Erik

Thanks for all the tips, I checked most of them and a lot of them were very good. The play is now finished and performed as well, and in the end I chose some different parts out of the Salome opera as background music, and it turned out real good, the killing scene was real intense! The play was a real success, and there were many who thought it was the best student play they'd seen in years. It was probably all because of your help, haha ;)

Woah, thanks for all the replies :O Anyways, I forgot to mention one huge detail, under the actual killing everything is gonna freeze and the opera music will be raised in volume and put in front for a moment, so I don't know if anything subtle would do the trick really, so that's why I was asking for something intense. I haven't checked out all of the tips yet, but as of yet I haven't found what I wanted yet. So keep on giving me tips!

Well, we're kind of gonna have this play where the main villain is gonna be playing some opera music in his office, he's a real evil character, also it's gonna be played under a death scene where he shoots another guy so my question for you guys if you know any intense or on the verge of sounding grotesque opera pieces with lots of high in pitch opera singing that could heighten the atmosphere? Any tips would be appreciated, I'll look them all through and see what fits the most.

Last time I were in a music shop I tried different digital pianos to see what was best, and well I did see and play many good pianos, but then the store clerk came up to me and asked if I'd tried the Roland FP-7. I hadn't really thought of trying it out because I was only trying out those looking as uprights or grand pianos at the moment. So the clerk sat down at the piano and showed me the various things you could do at this beauty, and I have to tell you, I was greatly amazed by all the possibilities of this piano. You could practically set up the piano sound almost exactly how you wanted it, making it sound like a real grand, setting up things like the sound of hammer strikes on the string and when pressing the sustain pedal getting the sound of the damper going off the strings, and you could "open" and "close" the virtual lid of the grand, well you could pretty much change all different things of the actual sound qualities you can get out of a grand that I just don't know the name of. It's also got more than just a grand piano sound, electric pianos like rhodes and such, organs (really good), clavs, strings, harpsichord plus much more and they're very amazing as well (and you're free to to edit them in many ways too). You could change to alternate tunings, and you could even make your own, and very easily too! And the speakers on this thing are one of the most amazing things I've seen/heard, I can't quite explain how they work, but they give off one hell of a depth for two small speakers, sounds very authentic! And yeah, the key action was superb, couldn't ask more of it, one of the greatest feels on any keys I've tried. There are many other features of this beast, but if you wanna look further you can search more info on it on the net. The best thing about it, it is not that very expensive compared to other digitals in the "same" calibre! I could almost say it's the best one I've tried so far out of digital pianos. It might be just a bit over your budget, so if you can't afford it I'd advise you to save up for it. It costs 1299 euro at thomann.de, you might wanna check it out there (I've bought things from there before, and it's certainly the best net store in Europe, I live in Sweden and I got my Doepfer LMK2+ midi keyboard very quickly and well packed for a very cheap price too). I'm going to buy one of these myself when I get the money because this thing is the craziest scraggy I've seen in a long time. More info here: Roland FP-7 Digital Piano :: Overview ROLAND FP-7 - U.K. International Cyberstore Haha, I almost sound like a real promoter :D But I assure you, I am not :P

Well, I can't say I was a total beginner by Mars, I have been doodling around on the instrument a few times now and then through the years, had a year of lessons when I was a small kid but I didn't develop much back then nor did I want to play that much, I was not very interested in music back then. But it was in Mars that I found out that I really felt that piano was my instrument and that I started playing it seriously after previously being a electric guitar player. I wouldn't say I'm that amazingly good yet though even though I can play some harder pieces as I feel myself I still have a lot to learn. And I don't know how good I can become neither because I have had some problems with the muscles in my right arm (I got a RSI injury from playing the guitar last winter and I haven't completely recovered yet) so I tend to tense up my right arm. But I'll just have to work with it so that I can overcome it. I'll check out the Shostakovich concerto and see if it'll be something for me to play.

