MozMaestro

Thanks everyone for the comments. I'm glad the score looked like Chopin's because I modelled the look on his work! Yes, most of the phrasing and performance instructions are similar to what you would find in Chopin's nocturnes because this is basically an imitation, and I'm trying to speak his language (although with an awkward accent haha). However, I took the 'con amabilita' from Beethoven's 31st Piano Sonata, so let's spread the credit :P I spent a fair bit of time on the formatting of the score because it was being sent to someone else, and I wanted it to look professional. After finishing it, I had it printed on 12x18 paper and bookletized at a local Kinko's. Really cheap and looks good! Just an idea for anybody looking for an inexpensive way to "publish" a score. I had 5 copies made for $5... I think it can be instructive to emulate and I wasn't expecting to impress anybody with great originality. Is this your main problem with the piece? Did you find it boring? Was there anything in particular wrong or sections you felt were weak(er) than the others? I have some of my own ideas on this and am wondering if our impressions are similar.

Florian, I enjoyed the piece and definitely excellent job with the samples. I don't know what you may have reworked, but I didn't have any problems with the rhythm. I think in this type of piece, the melody is king, and you have a good one. I also enjoyed the interplay between the the guitars and the celesta (I think?) in the middle section starting around 1:50, and again with the celesta around 3:10. I hope your 'Princess' loved it.

Alex, I don't think your link to the performance is working. The score is there, but not the mp3.

I think you succeeded in your goal. I enjoyed both 'Beautiful Sky' and 'Alone'. I think on your webpage, though, 'Means of Escape' links to 'Alone as well? Anyway, I couldn't get that one, but would like to hear it. Overall, I found 'Beautiful Sky' more interesting. I like the motive in the right hand and then the melodic fragments that gradually materialize underneath it. That's something you don't hear everyday. I agree with Mike a bit on the end (and that was before I read his post, honest!), but I'm sure you had a reason for writing it that way. All in all, very atsmopheric and nice job on the performance as well.

As Marius said, I don't think it's possible to get the EWQLSO Silver piano separately from the rest of the orchestra. As far as samples go, you can definitely get better "quality" for less money than the full orchestra would set you back. I put quality in quotes because the sound of a piano is so subjective. Technically, the samples from the dedicated piano libraries are probably superior to the ones from EWQL, but if you don't like the sound, what's the point, right? I actually bought the Vintaudio C7 a few years ago, and something about it just sounds weird to me when I play it. The demos on the webpage sound pretty nice though, so it's definitely possible to get a natural sound out of it. I believe it has more samples per note than the EWQLSO piano, and I don't think it's a bad instrument by any means, just not to my taste. I think if you like the sound of the Malsmjo, you'll like a mellower piano more. Also, one thing to keep in mind is that the C7 has been around awhile. The newer sample libraries tend to have more samples per note. If you're shopping for a new piano though, in addition to the new ArtVista stuff you might want to check out some of the pianos from SampleTekk. I have heard good things about them, and the samples are absolutely massive. I bought the ambient set of Black Grand when I was getting ready to record the nocturne, but I had dynamics problems when I was trying to play. That's really the fault of my keyboard though, and not the samples. I would like to go in and reprogram the velocity layers and then I think I would love this piano. The quiet layers have a very mellow sound similar to the EWQLSO piano, but there's a heck of a lot more headroom for the loud layers.

Thanks for the comments! I have had a few requests for a score, so I have gone ahead and posted it (minus the cover page and dedication, to protect the innocent!). You can download it here: Nocturne in D-Flat (score in PDF format) Marius was right, the recording was done with samples, although it was performed live. The giveaway is in some of the louder sections; they don't have quite as much bite as they would on a real piano. I played it live in a few takes and spliced together the takes that I liked best. I think this is much easier than trying to program it manually; I admire those of you that do it and make it sound convincing, but a real performance adds something to the effect, I think. The piano sample is from EWQLSO Silver. I have some other piano samples that I think are more dynamic (Art Vista is good too), but unfortunately my keyboard is flaky with them (press a key 1/100th harder than another and sometimes it's twice as loud). Chopin, I've listened to some of your works on here before and was very impressed, especially with the ornamentation/fast passagework.. You seem to have a knack for it. I found ornamentation to be one of the most difficult parts in writing this and ended up keeping most of it simple. There were a couple of days when I was flipping through F. Chopin's nocturnes just shaking my head at the crazy/brilliant stuff he comes up with in terms of ornamentation. I would post more of my music, but honestly this is all I have right now. I started working on a little Caprice in the style of Mendelssohn's Songs Without Words earlier this week, but at the rate I'm going, don't hold your breath. :D I think I have about 20 seconds so far! In the meantime I'll stick around and try to post some comments on other pieces. Great forum here. Anyway, hope the score helps and thanks again for the comments.

Hi everyone, First post here, but I have been impressed by some of your compositions, and I'd like to share a nocturne I recently composed with you. Before I post the link, here is some background info on the piece: Last year, I had been playing with the idea of composing a piano solo for my (at the time) girlfriend, but never quite got around to doing it/could never write anything that satisfied me. I did have some melodic ideas that eventually formed the foundation for the 'A' section of this nocturne, though. The relationship ended at the end of December, and to occupy my mind, I decided to go ahead and write the nocturne. It was composed off and on throughout January. It is my first completed composition for piano as I find writing music difficult and am unfortunately often busy with other activities. However, I studied piano pretty seriously in years past and still play regularly, so I know the instrument well. At the simplest level, it is in A-B-A form, with a lyrical 'A' section and a contrasting, 'agitato', middle section. This was my original plan for the piece, although the B section ended up expanding and becoming more dramatic than is usual for a nocturne (due to the circumstances!). Still, I decided to keep the name because of the nature of 'A' section. The piece also turned out to be kind of programmatic (particularly the middle section), but the program isn't really essential to the piece so I'm not going to go into details. I think some of it will probably be obvious to you anyway :) Something else I should mention is that near the very end, there is a subtle, brief quotation from the musical 'Wicked' -- The reason for this is that it had special significance to the relationship. The style of the piece was certainly influenced by Chopin, although I'm not claiming to compare! The file size is about 10 megs for a 7 minute recording. You'll probably want to do a right-click/save-as. Nocturne in D-Flat Major (mp3) EDIT: Also, here is the score for those that are interested: Nocturne in D-Flat (score in PDF format) Thanks for listening, and I hope you enjoy it. Also, I appreciate any comments.