Some Guy That writes Music

Thank you for your kind words. I agree about the development comment, I definitely think it would benefit from a longer continuation, but I need to start planning ahead for developments like that to make sense for me. And yeah I'll change the key, I wrote the melody starting on a C, and then immediately changed plans lol.

Hello Everyone, Thank you for your support in my recent compositions, I really appreciate the great feedback I always get from y'all. Today I have a piece that I really needed to write for myself. I've recently been under a lot of stress, with demands and expectations of other people really weighing me down. The struggle to meet those expectations has hurt my self-esteem. This piece is simply an expression of that feeling, and ends with the hope that I will conquer it all.

@J. Lee Graham Thank you for your feedback! I've fixed your notes in my personal scores, incase I ever get this performed. @Henry Ng Tsz Kiu @Uhor Thank you both!

Really cool music!, I really enjoyed the more sporadic textures. Your slower section is always carrying interestingly forward, with two distinctive voices at any given times. Some very wonderful counter point here. I will say the "Alla Jazz" Section felt like you lost the complexity and interest you had been building up, rather than redirecting it. I'm not sure what more you could do, it is very interesting by itself, but I felt a little surprised. The transition back to craziness was very smooth and satisfying.

Hello Folks, this is a 3 movement work I recently finished in my first few weeks of composition lessons. The following three movements are about three leaves as they fall from a tree. For each leaf, a different character is met. These leaves begin in similar places, swaying in the wind, before falling into the world of their character. The first leaf falls and is found by a little kid. This kid plays with the leaf, more excited than any adult could understand. They fly, dance, and eventually sneak together into the house. The second leaf falls and is watched by an old man. The man does not interact with the leaf, but instead is reminded of the beauty and fragility of the world. He remembers his life through this lens. The third leaf falls and is spotted by an angry man, who wants to crush every leaf. The leaf realizes he is coming, and flies with the breeze to escape, before eventually failing.

I wouldn’t say anything negative about 5, I more so think a fast 4th (between the current 2nd and 3rd) movement would do a lot of justice to this piece. The last movement you showed has lots of beauty to it, my only consideration is many beautiful movements in a row detracts from their beauty. When you are able to compare the beautiful and the “uglier” movements, it makes those beautiful moments all the more moving, and same with the fast movements. I honestly would gladly listen to any of your current movements in person if I had the chance, they are wonderful. Just because you wrote something that is hard, doesn’t mean its bad, otherwise most of the best music would be no good. I will say one thing, in my opinion (as a vocalist) if you have a solo voice singing with an orchestra, you should utilize the voice at least 60% of the time. This is not something that I’m totally sure everyone will agree with me on but I’ll explain my reasoning. In a concerto or soloist oriented orchestra performance, the soloist must stand infront of the orchestra. Particularly for singers, their job is to emote and show the emotions of the music. When you have a singer on the stage, they are the only face not in their music. They look directly at the audience. Long interludes of 2+ minutes are incredibly difficult to keep the audience’s attention. And if the singers sits and then later stands it cannot be acted through. Film music gets away with the soprano coming in out whenever they want, but I believe this should not happen on stage, simply out of a desire to tell a story, in what I believe, is the most convincing way. I’d be curious on other people’s thoughts on this.

I was listening to your work on my phone, when I started texting people, at some point I stopped what I was doing so I could listen to the music. This is rare for me. I think there is some gorgeous music. I personally like the move from 1-3 being calm. But I felt like after that beautiful calmness of 3, you have set-up some anger, or vivace well. The longing of the soprano in the upper range and emotional ending to 3 was great. This tension exists in the first measure of 5, but disappears, I wanted a movement of it. This music made me realize I need to do better lol. Beautiful stuff 5 makes me want to start running on the beach. Idk how else to say it. Also the soprano part sounds a little high. Idk what the range is, but even for a soprano, singing above the staff for a prolonged period of time (a minute straight or more) is quite difficult. High Bs and higher are terrifying for anyone, especially with the orchestra forte underneath, because the soprano can’t cheat or anything. So try to use this range more sparingly if you think you can. Although quite sylistically different from you, one the best composers to look at for easy vocal writing that still uses the full range of the soprano voice would be Donizetti. Take a look at the way he sets up singers for important high notes, I’ll try to find an example when I get home.

