Julian-TJP

I would like to participate if there is still room.

I think your perspective changes over time. You may like something more or less than you do now later on. Everyone is human. People will appreciate something you've done if you are true to yourself in it. I don't think you should compromise your work to possibly make it easier for others.

Do you mean musically or conceptually? I don't think there is any guarantee that someone will perceive your music the same way you do...which is the beauty of music, or all art for that matter.

I'd say the interpretation of a piece of music is always dependent on the listener. Some might hear what you hear, others may attribute that passage to something else entirely, or focus on another part, some may not get anything out of it. With harmony, instrumentation, etc you can lead the listener to where you might want to them go. The reasoning you give for the choices you made in the middle portion make sense given the context, but even without context, you're entitled to do whatever makes sense to you. Composing something that you're not happy with, doesn't strike you, or doesn't make sense to you would seem to be a waste IMO.

There is definitely a call and response effect and I can hear where you are harmonically. I would say the rhythm of measure 7 is going against the rhythmic theme you have presented intially (half note, eighth, eighth), really more so the half note. You also have an issue with a missing beat in measure 11 I think it is, which then carries on to the quarter note in measure 13 which should be a half note as per the audio. Went ahead and did some mark ups on the image if that is ok, along with some quick ideas on the measures you mentioned...apologize for the sad mouse notation...

Here's the sound set editor in case you don't have it... http://www.sibelius.com/download/sse/main.html

This all depends on the sound set settings you have. Off the top of my head, not sure if a2 makes any adjustments to dynamic volume by default. But by using the sound set editor for sibelius, you can set it so a2 switches the keyswitch to a dual instrument patch within PLAY. Personally I separate all individual groups so I have a staff for Flute 1, Flute 2, Flute 3. I then set each staff to a separate channel. Then I can manually do unison or separate parts for each instrument. This also allows for more customization in dynamics, humanization and overall reverb placement later on when you work within your DAW. I use VSL though and know VI Pro and PLAY have different abilities when it comes patch setup. If Flute 1 and Flute 2 have drastically different parts, they'll be split into separate staves anyway.

Not at all. Larger number of players doesn't necessarily mean one section is louder than another by default. Your question really deals with orchestration and how different instruments are used in conjunction with other instuments. I would suggest looking into a couple orchestration books, The Study of Orchestration by Samuel Adler for example, to get an idea for how certain instruments are used in relation to others. The quickest thing would be listen to some orchestral work along with the score and see how the flutes, for instance, are being used. A single flute can pack quite a punch due to it's sound quality/timbre. Great place for public domain scores: http://imslp.org/wiki/

Can you take a screenshot of the issue or upload the Sibelius file?

No problem...

As others have said, writing by hand is the best approach. That said, there is more flexibility in using a notation program. What you use will also depend on your preference for composing. Do you prefer working through a score or by playing things out? Sibelius has a free trial if you want to get an idea of what it can do. If you are looking for something more affordable just to get your feet wet, try http://www.noteworthysoftware.com/composer/ If you are student, you can also get student discounts for most of the major sofware.

Fux gives two kinds of consonances (perfect and imperfect). Anything beyond the consonances are consider dissonances. Consonances = Unision, 3rd, 5th, 6th, octave Perfect consonances = Unision, 5th, octave Imperfect consonances = 3rd, 6th Dissonances = 2nd, 4th (though not considered dissonant in every case), diminished 5th, tritone, 7th Additionally intervals beyond the octave would follow the above, i.e. 9th = 2nd, 10th = 3rd. Therefore 9th = dissonance, 10th = consonance