Robin123

Could a moderator please either delete my account, or if that is impossible, change the name of the account to something generic (e.g. robin123). I don't want my profile on this website to show up in google searches for me (which is not a critique of this site, just that as someone trying to become professional now, i'd prefer not to have the "young" association which might put some people off). Thanks

Fantastic composer and one of my favourites. I recently arranged three of his songs, "Evening", "Cradle Song" and "West London" for my chamber ensemble to play at a concert next year, alongside some of my own pieces.

Ultimately, bitonality doesn't require separate key signatures, or indeed any key signature at all! To do so would be needlessly complicated. Unless if you have an extremely good reason to have a key signature, it's best to just forgo them unless if you're writing completely traditionally tonal music (which you evidently aren't).

Ironically, Schoenberg himself never forced serialism onto his students, and actually encouraged them to write in whatever style they wanted!

I still think there'd be more interest in these competitions if we were allowed to enter pieces we'd written in the past! (not criticizing the system, just throwing it out there)

I don't listen to a whole lot of symphonies, but i'd say: Stravinsky - Symphony of Psalms Messiaen - Turangalila Symphonie John Adams - Chamber Symphony Prokofiev - Symphony No. 1 (Classical Symphony) Britten - Sinfonia da Requiem

It may sound unusual, but I actually like it when I can come up with something I wasn't planning. One of the most enjoyable things for me in composition is seeing how my initial ideas are able to grow, develop and change.

To be fair, the "all" is nothing to do with the trill, it's because the previous lines were solo.

I think I may give this a go!

My "big five" are John Adams, Mark-Anthony Turnage, Thomas Ades, Louis Andriessen and Nico Muhly. I don't know about greatest, but they're probably my favourite living composers.

Prior to Beethoven, originality was no-where near as big a worry among (art music) composers as it is now. They simply had to worry about being as competent at composing as possible, in a position more akin to servants. Bach and Mozart's recognisable styles were simply arrived at because of how their genius interpreted the existing musical practices. As time went on, and art music turned into a field so congested with great composers from the past, it became important to be original; after all, why would someone commission someone to write a piece that sounds like Bach, regardless of quality, when they can play Bach's music for free? So now in art music, one must work as hard as possible to achieve an original voice as well as a finely honed one. In the world of commercial composition on the other hand, i'd say things are a lot more similar to the pre-Beethoven days; film directors don't care if you've managed to blend serialism and tibetan throat singing into a gloriously original new art form, they would much rather someone who can sound exactly like Hans Zimmer, without having to pay a Hans Zimmer sized fee.

75 euros is a bit steep, they'll be raking it in! The most i'd be willing to pay is about half that, and that's only if it's a competition that really excites me. Good luck though!

Pianist gets the full score, soloist gets just their own part unless if it's a singer, or if it's an extremely rhythmically difficult piece, in which case it may make more sense for both players to have full scores. Also, it can't hurt to make the solo instrument into a small stave on the full score to help out the pianist.

I think anyone who thinks you need to wait for inspiration to hit you before composing is doing it wrong. You have to just sit there and do it, and if you get inspired along the way, great! If not, you'll learn a lot while you're working away at material that doesn't want to budge, until eventually the need for inspiration is negated. Personally I compose for 4 hours every day, and I've experimented with more time but I find that amount the most productive. In the past i've gone straight at every composition with only a vague plan in my head, and that's worked pretty well for me; though for my latest piece, a 10-15 minute work, I spent a few days planning out various tone rows, structural ideas etc. before I started, and it's helped a lot so far.

I've begun writing them like this in my latest work, requires a bit of fiddling around on sibelius but I think it's a pretty sensible system.