Lots of great use of changing colors to keep the same motif interesting. I think it is great as is, but if you were looking to add more, I would love some longer legato lines to add some contrast.

I actually quite like the strength of the motif for this minute and a half. It just really makes me want a B section. Often times in the renaissance, when there was a crazy polyphonic repetitions like this, they would do 1 of 3 things. Either have another polyphonic section in a different mode, have a more declamatory section of text, which would often be in a "double choir" setting which was back and forth between two homophonic sections, or an outright homophonic section. I think each of these would work really well. Heres an example of Lotti moving from a incredible thick reptitive canon-like polyphonity into a triple-ish choir: https://youtu.be/OZ9dXLmRlpo?si=LaAY263rsR4sFO6x And Gesualdo into a more homophonic style: https://youtu.be/TBC-45-FfVQ?si=Kmqmee2Ldr9aPlYU&t=131 And most was just more polyphony.

I wrote this piece with the goal of submitting it to a competition. However I could not get myself to format the music to my preferred level, and a general disdain for the form of the piece, so I decided not to submit it. I have worked quite hard on this piece, bringing out many new textures for myself. But I am at a point where I am too entrenched into this piece to make the large formal changes I want. So I would like to share it with you all. This piece is about a Whale and a Whaling ship, and their corresponding battle, capture of the whale, and bringing it home. I thought this might be an interesting idea for a competition, with a lot of dramaticism inherit, and generally a little easier for a listener to make the connection. Let me know what you think of the piece. I'd love to hear your input on the different textures throughout. I think this piece has some pretty awesome moments and I hope you guys will let me know.

Sorry for the technical title, I don't consider this music too technical, that's why I'm keeping it's original name in the file. However for the sake of sharing, this is more of an exercise. Lately I've been upset about the lack of modulations in my music, and so I decided to go to the edge of what I can write, so I could get more comfortable writing in this harmonic style. I generally prefer diatonic music, but love key changes, and would like to improve on making strong moments when keys are changing. This piece is generally in a a very easily felt tone center but there are moments, like page 6, which the motif keep reappearing in different tonal centers, forcing the music to adjust with it. This isn't my best music, the orchestration is fine, and it's not really refined or complex, but this was an important step for me.

Sometimes between writing my more complex and difficult to write music, I write something that is easy. This is one of those pieces, and I just felt like sharing.

Hello Young Composers, Today I present a Romance I've been working on for awhile. This is one more of my more edited pieces, I've spent some of the most time on this piece than almost any of my orchestral movements. This piece was written initially with the goal of imitating a Rachmaninoff style Romance. Before you get excited, I can fully say that is not how this piece ended up, but I would still be willing to say this is probably my best piece yet. It's definitely my favorite. I was hoping to save posting this piece until I finished the suite it will be apart of, but I simply have not had the time, motivation, or research to write what I would like. This piece airs on the dramatic side of things. As always criticism is welcome, even if you cannot find the words to make it constructive. I'm especially curious about playability, balance, and formal fluidity.

Hello Young Composers, I have finished a project of 4 string quartets, with the goal of getting 4 distinct textures and vibes, 2 slow and 2 fast. 1. Is a broad but brisk quartal and quintal harmonic piece. For nearly the whole piece, it avoids thirds and 6ths, and uses many 4ths, 5ths, and 9ths. 2. is the slowest of the four, and uses double stops for most of the piece, creating a thicker texture. 3. is the fastest of the four, with an emphasis on syncopation and skedaddling melodies. 4. is best described as fight between quartal and triatic harmony Hopefully you enjoy the varied of textures I'm offering. As always I am very open to feedback and criticism, because how else will I get better?