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I have already uploaded March and April from my Spring Trilogy, here is the finale, May. Since this month is traditionally rainy in Slovenia, the beginning has some features of rain with various aleatoric timbre playing on orchestra, while cello brings the initial melodic motif with its various transformations. Music becomes more "down to earth", more energetic and passionate. It continues to bounce between these two contrasting characters and ends with cellist playing improvised harmonics of a basic tone of c with unisono violins and violas while lower strings play some low ranged aleatoric pizzicatos.

This is my second piece from the Spring Trilogy, April. It is the most easy-going of the cycle. It begins as a gentle waltz but it gets more energetic and drammatic. After a short recapitulation the piece ends surprisingly in dark contrast between bright pizzicatos and low, murky tremolos of the cello.

Since I have been long fascinated with crazy, unusual ensembles I present to you the piece "Always something unique" for flute, clarinet quartet, accordion, marimba and double bass. Composed in 2023 for the Alpe Adria festival of Music, it was premiered in November in my hometown Mengeš. It is not a perfect performance, there were some mistakes so do follow the score with the performance. It is a pretty demanding piece, particularly in rhythm and overall coordination (there was no conductor). I follow my standard fast-slow-fast form, with finale being pretty high pitched and ear penetrating. The style could be described as a mix of some Stravinsky, modern French music and my own personal idiom.

Sylva Train Runnin' | Official Motion Picture Score from A Fire Within Hello! Over the last calendar year, I have been creating my first short-film called A Fire Within. When completed, the film will follow the tragedy between two friends: Sam and Andy. The story focus on the theme of betrayal as being cordial does not stop greed or jealousy from bubbling within someone. This score is paired with a travel sequence in the film and is my 4th attempt at writing for Big Band Swing. I am very happy with the result and simply wanted to share it! The style was meant to replicate late 40s/ early 50s swing to match the era in which the story takes place. I sampled a little of Miller's "Chattanooga Choo Choo" to help tie into the railroad theme with the main structure being based in verse-chorus with multiple repeats and a key change. If you would like to know more about the score, go to the "About" section on page 4! ________________ Program Note: A Fire Within is an original story written by Mason Kistler detailing betrayal between two friends. Featuring an original soundtrack, soundscape, voice cast and more, this story established itself as the first short-film made solely in the video game Railroader, which was released in December, 2023. Join the orchestra as they bring you in towards this cinematic universe and involve yourself in their soundscape. All aboard as the saxophones open the throttle and the ensemble leaves the station! [DO NOT REPLICATE]

Hi @Bjarke! The piece starts in a soft and dark place giving it lots of room to grow. The trumpet melody at 0:43 is the first instance of a theme in the piece that could be developed. At 1:03 you reiterate the theme in the choir with variation. At 1:33 the thematic exposition is finished and you continue the piece with a sequence of ostinati over low brass accompaniment. At 1:52 you introduce a trumpet fanfare that is then continued in the strings with brass ostinati underneath. At 2:13 you introduce a rising choir and brass melody. At 2:38 you've modulated into a nice string melody. At 2:53 you start an intense passage for strings and brass. There is some relief from this intensity at 3:17 with the staccato brass and string hits. At 3:49 you have an intriguing string ostinato that in my opinion could have started softer to give it more room to crescendo towards the end of the piece. Now to give my more overall impression of the whole piece: I think the piece is exciting and full of energy but it suffers in terms of musical coherence and unity. The trumpet theme at 0:43 is not particularly notable - in terms of melodic construction, it starts off strong and heroic but soon suffers from lack of inner melodic coherence. What I mean is that melodies usually have some kind of self-similarity to give them a hook or a catchiness to the listener. You do actually reiterate the hook of your trumpet melody in your string melody at 2:38 with variation which is a nice way to add some unity to the piece, but none of the other material in the piece seems to be related to the theme which is a shame and why I would say that overall, your piece lacks unity. I would also say that it suffers from too much variety - it's a jumble of mostly unrelated ideas thrown together. And the overall sense of the piece (besides the introduction) is to be hard, fast and loud without very many places where you let up the intensity which isn't very musical. Like at 3:49 where I felt like you really could have drawn the listener in by bringing the dynamics of the whole orchestra way down so as to lead the piece with a big crescendo to the conclusion which would have been more effective imo. Perhaps the reason why the piece resulted to be the way it is is because of what you chose to focus on when you were writing it? It seems like "Composition in four hours without any breaks" was your goal rather than any kind of particular musical goal or inspiration. Music is boring when it's approached in such a way as to look at it only as a way to force oneself to work on something without any breaks. And why wouldn't you take any breaks? Is there any particular reason? That doesn't seem like a significant nor important goal in music. For me, composition usually goes in cycles: if I haven't composed something in a long time, I'll start out with something small to warm up, then I'll move on to progressively more substantial and involved musical projects. Whether I take a break or not is not even something I pay attention to nor aspire to avoid. Just saying: you might want to rethink what's important to you in music or what your musical values are because it seems to me like you're not focusing on the right thing. But everyone is different and you might not agree - if not, by all means continue writing the way you do and know how! Thanks for sharing.

