mendelssohn D-minor Trio main theme. I didn't mean to use the same opening intervals, as I originally started this work at 1:00am and was just feeling the half-asleep burst of creativity do it's thing lol. I personally used Khachaturian as my basis in the Development section. It did only take me three days to finish and once I settled on the Rondo form, I admit I just took the easy way of CTRL+C. This said, It did give me inspiration to do more with the whole theme, and I did sketch out a way to make this a three movement suite. "A Suite for the Dead" would be the WiP title. When it comes time to ship the finished product, I would want to reorchestrate a majority of this work. To be honesty, the more I listen to it, while as catchy as it can be, it gets stale outside of the harmonic changes. The more I grow as a composer, the more I have the feeling I can do more with this work too. Thanks again for the comments and I would love to chat in more detail about it sometime.

Hey @MichaelJohn ! What a harmonically rich, bittersweet piece! It's full of longing and emotion and full of tons of creative harmonic choices. The harmonic identity also seems kind of ambiguous to me. The piece clearly starts in D minor and that's corroborated by the key signature, but you end in F major which is a nice hopeful ending! But I actually feel that most of the piece is in G Dorian. Very interesting - and you use plenty of F add4 chords which I really love the flavor of as a kind of backdoor cadence into G minor. Thanks for sharing this gem and I am grateful that you managed to create a good looking score as I really was able to appreciate the piece much more and deeply with the score. Thanks again!

Hey @MK_Piano ! This is a nice macabre movement. I find that you have a tendency (2:59) to imitate Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata accompaniment - I think you also did this in your Halloween piece. I also recognize the melody that's playing there - I could swear that it's a quote from another Beethoven work - possibly Symphony No.6? I don't know if that was intentional. My overall impression of the piece is that there's definitely identifiable main themes in it - some of them aren't original, and there's also lots of repetition by changing the instrumentation/orchestration of the occurrence of the themes. But I did enjoy listening to this grotesque and dark piece about death! Thanks for sharing!

Happy Birthday Free Sheet Music by Anon for Piano/Keyboard | Noteflight Your piece sounds interesting from a preliminary perusal...one would need a gun to make me write variations on Happy Birthday!🤣

Thanks! It was definitely fun to do. I actually been meaning to update this post. After some chat with @UncleRed99 about Cello playability, I simplified the cello part in the third movement for ease. Overall, a good result for at the time was a silly little project. 🙂

A beautiful piece. It doesn't seem very complex, but it's very well structured (which, for me, is one of the biggest challenges). And the dynamic control is exquisite.

No.2 - Ballade for the Dead 1: Oh My God....... This Composition actually has a " MELODY " I thought Melody's were Banned on this Forum. This Melody is DISTINCT , as opposed to OBSCURE, its instantly Recognized when it presents itself. So that is a Major Plus +++++ 2: This Score has a , Beginning-Middle-End that's also very Evident, as opposed to ........ " Where am i in this Composition ? " 3: Overall Feeling & Sound of this Performance is : Main-Stream-Commercial Movie-Score.

Vonias Wonderful composition, so lovely and spiritual,and the vocal choir is Amazing, the sort of sound you hear in Big Films Iv never heard any thing like this ...thankyou ,and i wish you every success in life.

Thanks Henry. Mendelssohn is a composer I've neglected until now; although he was apparently a greater child genius than Mozart! I accidentally wrote a few hand clashes in the harp (e.g. Bar 45 on Middle C). Hadn't thought of using xylophone, but will give it a try. I would like to add more for the violins and celli to do: so I think your suggestion is a great idea.

Hi @Alex Weidmann! When as a kid (and now as an old man) I always love this Mendelssohn piece! I like your combination of vibraphone and harp, and later also the glockenspiel (maybe I love a xylophone more) combination for the accompaniment. Flute is definitely a great choice for the main solo instrument throughout! Maybe for me, I will definitely have the melody played by the violins and/or the cellos for another timbre. But still, a lovely arrangement! Henry

Melodies Themes Motives Harmony Chords Textures Form Development Structure Time Originality Creativity Score Presentation Instrumentation Orchestration Playability Execution of Given Challenge Taste 8.5 9 8 8 9 10 8 9.5 This gives me a spooky romantic vibe. Perhaps lost souls on Halloween trying to find love or meaning to existence. It's very enjoyable to listen to not only because of how emotional this is, but because this type of harmony resonates well with me. Furthermore, I find this piece to be well structured, and easy to follow. I love how you break up the momentum at around 1:20. As a YouTuber, I learned that this is incredibly important to do on longer videos. Especially with the the shorter attention spans these days. Melody and Motive + Harmony: I just find these to be very clear throughout your piece, with logical breaks and great emotional supporting harmony. Form and Creativity: Highly structured, easy to follow. Score presentation + Playability: Beautiful score and this seems very playable. Execution and Taste: This is a highly romantic piece that does give off Halloween vibes, and I resonate well with this style.