Nocturnal Adagio

For me the most interesting thing about this site is seeing composing through a different (more academic) lens. Primarily for financial reasons, I am a self taught musician/composer. When I work on a piece it feels very visceral and in the moment. Sometimes I 'feel' why something works or doesn't but I don't always have the terminology or theory to explain it well or even maybe understand it as well as others here. Ergo, being able to listen to pieces and hear thought from people who are classically trained and have advanced degrees in music gives me an opportunity to learn and grow in ways I might not be able to otherwise. This is the power of the internet at work. And hopefully it is working to add to my education a little at a time. :) Like Christian, I often get inspired by the competitions, challenges, and listening opportunities provided. I don't ever expect to win but the trying in and of itself is enough for me, sometimes even after a challenge has closed I will continues to play with ideas and instruments I might not have otherwise. So yes, I find I am influenced by other composers here to try things outside of my comfort zone.

Phew, well that's good at least. Happy composing then good sir!

Hopefully by now you've solved this problem but otherwise I'll try my best to offer some tech suggestions. I use FL Studio so I don't know how good the carry over may be but I always figure new ideas are good so I'll give it a crack. You said it's only for old files, could it be that you accidentally recorded in different midi channels? If I input a midi file from say Finale into FL Studio it often messes up the midi channel order. Then I have to manually go into Kontakt and change the VST midi channel to whatever FL Studio assigned in the piano roll. Then it will play correctly. It will play correctly no matter what when I use players other than Kontakt so it must be something on Kontakt's end. Regardless, I hope it is working now and my rather dubious suggestion is a moot point. Otherwise I'll try to rack my brain for other ideas. I think I've managed to break almost everything at least once while learning FL Studio. :)

In terms of time signature I had already planned on keeping it to 2/4, 3/4, 4/4. Mostly I was asking if anyone had a baseline for what is appropriate for middle level players? Like you wouldn't ask a middle school cellist to play in thumb position but they should be able to play in 1st position on all strings. I was looking for an equivalent of the cello example for percussion.

Hello one and all. I recently had a school I worked at ask me to write a piece for their middle school band. I'll be honest and confess it has been a very very long time since I reviewed percussion notation (I've been teaching LA not music) and was wondering if anyone had any advice about writing percussion lines for beginners? The students I am writing for will only have been playing for about 1-2 years. I emailed the band director to see how many percussionists she will have for the coming school year but as of yet haven't gotten any information back. My guess is about 6 based on last year's numbers and unless they practiced A LOT over the summer they play about as well as you would expect kids with 2 years of experience to play. I know more complex pieces have multiple instruments per page so individuals assigned more than one instrument can function better but I wanted to know are there any special notation standards for beginners? Are there instruments, rhythms, or techniques that I should be avoiding? I don't want to be torturing these poor kids to the point they want to quit nor do I want to give them parts riddled with mistakes. I would also like for there to be some educational value to what I am asking them to do, but as a cellist I don't really know what the standard progression of 'difficult stuff' for percussionists should be. So basically, any and all advice on beginner percussionists would be most welcome. Thanks in advance to everyone!

Well done! I'm also glad to see the turn out for this contest was better than your last.

I wasn't intending to enter this one but since I was inspired to write an etude for my aunt anyway.... Etude for Shirley Glad to see you have more than just me submitting a piece this time around though.

Well I don't know how fair of a win this is but it's exciting nonetheless! Thanks to both you and your friend in advance for recording my piece. I can't wait to hear the final result. I also hope your piano competition has a better turnout. :D

Here it is. If there's anything wrong with any of the files let me know and I'll get that taken care of. Thanks for setting up a really enjoyable contest! http://www.youngcomposers.com/music/listen/6055/The%20Wind%20was%20on%20the%20Withered%20Heath

Things to improve on: 1.) Knowing when to take a break from a piece 2.) When to follow conventions and when to break rules in pieces 3.) Advanced techniques for woodwinds and brass (gotta break out of my comfort zone of string instruments) Things I have improved on 1.) Standing up for myself artistically. The first piece I uploaded here was a demo for a game soundtrack. I let the game designer who commissioned it bully me into cutting out a big chunk of it in lieu of having a shorter part repeat endlessly. It's was not a proud moment for me and I wish I'd just combined the slow A part with the faster B part like I wanted. Money buys cheeseburgers but doesn't make you very happy once you're hungry again. 2.) Using FL Studio! It was a big switch after only ever using Finale and I'm still learning new things about it.

Thanks for getting back to me! Should have something ready in a day or so, just doing a few final proofreads of my score. Can't wait to see some of the other pieces people write.

Do you have any special preferences for how and where we submit our finished pieces? pdf, midi, wav, etc? Sorry, bit of a newbie here and still learning the protocols for stuff.

What a lovely idea! Do you have a preference for any of Tolkien's languages? My Dwarvish is very rusty but my Quenya is probably still passable enough to break up the syllables properly. :)

Hi there, I'm a little late to the party but if you are still looking I'd be interested in working with you. My name is Sarah Hsi and I generally lean towards classical inspired soundtracks but have dabbled with techno and pop as well. I did some work for a video game that did not get past the funding stage and am a huge gamer so if you are looking for someone with a background in gaming for your machinima please consider taking a look at my music portfolio. If you are still scouting for the perfect sound feel free to shoot me an email at nocturnaladagio@gmail.com and we can talk further. I can email you higher quality audio files but you can get an idea of my style at my youtube channel.