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City Rail and Nightingale – Submission to the YCF 2026 Spring Competition
Melodies Themes Motives Harmony Chords Textures Form Development Structure Time Originality Creativity Score Presentation Instrumentation Orchestration Playability Execution of Given Challenge Taste 9.5 8 10 10 10 8 10 8.5 Avg: 9.25 This piece definitely captures the anxious commuter during rush hour I think. You captured the forward momentum beautifully during the train ride sessions. The score presentation is a perfect 10 because of your annotations, which helps the listener understand your intentions much more clearly. Your usage of dissonant chords to designate the train's departure was excellent, and the trills to portray the nightingale was really creative. And on top of all of this, your theme was extremely coherent / catchy. Overall, between your director's cues (basically, your score) and the music itself, this was a coherent, creative and beautiful piece to listen to. And you weren't afraid to take chances, which I feel, paid off very well.
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Sunset Suite in C minor ( music for the Landscapes - Soundscapes Spring 2026 Composition Competition.)
Melodies Themes Motives Harmony Chords Textures Form Development Structure Time Originality Creativity Score Presentation Instrumentation Orchestration Playability Execution of Given Challenge Taste 9 9 9.5 10 10 6 8.5 9 Avg: 8.9 Your Melody, Theme, Motive is wonderful. Right away I could hear what you were doing in the bass. Extremely clear and intentional, and it's a beautiful entry. Also in the intro I like how you seem to interweave the theme while modulating upwards. I can see this representing a sunset in an old western movie perhaps. The biggest criticism here would be playability. Is it playable? Sure, but the way it's written, its for a larger ensemble. This most likely could be formatted for a proper quintent and not lose too much of its texture.
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Chinese Fugue -- Landscapes - Soundscapes Competition Submission
Melodies Themes Motives Harmony Chords Textures Form Development Structure Time Originality Creativity Score Presentation Instrumentation Orchestration Playability Execution of Given Challenge Taste 8 6.5 9 7 10 10 7.5 7.5 Avg: 8.2 I think your scene is incredibly difficult to portray, but I hear the cultural influence of your piece. It brings me back to perhaps the 1500s. Definitely a solid melody, and fugue-like parts (perhaps more like a hybrid fugue - invention maybe?) Nevertheless, even though your harmony is simple, I do like that you changed keys halfway through.
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Landscapes competition submission - Morning On Whidbey Island
Melodies Themes Motives Harmony Chords Textures Form Development Structure Time Originality Creativity Score Presentation Instrumentation Orchestration Playability Execution of Given Challenge Taste 8.5 5 10 8.5 10 10 10 8.5 Avg: 8.8 I think you nailed the challenge with this, the mood in my view really captures the image / scene. I know I marked you down for harmony, and normally for a mood piece like this it wouldn't be a big deal. However perhaps you could have implemented even just 1 transition (from early morning to mid morning), especially on a 5 minute piece. Other than that though, this is a very beautiful musical scene!
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Sacrificed to the wilderness -- Landscapes - Soundscapes Competition Submission
Melodies Themes Motives Harmony Chords Textures Form Development Structure Time Originality Creativity Score Presentation Instrumentation Orchestration Playability Execution of Given Challenge Taste 7.5 6 9 10 10 10? 9 8 Avg: 8.67 Really good job on portraying the scene, which is the whole point of this challenge. And executed with custom percussion sounds nonetheless! While the score is hard to follow, clearly you needed that setup to execute the musical output. I gave you a 10 anyway because you communicated your intent, and you clearly cared about the musical output, which is important to me as a listener. I have no idea if this is playable, but assuming yes, so you get a 10 with a question mark. This reminded me of a jungle scene which is close enough to your image! And I even hear what sounds like water in your music which I would imagine represents the reservoir. VERY well done!
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Landscapes Competition Submission -- Amidst the Clouds & Flowers
Melodies Themes Motives Harmony Chords Textures Form Development Structure Time Originality Creativity Score Presentation Instrumentation Orchestration Playability Execution of Given Challenge Taste 4 10 7 10 10 10 6.5 8 Avg: 8.2 This is gorgeous and very cinematic. A very well done mood piece. I feel a much greater sense of tension. There is a great deal of tension with this piece, and it makes me wary about being on or near this mountain! Or perhaps the area around this mountain has a deep secret. A perfect score for a mystery movie. Overall, I love the harmony and the mood.
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Spring Submission “Rainy Weather”
Melodies Themes Motives Harmony Chords Textures Form Development Structure Time Originality Creativity Score Presentation Instrumentation Orchestration Playability Execution of Given Challenge Taste 8 8.5 10 10 5 8 9 9 Avg: 8.4 Rough crowd with this one lol. I have a very different take. While I'm not sure this reminds me of rain, this DOES remind me of meditation with an Asian influence perhaps. I'm not sure if you were going for that, but that's how I feel. I love the mood you portray too, even though it's dark sounding, you were able to portray a sense of peace and contemplation in my opinion. Very nice work, and creative!
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Landscapes competition submission - Padovana et Gagliarda "Detta la Lombarda"
Melodies Themes Motives Harmony Chords Textures Form Development Structure Time Originality Creativity Score Presentation Instrumentation Orchestration Playability Execution of Given Challenge Taste 6.5 8 10 7 10 10 7 7 Avg: 8.2 This certainly reminds me of royalty and elegance. Overall a very enjoyable piece, pleasant traditional harmony and quite easy to follow the score. This reminds me more of being alongside a castle, but I suppose I can picture myself outside taking in the cool mountain breeze, looking over at a castle from a great distance too!
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"Looks Like We Made It"© | V.I.P. Symphony Orchestra : Rendition
The output is fantastic, you did a great job with the production quality. But when you post in these forums though, please be mindful and respectful of other people's critiques or opinions. Unless you specifically tell us otherwise in your post, you are essentially inviting us to be critical. And @Kvothe 's observation about your sheet music is 100%. It's clear you sequenced this in some other program though, and it appears you are using MuseScore for the output of the sequenced output. This would explain the engraving issues. With that said, the music itself, is beautiful! It instantly brings me back to the 80s!
- Recent update | Error report 1
- Recent update | Error report 1
- Recent update | Error report 1
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Is the score supposed to scroll to the left as it is being played ?
It should work in booklet / page view but I will check. Linear view I haven't coded the scroll yet, whoops. I'll get on that.
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My first reaction: where is the "play" button ?
Click on Mixer View, you will see the play button. However, the best user experience is to hover over the notes with your mouse and press spacebar. Also, I would zoom out a bit, click Booklet View, to get out of the default linear view (if you wish). Let me know if you have issues with playback. I expect a lot of questions on how to initially use the program because there is no built in help yet.
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Importing a midi shows an empty score
Ok this has been addressed. I didn't have support for Midi type 0, but the import now works. If you still have issues with the graphics and output, I can work on the quantization. The issue is that if you composed arpeggios from another program, Music Jotter can't interpret that. But if the rhythms are not correct, send me the pdf or visual output of the score, and I'll take a look.