PeterthePapercomPoser

Hi @Henry Ng Tsz Kiu! What a beauty! My favorite parts are: The V/vi in measure 13 which doesn't go to vi but instead segues back into V. The false recapitulation in Ab minor in measure 26. Things I think you could improve on: In measure 30 you seem to rush through the grand pause into the next phrase. But I think what makes such a grand pause like this more effective is allowing the silence and waiting period to really sink in and to do it with more metronomic accuracy. Also, perhaps the figure in measure 29 could be repeated an octave higher after the pause before going back to the recap of the main theme proper. Your harmonic progressions are pretty smooth but very based in common practice. I just felt like the piece could have been more adventurous. Like even though you visit foreign tonal centers in your piece, you do so through very familiar and predictable means. It would be so refreshing to hear you modulate to a new key without using a typical sounding secondary dominant or secondary diminished chord. Perhaps experiment more with secondary augmented 6th chords? Or use more line cliches and chromatic passing chords or chromatic mediants? Nonetheless, I think you did achieve your goals of taking a sort of musical holiday after writing your sextet. Thanks for sharing!

@Atlantis_ I see you just edited your post. Honestly, I think it would be better if you just posted your newly revised version of your piece as a reply to the thread or maybe upload the new version with "ver. 2" in the title so that the newcomers to the topic can listen to the old and new version side by side and compare. What's also frustrating is that I wrote my original review for a piece that people are now unable to hear because you changed it. And I honestly think the original version was better and that's the version that I praised in my review but this new version sounds muddled and unclear and worse than the original imo.

Hello @benyamind! I find the harmonies in this otherworldly and rich. The choral soundscape washes over with the thick church-like reverb. For a piece that is comprised of only chords it sure is quite interesting! I admit that on first listen I didn't appreciate it as much as I do now. It's definitely grown on me. Thanks for sharing!

I think this is a case of something that should be very subtle being made obvious by the fact that all the instruments are doing it all at once. And I don't really consider my ears to be that much better than average on here. Perhaps I've been a bit sensitized to the effect because the new version of discord makes music being played or any sounds being made by your computer temporarily quieter in order to clearly play its notification sound. So for a second there I thought discord was going to play a notification when I heard that dip in volume at 3:28. Thanks for your reply!

My favorites are: 3 > 9 > 5 > 1 > 7 > 6 > the rest that I never even really listen to LoL

Hi @Atlantis_! Not sure which part exactly you consider to be the melody here. I hear many melodic parts being played at once - it gives sort of an impression of "blooming" which I think the title of this track is meant to suggest. There's a lot of motion in a spread and differentiated heterophonic texture. I think it's wonderful - I don't hear anything boring here! Now if you managed to continue it while also modulating to different key centers it would really create a delightfully rich composition! Thanks for sharing.

I'm just flabbergasted that you found something to improve upon in a Mozart work.

Hold up .. you're revising a Mozart concerto?!?!

Hello @Aleon Raven and welcome to the forum! What an intense, lucid and mesmerizing track! It starts very underwhelmingly and takes its time to build up to full intensity. I love how hypnotic the ostinato pattern makes the whole track. And there's plenty of variety and key and meter changes (or at least it sounded like the ostinato was being played in different kinds of subdivisions of the beat sometimes). The orchestration is masterful. The rendition is top notch - extremely realistic even with the choir. The melodies are so subtly interwoven too with the ostinato being almost treated like its own melody. Very happy to have you here - thanks for sharing and I hope you continue to contribute your music and useful experience as a composer, orchestrator and producer! Edit: I noticed that at 3:28 there is a sudden dip in the whole tracks volume level. Is that intentional?