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

Just make some things. The making will lead to questions, and the combination of the questions, and the practice making will make you better over time. Don't be afraid to get started. Don't expect to be any good. You WILL be bad at this, because you have never done it before, so go ahead and start and just have fun! We call it "playing" music, so play! 🙂

Did you ever have any music theory lessons? How old are you? I started by improvising on the piano and then writing down these improvisations. During my intermediate school studies I was intensely studying harmony and counterpoint from 16th to 19th century theory. I learned the use of instruments by arranging numerous popular pieces - I had a band with a flute, clarinet, violin, trumpet and trombone players. They were not advanced players but sufficient enough to learn how to late compose for these instruments. If I were young today, I would recommend anybody to start with arrangements and harmonizations of folk pieces or children pieces. Initially to use basic functions of tonality (tonic, subdominant, dominant, followed by supportive functions of IInd, IIIrd and VIth chord of the key, and then beginning to venture outside the single key).

Just begin composing. Don't wait to "feel ready" 🙂 You can start for free using Musescore and read scores (highly recomended) on imslp a long with youtube for audio. Start learning how to read scores with some basic music theory. find a teacher or teach your self. Then post the scores here on the forum for feedback. That a lone can take you far with some patience. Just focus on small improvements constantly every day! Good luck! 🙂

I just want to let you guys know that I greatly appreciate you guys joining The Arcane Alchemy. Here we will make some amazing pieces and come up with some great q&a's, so again thank you guys so much for joining!

I thoroughly enjoyed this piece. Utilizes the full instrument very well. I enjoyed the upward sequences, really built excitement. 1:50 beautiful. 2:45 a wonderful build up. 3:40 exciting. 4:05 awesome, and great playing here. Nice ending.

I also want to add here, that if anyone wants to send any music my way, they totally can. If it is capable of being sung by a baritone, I am offering my time to sing your melodies for you (without accompaniment) so you can hear it in a real voice. These would NOT be for commercial OR public use, but independent study unless otherwise communicated. If you have something for a soprano or tenor which would not fit my voice, you can transpose it yourself down to a baritone range and I can sing it for you. I don't expect anything in return, but I do hope y'all use this opportunity. I too often see composers writing difficult music for the voice, when in my opinion, the art is at it's best when easy for the singer. I am not currently accepting music for recitals, but I am always hunting.

I started 2 months ago.

Hello everyone, hope you are doing great! As always I am still focusing on improving my piano playing and not composing, but today I decided to sit down and composed a little draft. I was wondering what your thoughts were. It is a short section (it could be the first section of a small piece) for string quintet. Now sure whether I should continue it, put it aside, or maybe use only some parts for a future piece. If I decide to continue, I am not sure what to do with it, either. I guess just a simple binary/ternary piece as most times. It starts in C major but it immediately goes to C minor (where it spends most of the section) so I just called it Cmaj/min draft. For this one, I let my ideas flow quite freely so the melody is more chaotic than my usual. Do you think it is good enough to be used? Any feedback is welcome! Thank you!

Thanks, @PeterthePapercomPoser. I browse through the forum from time to time, although I do not have much time to listen lots of things attentively :S. I have bookmarked some of your "20th century harmony" exercises because I am interested in trying to study that book and I loved some of the ones you made. Will probably comment on some of those when I have a little time to analyze the scores! (and probably use them as examples to compose my own exercises!) Somehow I feel it is too short and that it stars too abruptly so I was thinking about options to extend it. You pointing out about the "double exposition" made me realize that, what I currently have, might be understood as two different themes (or parts of a theme) starting in m.1 and in m.7. I might play around with some different forms but I was thinking on extending those ideas into full themes and then playing them like this: A section 1. Theme I in Cmin 2. Theme II in Gmaj (or minor) B section (The section I have composed). 1. Theme I in Cmaj with sudden transition to Theme II in Cmin and coda. I am not sure if it would be a valid form or not, I guess it would be like a binary piece based on the exposition + recapitulation of a sonata form. Maybe I end up failing and just adding a final chord to what I have now. But I will give it a try. Thanks for the feedback!

