Henry Ng Tsz Kiu

I don't know if your "joke" makes him sad or not but it makes me sad seeing you attacking people with "jokes"

Why do you call Peter "Peter Toilet Paper Composer"? That's VERY IMPOLITE of you to say so. He is very well respected among us and NO ONE should stigmatize him with such nasty nicknames. Henry

Usually if you keep digging your own posts it will attract views. 🤣

even worse than my random pauses lol!

I can’t believe you quote this piece as this is probably my worst piece ever posted on YC!

Hello @Josephine_Maccrimmon ! Welcome to the forum! Sorry for a late reply. I think the beginning of this sketch set up the mood well. You have many things you can do to move the composition forward. First is harmony. You are just staying in tonic D flat major in the passages presented. How about a half cadence and then modulates to a different key? Like, you can have a phrase ends on Ab major which is the dominant chord, and then start in a close key and then gets back to tonic Db major. You will already get some progress with this formula. Next is the instrumentation. You are using the flute as the melody carrier. What about the other instruments? You could easily switch roles with each of those instruments, for example having piano/oboe/quena playing the melody. Another thing is texture. What about changing the texture to a more polyphonic setting and invites more counterpoint? Also what about a contrasting section with different mood, tempo and key? These are all what you can consider for developing a piece! Henry

Hello @PikapikaHei ! Welcome to the forum! To me actually the piano writing is idiomatic! The melodies are also good. For me it would be the structure of the piece. You are going for an ABABA structure which the A and B sections provide good contrast with each other with different mood, tempo and texture. I would suggest you adding more developments in each of the A and B sections after their initial presentation, rather than just changing keys. For example the recurring A sections you could have developed the melodies with variations rhythmically and texturally. Also, it would be great if there is an assimilation of the two sections at the end. However, this is a very good attempt especially from someone who has never attended a composition class, so props to it and keep writing! Henry

Hey Jonathon @ComposaBoi ! I like the part writing here and the Cor anglais is definitely better than oboe for presenting the Romanian mood, I think. The melodies are really memorable to me as well. I would say in terms of structure you could have introduced more contrast between in the middle sections, rather than just modulating and changing the modality to major. To me there's an imbalance of structure as you put the contrast solely at the end, which somewhat sounds less move forward. I would also say the tragic ending in b.81 is a bit abrupt to me. I like the passage itself but the preparation to it is not enough for me with only an accelerating bassline and suddenly modulates from a different key. I am nitpicky here probably because I listen to @ferrum.wav 's piece before yours, so sorry for that! I like your piece though even if my words are nitpicky! Thx for sharing! Henry No less you are a German. Very precise value 😗.

Hey @ferrum.wav ! To me this is the best entry in this competition. You show complete understanding on the idiomatic writing and as you said, "to squeeze and extract as much as possible out of them". All those techniques and tessitura are served for the narrative of your pieces here, rather than a mere meaningless show off of what you know. In the intro where you present theme 1, the tremolos of strings in their lowest register definitely presents the unsettledness of a lone (not sunken lol) ship, plus the syncopated triplets which adds to it. Like you and @chopin mention the whole tone scale which represents water much like Debussy would do, but the whole tone scale itself is a trouble maker to make the atmosphere even more terrifying with no resolution available for the scale. The timpani to me acts like heartbeat here just like what Mahler did in his 9th. As the tension grows the wonderfully virtuosic passage in b.21 doesn't only mean to show off, but to enhance the tension as quick as possible. The pizz./arco alternation and the open strings are really well used here, as well as the bouncing of bows for the violin. The high register accompaniment of piano really reminds me of water as well. I will also have to say, Theme 1 sounds very much like your anime music themes too, as I've just relistened your arrangement on the Your Reality song. The glissandos in b.69 really intensifies the tension with the fiery notes in piano, plus the double stoppings and fortissimo, which prepares well for the storm section, For the whole tone storm you definitely depict the scene very idiomatically with timpani and piano marcato, plus tremolos and bouncing bowings which develops what you've done in theme 1. Most importantly you have spacing here between beats and with polyrhythm, so each instruments can bombard in different times, that's why even though the music is very strong here it doesn't sound messy at all. Next in theme 2 you provide a really good contrast in all aspects. Harmonically and melodically it sounds like a folk dance with all those open fifths and quartal chords and lydian notes, rhythmically the syncopations and dancing rhythm. I like the high register horn melody in b.113. Again here sounds like anime music, tho with adventure theme. I like the quasi fugal transition after the climax too. Next I really love the abrupt end to the fugato. It sounds like the celebrating mood for minutes is just imagination and is futile and the protagonist is still hanging their lives on an almost sunken ship. I really love this ending section. The pizzicato just sounds so sarcastic, and then the artificial harmonics even more so. It almost reminds me the ending music in the Usual Suspect: Like what you've said writing a great piece is much more important than winning any competitions, even if it's a YC competition and I'm sabotaging my own status as a YC staff to reiterate that lol. Writing for a competition is a great way to inspire yourself to write good pieces, but to win it or not I will never care if I know I write a good one, even if it breaks laws or rules or so. Congrats on such an achievement! It's tough but it's all worthy, isn't it? Henry

Hi Kyle @UncleRed99 ! This one is a completely contrast with @HoYin Cheung "s piece I have just heard, as this one is sparse in spacing for the whole piece and in a more homophonic style. Maybe you think this isn't your best work, but indeed this one falls into your general style, with sparseness, homophonic texture and sentimental melody just like Jonathon @ComposaBoi said. I like the simplicity of the piece like Mike @chopin does, but I would want some excitement in the middle climax of the piece. This piece has a clear structure and direction when both the beginning and the ending are serene, and between the climax is placed in the middle in b.40 and b.64 with a slight dip between, thus having the climax graph looking like a Bactrian Camel. I think in the climax you could have added more counterpoint to make the texture sounds more full to provide an even notable contrast with the general mood of the piece. Although, I would say for a 4 minute piece it would be perfectly fine to just stay calm and serene with a little bit excitement between which is the piece you present now. One scoring concern is the tremolo with a staccatissimo, e.g. in b.32, what does that mean? I think it would be clearer to just write out the two repeated notes with staccatissimo on both of them. I enjoy this piece, thx for sharing! Henry

Hi @HoYin Cheung ! It's a nice piece for sure, the quartal/pentatonic harmony in the piece representing the Alishan landscape is well noted. The motives are clearly well organized and noticeable, Many nice use of polyrhythms to depict the vividness of the landscape too. Although I will have to agree with @ComposaBoi on the structure of the piece , as I too find the direction of the piece less compelling and moving forward. I think probably it's the less contrasting timbre and spacing of each passages makes the pieces less contrasting, The whole pieces sound contrapuntal to me which I think in some places you could have the flute act as the sole melodic carrier with a more homophonic texture, and minimize the amount of instruments staying as it's mostly 4 or 5 instruments playing, when you can have some passages having just 2 or 3 instruments, or even solo passages to create contrast in the "less is more" side. Or some passages there can be octave doubling instead of having all 5 instruments playing different lines all the time. Although those above are only my subjective opinion and I still enjoy your piece. Thx for sharing! Henry

You can request Vimeo to take it down, as we are not Vimeo staff 🤪

Haha Hong Kong is now getting "from chaos to order" and "from order to prosperity" so it will be very different from the books you read then 😗

It’s a bit weird you are reviewing @ferrum.wav ’s work but mentioned him as a he rather than a you 🤪

I check from wiki and it says Muffat and Glinka were born on 1st June.