Ok, so it's like this, my piano teacher has big hopes for me, so she has said that she will try to fix something up for when I go out of school, which will be next summer so she was thinking that maybe we could fix up something with the orchestra we have in town, like doing a piano concerto for graduation or something. I feel really excited about the idea, and a bit scared too because I don't really have that long time of experience playing the piano really (I started playing seriously around Mars of this year) and I haven't really performed live that much neither. Anyhow, I need a piano concerto that is at a level I can play. I can play Arabesque no 1 by Debussy by heart and I have also started on the Minute Waltz by Chopin just recently so I guess that may give you some idea of my level hopefully. Just throw some tips at me and I'll look at it. Maybe something not too hard as I'll probably be nervous as hell :P

As I can agree with that a beginner composer does not necessarily "know best what he needs", I would still be interested in something like a collaboration on various areas of composition with the intent to broaden the knowledge that we have and make it easily reachable, cause I realize that we have some really skilled and experienced composers here, and it'd be really great if they'd share their knowledge for the larger masses. I'd say no to wasting the student-teacher pairs as I believe most people need some guidance to get somewhere with their composition (including me).

Ah a prog/metal song :) I'm quite a fan of Dream Theater myself so this is a genre I enjoy. But anyways, I have to say that overall the song is very good. As I notice some things that are very Dream Theater (guitar/keyboard unison *EHEM*) there are alot of things that are very original, it doesn't just sound as a lame copy of any DT song. I enjoyed it even though it's just a midi. Would have liked to hear it in a recorded state though, cause it's very hard usually to rate metal songs IMO in midi because it's hard to feel the metal ;) There are some small things I'm gonna comment on as I'm one picky bastard, like when the drum comes in with the crash in the beginning, I thought it was a bit too, what could you say, too "fierce", or intense for an intro (at least the beginning of the intro). I mean you could gradually raise the intensity as the intro/main riff goes on until you bang it off with the next riff. I think the intro is hopping around in intensity if you get what I mean, in the beginning calm with piano and then like bam drums and scraggy and then it goes into a bit calmer state and without a climax to it it changes to the next riff. You also could try doing some more variation on the main riff, maybe sometime in the middle or the end when the main riff repeats so it's not the same thing all the time. Also might I ask, is this intended to be sung with vocals or is it just an instrumental? Cause I see it's built very much like a song with vocals, but I feel that many of the sections are very pro-instrument mashing if you get what I mean with no place for vocals if you get what I mean. I have a hard time coming up with ways for the singer to keep up with the instruments but of course, nothing is impossible, I could be proven wrong. The ending is good and very Dream Theaterish with their changing of time signatures with the main riff, but I feel it ends a bit too quick with almost no climax. You could try bringing in that real heavy 8th note cymbal mashing you had in the intro with some real heavy bass drum and the whole lot or something :D But really these comments are just tips on what I feel could be different, of course you don't need to change it but I encourage you to experiment. Nice work I'd have to say at least.

Ah I see. Just wanted to make sure you didn't give it to me over pity because it's not like I'd die if I didn't get to do it :) Well good luck to you and your other 5 projects then. Mind you, there's no turning back now cause I've already started :) It was Chaos Temple right?

Well if that's what you say I'll take it over. Unless you'd change your mind. Might I ask what it is that makes you unable to do it?

Dah, this seemed to be a real fun project to participate in, but all the spots are taken :/ Well, what can you do?

Yes, Hiromi Uehara sure is a good pianist (don't know about being the best though)! I love her songs, although I feel at times her stuff should be more varied as alot of her stuff sounds pretty much alike eachother. I haven't heard her newest album yet but I will soon :)

Hmm I realise it's been a while since I did some serious composing so now when I'm in the ending phase of my summer work I want to start again. I'm very curious in what this exercise is so if possible I'd like to hear what to do next. By the way, I added a new part of melody because I was a bit bored so I'll post it here. 5 pitch exercise added stuff.MUS

Well, I think I read somewhere that it is just one set of strings. So I guess it sounds the same over both manuals (also I think you can see in the video that there's only one set of strings/hammers. I think it could be used to create some pretty cool stuff. Like he showed in the video how you could use the upper manual for really stretched chords. And it'd get easier to play repetive notes and the occasional "crossing jumps" with the left hand. It may be a tad unneccessary with two manuals but it certainly opens up a bit more options and makes some passages alot easier. If I had one I'd definately write for it. But I guess all you can do is dream :innocent:

Bet you haven't seen this one before :wub: Steinway's Double-Keyboard Piano | New York Times Video I want one ;)