PeterthePapercomPoser

The next competition/challenge will probably be the Christmas music Event and that will be completely open with no particular requirements in terms of instrumentation, or duration.

I just listened to the piece and the only thing keeping it from meeting the requirements for the competition is that you're using ensemble strings patches instead of solo strings. If you use solo strings, this would be a great string quintet and would meet the requirement of being for 3 to 5 instruments!

Your piece is for orchestra. This is a competition for chamber works for between 3 to 5 instruments total.

And here is @MK_Piano's first submission both to the contest and to the forum!

Luigi Cherubini - String Quartet No. 2 in C major - Scherzo

Hook - Exit music

Luigi Cherubini - String Quartet No. 1 in Eb major - Scherzo

You might be interested in this:

I couldn't pass up another chance to do another Muzoracle casting for a friend. (Muzoracle is a storytelling/divination tool similar to the Tarot card deck, but with cards with musical concepts and 12-sided Musician's dice and Solfege dice.) This time, Kat asked the Muzoracle if she will be financially stable. My interpretation of the cards and dice are displayed below. The instrumentation of the piece was guided by the suits of the cards drawn. Since the triad on the left is in the suit of strings, I chose Harp. The triad in the middle is in the suit of brass, so I chose Trumpet and French Horn. And finally, the Conductor card on the right is in the suit of voices, so I chose a 4-part women's choir. If you'd like to find out more about Muzoracle and how castings are interpreted go here: https://muzoracle.net/ This short musical representation of Kat's casting is about 2 and half minutes long. The piece is in Bb, since the black 12-sided musicians die landed on Bb. I then made harmonic/melodic underdrawings that I used in the composition of the music. Since the first solfege die landed on FA and the card drawn was a triad of strings. I start off with Eb major triads in the harp. Then I included an Agitato brass passage based around RA (the RE in the image below should be a RA - it's a mistake). Then I switched to a triad based on MI, before moving the music to G minor through a D7 b5 kind of harmony. Then, in order to end up back in Bb major at the end I transposed the whole pattern up a 5th and retraced my steps in a retrograde, back to the beginning chord. If you've gotten this far, thanks for reading! And I hope you enjoy listening to this short chamber work I wrote to represent Kat's casting. Comments, suggestions, or critiques are of course, always welcome. Thanks for listening.

Hi again @Alex Weidmann! There's a few things that I notice about this. I think that rhythmically, you're not writing for human performers but rather for the strict metronomic execution of a sequencer. Many of your wacky rhythms could be rewritten with rit.'s or accel.'s or fermatas to get the same results with a much simpler and cleaner looking rhythm. Also, some of the rhythms are so quick that you're not able to even hear them (for example the Flute part in measure 64, right before B). Another thing is that the Solo Violin is currently being played by the ensemble strings patch. I think it would sound much more like a concerto if you let us hear it with the Solo Violin sounds! Thanks for sharing!

I agree as well. And the way to get around the system is to use dollar signs instead of s's: a$$. LoL .. now we just need a forum AI to detect this kind of clever bypass.

To critique these fragments so far as a piece of music: In the beginning, I can't hear the bassoon part. In general the whole piece sounds like it's being played either too fast, or it's too metronomic and mechanical and could maybe use some rubato. You've balanced all the instruments at the same dynamic - the melody should be balanced in high-relief above the rest of the voices and I think it would bring a much more musical impression. Those are the things that jump out at me as getting in the way of giving the music a more fair appraisal and of really being able to hear how good or bad it really is. It does seem like the intro is a bit meandering, but I can't tell without any accompaniment or even just hearing the bassoon part might help. But I do really like the structure so far of having the strings and Flute come in first, before the Oboe takes center stage. Looking good so far! Thanks for sharing.

Prok 3, Prok 2, Tchaik 1, Tchaik 2, Rach Rhapsody on a Theme by Paganini

oooh! Sounds spooky! If it were mine I'd turn down the Harpsichord in the mix.

Hey @Henry Ng Tsz Kiu! Glad to hear you managed to finish one of your juvenilia! There are many features of this composition that I really like. Many have already mentioned the Neapolitan 6th which you apparently didn't even know about at the time of writing this. I don't know if it's common to prepare the N6 with it's own dominant 7th like you have here (A7), which I really like. Also - very cool and foreshadowing use of different divisions of the beat - freely transitioning from triplets to 16th notes. Also - there's some really cool variations of the main melody in the left hand (the Meno Mosso at m. 134). The crossing of the hands to bring the melody into the bass register is also really creative. It just shows that even as a really young Henry, your musical instincts were innovative and refined. I'm surprised that upon revising this work you didn't expand the fugato section into something more substantial. It's something I keep thinking of doing for my 10 Variations on a Gypsy Theme. The fugue variation there is really stunted and incomplete too. Nice ending in C# major and with a plagal cadence. Overall, a really great piece - thanks for sharing!