Hi @Gwendolyn Przyjazna! I love the modal colors of this piece! I would have made a few different harmonic choices myself though. My ear just yearns for a C# major chord instead of the C# minor you have in measure 5 but I don't know how well it would loop back around if you made that change. But if it doesn't loop well with the major chord in bar 5 you could just write out the second repeat of the material with the minor version and there'd be some unexpected variety. I also really like the mood of the piece - it's melancholic and hopeful at the same time, perhaps contemplative of both good and bad memories. I think the rhythms of the right hand in measure 13 - 15 are as clear as they should be. Since you're using a variety of different durations for the 2nd voice of the right hand it makes sense that you'd display the half note in bar 13 as such since you use a quadruplet dotted quarter note in measure 14 followed by a quadruplet 8th note. And a regular quarter in bar 15. Thanks for sharing this reflective piece! It really is a shame you don't post more often but I remember that when I was in school I didn't compose very much either unless it was for an assignment because I just didn't have the time or mental/emotional resources for creative pursuits.

Hey @Ivan1791! Wonderful writing! The harmonies are quite neo-romantic and reflect well in the bleak but yet contemplative soundscape that is perfect for the string orchestra. Great job and I am hoping that these short pieces of yours are but warm-ups for longer and more developed works! Thanks for sharing.

Hey @Henry Ng Tsz Kiu! I'll review the whole movement as a unit even though I think I already reviewed the beginning of it once - I don't even remember what I said. The beginning is quite foreboding and starts with quite a bleak theme! And there is some very logical and crunchy dissonant chromaticism in it which quite naturally leads to some distant key modulations in a short time. In the beginning, the whole is very contrapuntal and the themes are very lucid and lead the movement towards the logical fugue where the piece becomes hyper-motivic. After that it sort of transcends its own themes/motifs. The Tranquillo in measure 123 kind of foreshadows the later religioso. The Mesto section in measure 148 gives a sense of lightness still tainted by the chromaticism of the lamentoso and its mourning. The fugues subject sounds even darker with the seemingly constant dissonances between the natural and sharp 4th degrees which the subject necessitates. Writing a 6-voice fugue must really have been a mind warping experience. Perhaps you wrote it in a trance much like Wagner claimed to have been in while writing the Prelude to Tristan & Isolde? LoL It's very good and never dull or overbearing in its contrapuntal complexity. There is plenty of space and harmonic variety to keep musical interest. I like how the end of the fugue gradually introduces the relatively happy sounding pentatonic figures. There's also a subtle metric modulation that brings you from the fugue to the Misterioso in measure 439. The Chant - Adagio Religioso section very naturally emerges out of all the previous material like the Tranquillo in measure 123. There is a real sense of piety or worship and spirituality and respect for your friends passing in this part. In measure 565 I perceive the on-beats and off-beats to switch places. For some reason I naturally hear the lower notes as being the strong beat in an oom-pah pattern. The pizzicato glissando from the major 6th degree to the tonic further foreshadow the transcendence you achieve later with the pentatonic figures. Measure 601 almost sounds like the beginning of a Western! LoL .. or should I say "Eastern"? This part is so ebullient and overflowing with positive energy and celebration! The very last section is especially transcendent where the celebration of his life is mixed with a bittersweet reflection. The pizzicato glissando at the end really sounds very Eastern and rounds out the movement quite nicely! Very well done, Henry. I 2nd that this is thus far your biggest masterpiece. Question is, where will you go from here? Thanks for sharing and I'm looking forward to your next piece!

Hello @Mikayla and welcome to the forum! This is a very creative idea and concept for a 4-hand piano piece! I like the main theme as well. In measure 18 you're using a D half-diminished chord which to me would sound better as a Bb9 6/3. The voicing in my opinion would also sound better if the right hand of the bass clef piano player was playing Bb-F-Bb as the open 5th would really nicely accompany the D in the bass. Overall, too, I think you're using too many triads in the low range of the piano which makes it sound a bit muddy. Thanks for sharing and I hope to see more of your contributions to the forum!

Found a really pertinent YT video about this topic: Cadence Hira's "6 Levels of MICROTONES (in Video Game Music)":

Hi @EnriqueMZ! What an unusual piece with a unique instrumentation! Very pretty, but I think it could be improved if you included changes in dynamics to make the music feel more alive and ebbing and flowing! It would also force you to have a specific destination for your phrases. Despite being very good already, dynamically the piece is kind of flat and the chromatic inflections don't take the listener to any new harmonic destinations but instead are just used as a kind of ornament. Thanks for sharing!