Thatguy v2.0

Hello, yet again with another prelude... GAWL aren't you sick of them yet?? Anyway, this one flirts between Db and C#m. It's 6 pages, but not that long as far as measures. It's grandiose, yet soft and subtle. Unfortunately, the midi doesn't do it justice. The arpeggio measures don't hold the first chord/low note in each one, but hopefully the score paints the right picture. I think it's due to the amount of notes held with the sustain. I hope you enjoy this, and any comments or concerns are welcome. :) Prelude 18 - Db.mp3 Prelude 18 - Db - score - Full Score.pdf

Very cool! I like the electric piano, it's a nice change from what I usually hear around here. I agree with Grant, it has a space type of feel, probably because of the timbre, and the jaunty syncopated melody worked really nicely over the flowing eighths in the left hand.

Yeah I think this was really interesting. For me I felt like it was really easy to distinguish the two parts, as my ear could effortlessly listen back and forth between them. It didn't feel like oil and water like a lot of bitonal stuff I've heard, but rather the two parts worked much better than what I anticipated. Very cool Peter, I'm interested to hear how all your studies acquiesce into larger works. Maybe something along the lines of blending two themes together at the end of a sonata or something.

Hey Lithl Very cool piece! For some reason your piece reminded me of this: Know the composer? This may help if you want to keep learning about a style with "tape" playback (or whatever avenue you use) mixed with instruments. Your piece is more abstract, but I'm sure they're parallel in some ways. I'm not too familiar with the style, but I'm always curious how more abstract music could be developed further. Thanks for sharing, and don't ever be bashful about posting something against the grain of what's here :)

2. If you didn't submit music to the competition, why not?I just wanted to review this time

I didn't really get love or summer from this, but to each their own. I guess that's all subjective anyway, and there's no denying your exceptional talent and writing capabilities. It's all superb, and the harp writing is phenomenal. Well done. Good luck in the voting

Your piece is the last I've heard (but not least, just the order I used), and yet you still brought something different from the others. I really appreciate the creativity used with form with this competition. It seems like everyone had such a different take, and splitting the stanzas into an ABA form was a great idea to me. I feel like if I had participated in this competition I would have organized the music in a similar fashion. I enjoyed the tossing around of the LH piano motif to different instruments, and the jovial sense you gave in the composition. A change to the minor mode would have served well as a contrast to me, but the beauty of composing is we all have a different take and direction we feel like the music should go. You give variation in other ways, and I especially love the piano flourishes near the end. Cool ensemble too, the horn was a pleasant change in instrumentation from the other pieces. On a side note, I've listened to basically nothing but Beethoven's late string quartets for the past 4 or 5 months (he's my favorite composer by far). It sounds insane probably, some may even call me a lateBeethovenaddict ( :P ), but I've been obsessed with what I consider to be the greatest music ever composed, always picking up on little details upon every hearing. A profound sadness lingers throughout no.12-16, but also in my opinion a novel and unrepeatable expression we're all lucky Beethoven had the strength to compose in his weakest moments. Good luck with the voting, and thanks for sharing! It was fun to listen to all the different interpretations of the competition, and yours was no exception. Well done :)

Wonderful piece! Aside from articulations and key changes as mentioned by others, this was a nice piece to hear and definitely was reminiscent of summer and love. Great advice here :) I hope you learned a lot from our little competition, that is the hopeful achievement after all. No matter the results, you should be proud of a fine piece. I'm not the most versed (pun :D ) with vocal and ensemble music, but it seemed quaint and prudent to the goal of the competition. Good luck with the voting, friend. Hope you stick around

no worries, might be wrong. It's just weird, you know?