Any feedback is largely appriciated. Thanks in advance.

I like how it became more intense throughout the song. Cool.

Hi @JorgeDavid! Welcome back! I think the piece is very close to being done! It might be too easy a solution to you or end the piece too early but you could just make a C minor or major chord at the end after what you have right now and call it finished. Unless you see a way to extend the piece further and treat what you have right now as a double exposition of a larger form? Thanks for sharing!

Here's another small invention. More quiet than the 1st one. It's an adagio! Mostly done in 2020, but updated in 2026.

Thanks for your feedback. Yes, this is not really an invention, lol. I'll try to make a real one. I enclose the original motive of the exercise. The convention in my books, is that the motives do begin on the tonic or the 5th of the key. But not on the 3rd, in a 1st inversion. The motive bears some ambiguity about the key in me1 but the stretto in me2 make it clear. Feel free to show me an intro to your taste in me1. :)

I took time to listen to this set of variations. Since you got comments about monotonous experience by other, I think the best solution to this would be modulations to other keys, tempo changes, more varied use of instruments (a theme in bass clarinet every now and then) and more polyphony. The theme is memorable and instantly captures the attention. You should work on this piece to make it better, you might eventually produce a masterpiece.

Thanks for the comment. I will check you Variations soon. I am not really a bassist, my elder daughter is. I do play tamburitza bass, called "berde" occasionally. It has frets like guitar.

Hi all, here is a composition I began in 2011. I rediscovered it in my computer files and decided to rework it and give it some new life. Hope you enjoy the work. All comments welcome as usual.

I agree with PeterthePapercomPoser, I don't like this midi version at all considering articulation. I believe the piece is all legato, these non legatos at least here sound like quasi staccatos. If you wanted staccato as a contrast, you should have written it in the score. How about pizzicatos instead of these non legato passages? I personally would use legato slurs all the time since the character of the piece is calm and melodic. The organic flow of key changes sounds nice, while the middle sounds almost stuck too much in diatonic c minor although I believe it is done on purpose: the a section has a chromatic flow, while the b section does not.

Hi @kaiyunmusic! I love your soft-jazz vibe in this piece. It reminds me how a dominant chord doesn't have to have a leading tone. And I like how you resolved on a major 7th chord without a 3rd. Harmonic nuances that give that relaxing jazz vibe. The piece is notated well although I might not have used triplets in the penultimate bar but I'm assuming you did that for the sake of your rendition/notation program? Thanks for sharing!

I wrote this in the course of a day almost non-stop, because my vacations end tomorrow. Its quite freely chromatic and quartal and has a lot of space for brooding contemplation. No score for now because the rhythmic spelling is a mess.

Hey @Uhor! I love the dissonant and mysterious vibe, but I long for some themes in that vibe. I could be wrong but it's hard for me to hear memorable themes in this. Thanks for sharing! I've been doing my own experiments in quartal harmony guided by Persichetti's "20th Century Harmony" book. Thanks for sharing!

You have no idea the wonderful suggestion you have bestowed upon me. I have been searching for various ways to capture a steam locomotive with the western orchestra. That piece is SO COOL!! It's luckily on IMSLP too, so now I have a score I can study. Thank you!! Yeah... The repetition was more for simplicity to be blunt. I felt I did good with the saxophone writing, however, I admit I am not too knowledgeable on ways to utilize the brass in the Big Band style. In the film, it is cut in half with the key change happening after the first shout/ chorus section. So in context, it only repeats the form twice. I copied the first section in this version as a means to extend the work. Thanks for the comments!

Hello again @MK_Piano! This is a cool big band piece meant to imitate a train! I wonder if you've ever heard of the Copenhagen Steam Railway Galop? It is another wonderful example of a piece meant to imitate the sound of a train getting started and chugging along. It's a very musically inspirational topic to write music to. And supposedly, Prokofiev loved to write music on train rides. I think there are some obvious flaws in your piece so please forgive me for pointing them out! LoL The piece is very simple and once it gets started, doesn't know what to do with itself. You employ the use of the common up a step modulation to try and infuse the music with some freshness and excitement towards the end of the piece. I've been guilty of using that kind of modulation myself as well. But the piece is basically the same 28 measure phrases repeated over and over. That's my only critique. It would have been nice to hear some kind of development or maybe variations? Thanks for sharing!

