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

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

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

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

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

yes! im still intending on submitting!

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

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

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

Wow even more attractive haha!

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

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

The YCF chocolate looks really yummy!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But it is just your subjective feeling, you will have to elaborate more on why the themes are bland and why the music is forgettable and there's nothing enjoyable.. Maybe you are a new member here, but in this forum we only welcome constructive feedback like @PeterthePapercomPoser said. We are not like YouTube or reddit or discord where you can just leave a negative statement without explaining and get away with it, because what we want to achieve in this forum is to allow beneficial interaction between reviewers and reviewees so that both can progress in their own musical journeys. Clearly leaving just subjective statement without any analysis cannot do that at all. This can be really detrimental to many of our members because what they need is constructive feedback, not rootless criticism which won't help them grow and might harm their confidence in composing, just hope you understand that. Henry

Those are just your opinions offered without anything to substantiate them. Do you have any constructive feedback to offer? Perhaps you could use the Reviewing Template to justify your opinion?

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

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

Hi @Alex Weidmann ! Nice job on this orchestration. The horns do not go very high - only up to concert Bb which will be an F on the top line of the treble clef transposed to F. Thanks for sharing!

Melodies Themes Motives Harmony Chords Textures Form Development Structure Time Originality Creativity Score Presentation Instrumentation Orchestration Playability Execution of Given Challenge Taste 9.5 8 10 10 10 8 10 8.5 Avg: 9.25 This piece definitely captures the anxious commuter during rush hour I think. You captured the forward momentum beautifully during the train ride sessions. The score presentation is a perfect 10 because of your annotations, which helps the listener understand your intentions much more clearly. Your usage of dissonant chords to designate the train's departure was excellent, and the trills to portray the nightingale was really creative. And on top of all of this, your theme was extremely coherent / catchy. Overall, between your director's cues (basically, your score) and the music itself, this was a coherent, creative and beautiful piece to listen to. And you weren't afraid to take chances, which I feel, paid off very well.

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

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

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

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

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

Hello everyone, It's been a few months since I wrote anything. My last cycle on Laforgues poems had left me a little dry! But this poet has not said his last word and continues to haunt me. So here is a new piece, black, full of soot... Note, you can activate the subtitle in English. Good listening. https://youtu.be/jXMz3lu6Jfk?si=tYOpdEBtnVSJVlfe

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

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

As stated in the title, I've been recently experimenting with ways to add more voices to Bach's 14 canons (BWV 1087) based on the multiple contrapuntal transformations of the harmonic bassline of the Goldberg Variations' Aria. Despite being derived from the tonally transposed inversion of that main theme, the so-called "Theme 2" has been kept separate across this whole compendium since it isn't contrapuntally compatible with its inversion when also retrogradated, syncopated or played with "per arsin et thesin" imitation simultaneously. Had the latter not resulted in whole segments of parallel ocatves, an 8-voice "omnibus" canon might have been possible, but that seems to be out of the scope of these musical materials without significant alterations that would render their canonic accompaniment non-imitative and thus, non-canonic at all. There is one canon from the original that is conspicuously absent from this recollection and that is the penultimate, 13th variation: a triple canon a 6 so densely packed and finely tuned in its original conception that adding more voices without irrecognizably altering the basic structure of the others turned out to be practically impossible. Almost like Bach himself knew this one canon, in its apparent simplicity yet brilliantly complex counterpoint, was the worthiest and most perfect when he chose to be depicted holding it for his portrait. Admittedly, this video would have been better suited for this year's 276th anniversary of Bach's passing (July 27th). However, due to my tightly packed schedule this summer, I find it highly unlikely I'll be able to post anything in time to commemorate that date, hence why I'm posting this video as soon as possible in order to leave room for focusing on my final exams. Lastly, it would be short of an understatement to recognize late Gerubach's video on the 14 Canons proved invaluable to my understanding, research and tinkering with these canons, as well as the core material of much of Bach's repertoire as a whole. Some of his most laborious contributions have since been taken down after his passing more tha three years ago now in 2023, such as for example the scrolling video on the Art of the Fugue. The quality of my scrolling certainly doesn't come anywhere close to his standards, and yet, as poor and humble a homage this may be, I have chosen to honor his memory and the tireless spirit of his countless contributions by acknowledging at the very least the gargantuan influence he has had on the accessible spread of Bach's music and its myriad intricacies. YouTube video link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3g00QMPNDyY Google Drive folder link (full score + audio): https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1J8NblMrM6T-3muEjVO4j8TKspVfyzDuk?usp=sharing J. S. Bach - 14 canons Vocibus Pluribus Additis.mp3 J. S. Bach - 14 canons Vocibus Pluribus Additis.pdf

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

Hey Peter, I enjoy this one more than the no.1 one, probably since if I were Julia, I would enjoy a more sugary Rachmaninoffian style than any compositional thoughts haha *0*. This one sounds Brahmsian to me though because of how you handle the motive with saturation. Nice ending as well. Henry

Hi @Wieland Handke , I like the descriptive effect you used for both the train part and the nightingale part. I enjoy the train part more than the nightingale part, but only due to the rendition, because the should-be soft trills and glissandos representing the nightingales sound too hard to me haha. Thx for sharing. Henry

I remember it's high B?

Mozart also did it in the Marriage of Figaro overture. Around measure 217 (my score of that doesn’t have measure numbers so I might have missed counted) with the Bassoon playing the melody, up to a high G at piano.

Wow, a really moving piece with some lovely harmonic twists.

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

Hello, I just looked at your piece “war born”. Just to get the bad news out of the way the score was presented kind of messy with a bunch of overlapping symbols. Honestly, this isn’t a huge problem musically. Anyways, orchestration wise, there was a bunch of very interesting textures and a lot of other cool things happening. One thing I noticed that there was a use of some synthesizer. You may want to turn those down a bit as that they were kind of burying everything underneath them. You can hear this is a very loud piece of music, especially with the distortion that sometimes is achieved with this (my own work “ sonic diarrhea” actually ran into this problem, but this was just because of having the master mixer on max, which could easily be fixed by making it back to normal). Anyways, awesome work well done.

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