I'm not going to argue, and I'm not stupid. There's a chance some nitwit created an account to only comment on your piece, and then "pretend to be you", but from my experience of the years I've been here, I beg to differ. This is a competition for nothing other than fun and community comradery, so if you're here for clout chasing or personal ego buffing, it's super cringe dude. Just post your music and try to make friends like the rest of us. People will grace you with praise or critique your music because they care about you in an authentic way if you're authentic in return. I doubt we see you after this competition has ended, but I would LOVE to be proven wrong. I'd LOVE to have made an embarrassing mistake calling you out. I wish you well, and good luck in the voting

Please please please be nitpicky, it helps. Not only for the composer, but those reading as well. @Ninja Nolan Kudos for the recording! And also, very cool ensemble. It must have been a challenge for a quartet with instruments of the same range...and same name :D I think this is very cool, and the range and monophonic restrictions breed creativity. AND ALSO, I love the idea of different movements for the stanzas. I feel like this could have been something you wrote before the competition but fit the criteria. Maybe, maybe not. Regardless, very cool and creative piece. I agree with those who said variation in texture could have been beneficial. This to me was conservative in nature, but executed very well. There weren't moments that really "wowed" me, but it's so solid in craft that it hardly matters. You were able to showcase the instrument from your performance, and that means something. Hopefully people interested in soprano sax writing can benefit from your piece in knowledge of the instrument. This really fit the theme of the competition to me, and I enjoyed this thoroughly. Good luck in the voting!

@JDevorMusic @Ellie Smith Are you the same person?

Hey there, Wieland Your music has a lot of qualities I'm envious of, like your knowledge and inspiration from baroque music, engraving technique, clever counterpoint, FUGUE writing, etc. You're very different from me, and I love that I can explore your music to help prop up my weaknesses. I'm a guitarist, and I've probably listened to this about 10 times by now (literally :D). I won't go into detail like @Omicronrg9 did about the accordion with your guitar part, mainly because you didn't really give me much to go off of. You have three polyphonic instruments, yet you took special care to notate fingering and button markings or whatever for piano and accordion, but the guitarist is left trying to figure out hand positions and fingerings. Why? Is it because you're unfamiliar with the instrument? If so, so be it, that's okay, that can be learned. But not one slur?? Only a few chords? Our chords RING, you should use them more. I felt like you treated the guitar like a violin. Sorry, I just found it offensive when going through your piece. Again, it's okay if you're unfamiliar, but I think the piece would have been better off with another instrument substituting the guitar (especially with the care given to the accordion, which I assume you haven't written a lot for as well?) Don't get me wrong, the guitar part is all playable, but the excessive dynamics and lack of articulation when compared to the other instruments just had me hyper fixated with that. Sure, the dynamic markings are probably for the playback, but I would have made a lot of those marks invisible for the score (if your program allows it, ofc). All in all, this music is good, you have talent as a composer, but the guitar part in particular just rubbed me the wrong way playing through the piece. Sorry if I come off harsh 😰, but I'd rather let you know faults in part writing then just showering you with praise, because I like you. I like what you have to offer the world with music, and I like what you do for our community here at YC. You're a gem, my friend. Keep composing!!

Whether you win or lose the competition, saying this means you actually won something much better. You know, I've read through everyone's comments, and a lot of what others have said about wind breathing, harp writing, orchestration, etc. all holds true. Take note of it; it's free advice that if applied will help you improve. BUT Your style, your voice, your raw talent that you're hopefully always going to keep working on was really fun and a treat to listen to. Your music is emotional and definitely applicable to the poem. I really really love how you treated the vocals (cool to incorporate vocals btw!). There were large gaps between the phrases, and I think that lead to a balanced feel of it all. You gave solos to the different instruments, letting them all sing on their own and together when necessary. Even though I think the winds could have been fleshed out more and the harp used more effectively, the point is you TRIED and branched out from your comfort zone to compose this piece. You hopefully learned a lot, and with the feedback you've gotten you're more equipped with technique for future pieces. This was definitely one of my favorites so far for the reasons stated. Well done sir, you should be very proud of this piece :)

Any type of style you're interested in? Jonny Greenwood from Radiohead is awesome, he's written concert works too. Stockhausen, Messiaen, Ligeti, Xenakis all come to mind. Here's a weird one for ya :D