Hi @Cafebabe! This is a nice classical sonata! The thing that bothers me when listening to this at first is the really bad balance between the melodic right hand and the accompanying left hand. The left hand should be softer and the melody in the right brought out more to be in high relief. Before, the only way to make this happen is to use MS Basic Soundfonts and use velocity values for the right hand. But I don't know if you know about a recent trick I learned in writing piano music in Musescore Studio 4 using the Musesounds Piano. What I do now is I write the piece for two tracks of basically two separate pianos - one for each hand. I go to the layout options and have each piano displayed with only one clef in one staff rather than in a grand staff for both. Then I bracket them as if they're one grand staff but each retains its own individual identity. This way I can give each hand its own dedicated dynamics and volume, reverb and other settings giving me more control over what is the most prominent part of the composition at any given point. I also noticed that you don't have any dynamics in your piece at all. Maybe you didn't find it necessary, and it could be argued, it is more historically accurate if its meant to be played on a period instrument. Musically, I find the retransition back to F major at the end of the exposition a little abrupt and forced. Another thing is that I'd expect each theme in a sonata to have ample time to speak before going into transitional figures. This would usually be done by giving the themes a full period, double period or sentence form which you don't do and it makes the themes seem like they can't stand still and start to flit about try to run away from themselves before the listener has even had a chance to absorb them. Also, when the development section starts, it seems like it's just a chord progression without really any relation to the themes. It makes me question what, if anything, is being developed. Although I had a lot of critiques of this piece, I did find it an overall enjoyable easy listening experience. Thanks for sharing!

The polychords are starting to make the music sound much more adventurous, and perhaps more like Ravel. I feel like there's a lot more opportunity with this style of music. Great job, sounds awesome!

Hi everyone. So far, I have studied with Percy Goetschius books and am practicing small 2-part inventions (about 1 minute long) as taught in his Elementary Counterpoint and Applied Counterpoint books. I wonder if there are other beginners working on this and willing to share our works. My goal is to use counterpoint with freedom, yet in a sensible way. I use Myriad Melody Assistant piano. Here is one example, with a motive from Handel (F maj). I apologize for the poor sound quality (I'll try to find a good alternative for my .myr files). Thanks!

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!

Sounds good. The 13th bar is strange, but I see you've made a correction. I think there's some pretty good imitative treatment, characteristic of the Inventions. So many colours confuse me a bit. I suppose they highlight imitations or motifs, but as I'm colour blind, I can't tell. Best regards.

Hello beautiful souls, firstly I want to tell you I love listening to music. When I listen to a piece of music, I wonder what the inspiration of the composer behind it is. I want to know if all this talent is god gifted or we make it with practice. I want to pursue music composition as my new hobby, can you please guide me through how I can start? It’s not like that I know nothing about music as I used to play guitar and piano in my college days but I’m not remember that much now and yes please consider me as a complete beginner. Thank you.

I have made changes to measure 13, last note: C3 instead of C. Leave the C in Bass, for modulation.

Welcome to the forums. Can you provide a score to your music? I'd be able to provide better feedback with a score.

I have moved on to Chapter 7 of Persichetti's "20th Century Harmony" which covers polychords. The prompt for the piece was "4. Extend the polychordal passage for piano:" Thanks for listening and I'd appreciate any of your comments!

Since your pieces differ a lot from one to another I do believe you are searching for a personal musical language, which is always a good thing. It seems you prefer long, slowpaced layers in strings with some arabesque like moments in winds and percussion.

Coming back from the dead just to vote on this. The core of any artform is the creative process, and the use of genAI to generate music is anti-process. It focuses instead on the result, and advertises itself as a "facilitator", a "helper", or something to remove the "hassle" of the process. It misses the point that when passion is involved, the creative process is a hassle that one ultimately enjoys. There is no art without passion, and all genAI does is vomit results to the passionless. A creative process comes about through the passionate development of a skill, and it fosters further understanding of said skill. The result is one particular target of a process at a given point in time: it comes about as the inevitable conclusion of a process. This decades-long shift of focus to the result is what makes genAI seem legitimate, because it's the endpoint of a logic that defines art as the object instead of the craft. It's made of the same cloth as the commodification of art, and the reduction of everything to "content." It's a corporate point of view, which can't conceive of art in any other way, and only seeks to expedite what it wrongly perceives to be nothing but a very slow assembly line. I am a composer because I know how to make music, and I learned how to make music by making music. A prompt engineer did not learn how to make an illustration, they learned how to tell a particular machine to do so. One could argue that prompt engineering is a craft, because it isn't absent of human involvement. But where it fails is in never being directly responsible for the result. With genAI, nothing about how to directly reproduce the result is learned because there's no process involved, only instructions by proxy given to a glorified blender. What differentiates genAI from art is the absence of a skillful process directly related to the object. Therefore, the point, and what makes one anything from a hobbyist to an artist, is the process. It just so happens that one cannot go through the process without inevitably coming to a result, which informs more process, and so on and so forth. That's how an artist grows.

This sounds like an interesting and inventive subversion of a waltz. I'm curious why you describe it as two movements, though. I guess you're considering a new movement to start at m. 106, but it's in the same tempo and style. Also, you probably know this, but the stuff in the right hand at m. 158 and forward would normally be written as tremolos. I assume you wrote out the notes so that the notation software played it back correctly, but in such cases I'll usually prepare separate versions of the score for playback and for display.

Ok sometimes it's 6 weeks, other times it's 3 months haha Ferrum being the true lieder he is and coming in clutch with the words... cool stuff! It'll be interesting to hear what you guys come up with

#3, the date is unknown for this one, but i remember writing this during a final term in high school (2021 maybe). it was cold and rainy outside. i finished early and decided to write. i hadn't titled this one so i decided to do so for this post Unease Sunshine saw me walk He whispers nervousness through my ears I sit on my wooden chair Calmness to crowdness out of leash Maybe he's right, the first tends to brute I wait for the master to come Each seconds send waves of arrows to my soul Each noise amplifies the burden on my mind Burden of the final trial It laughs at me everyday The guidance who speaks wisdom I despise to escapism Lost in the snow of thoughts I try to find composure Anxiety then pulls me back She neatly imprisons me I love anxiety Her company when I'm alone Her hands multiplying those weights to keep attention Let me see unreal possibilities beyond comprehension aight, those are all the poems that i could find, hope you like them !!!

Hi @Kvothe Thank you for your kind comment! That is very interesting it reminds you of Scott Joplin. I can hear it a little now that you point it out. One of my favorite pieces to play is Maple Leaf Rag!

Hi @kaiyunmusic I thoroughly enjoy how this resembles Scott Joplin piano works. I love to listen his works on relaxing day. Your piece reminds of him. The swung 8th in the right on top of lazy left hand. It just amazing all around.

i really love the interplay between the instruments here. the way the themes and counterpoints are bounced around the three instruments is also really playful. the ending tied the piece neatly and satisfyingly. it matched the vibe of the whole piece well. it's cool how you used the two modes (mixolydian and pentatonic minor) to differentiate between the sections. i especially really like the second theme. thanks for sharing !!!

Hey everyone, I wrote a short work based on a particular rocking-up-and-down figuration that I liked while improvising. I guess it's a little bit like an étude w/ respect to technique but I also thought the almost perpetuum-mobile right hand gave it a somewhat toccata-esque feel as well. Hope you find it interesting; and if you have any suggestions/critiques/general comments I'd enjoy reading them!

Hi everyone! This is a more recent Gavotte that I composed in just the past week. It's for a string orchestra. Let me know what you think! I have a much longer and more challenging Gavotte in C in my archives that I composed years ago but that one is not finished yet. This one is a bit more modest in form and virtuosity. Any constructive feedback would be greatly appreciated!

Hello people! I was searching for some of my old music and found some dances I composed a long time ago in the sequencer (before I started writing on paper). I took the old midi of this minuet and imported it into MuseScore and tweaked it a little to make it look nicer. I am sure that this does not follow the traditional form meant for a minuet (binary) - I don't think I was trying to write in any particular form when I wrote this nor follow any particular rules in voice leading and counterpoint (so I am sure I break some rules such as the one about having melodic tritones). Let me know what you think! I wasn't planning on publishing this as I am currently working on something else but it took only a little of my time and I've never showed it to anyone before. Your comments and suggestions would be much appreciated!