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This looks cool I'll give it a shot. I doubt I'll win though because my speciality is with strings and your concert band doesn't have any lol. Also my piece may be a little um.....different lol. But yeh count me in

hehe great first piece. It reminds me a bit of some of the scottish waltzes I play on violin. But seriously for a first piece this is outstanding. I agree with Nikolas' comment about the counterpoint but I think that that will come with practice. Well done.

Just the other day I heard a piece which I'd like to add to my favourites. Its Sensemaya- Silvestre Revueltas (probably spelled wrong hehe)

I didn't think it was that stylistically confused at all personally. It wasn't like you were jumping around in different genres at random or anything. I like the instrumentation as well. Its cool. You could change it if you want. My recommendation would to be to highlight the lower instruments a little more and give them their own moments but its fine. Oh and I didn't really hear the disco influences but I don't listen to that sort of music much lol. Yeh its a cool piece. I liked your harmony a lot. You could always keep this arrangement and make another if you're not happy with it.

I think the best composer of all time is Bela Bartok. He collected so many undiscovered folk tunes and added unusual quirky twists to them that make them surprising and unique to listen to and play. His sound is also very different and interesting. His music speaks to me and that is probably the highest compliment I can give to a composer. Since I mostly play folk tunes its always fascinating for me to hear what you can do with them. Debussy and Bach were close behind in best composer but I just don't have the same connection when I listen to their music that I have with Bartok.

Debussy is my favourite. But then I worship impressionism so I would say that....

I use sibelius and its cool but it does confuse me sometimes. I prefer to use pencil and paper to sibelius; Sibelius is what I use if I can't hear what something will sound like in my head.

hmm....well my favourites are I apologise in advance for the lack of accents and circumflexes in what I'm typing. I don't know how to do them on this computer lol "Mars" from Holst's the planet suite "The infernal Dance of King Kashchei" by Stravinsky (sadly I haven't heard the rest of the Firebird) Debussy's "Nocturnes" (Nuages, fetes and sirenes) "The Sorceror's Apprentice" by Dukas Eric Whitacre's "Ghost train" I could go on for ages about Edward Macdowell's pieces but I'll restrain myself hehe "Carnival of the Animals" by Saint-Saens "Les Animaux Modeles" by Poulenc "Baba Yaga" by Liadov "The water Goblin" by Dvorak "The Rite of Spring" again by Stravinsky "Maple Leaf Rag" by Scott Joplin "Slavonic Dances" by Dvorak Most pieces I like as you may have noticed aren't very old. There's just something about most older pieces (by people like Mozart, Vivaldi etc) that I find hard to identify with but I can see why most people enjoy them

Well I enjoyed this piece. I'm not sure if it would stand alone well though, because it was quite illogical and disjointed in terms of the things happening but thats down to personal preference I think. With the pictures its great! You really brought out the idea of the cubism and Picasso's images. I think in order for it to stand alone it would really need something like a recurring melodic theme thats more, logical lol than the one you've got that breaks up all the sections but thats only my opinion. You should listen to "Pictures at an exhibition" by Mussorgsky if you haven't already. Anyway your piece was very descriptive and I really enjoyed it which is odd because normally I dislike serialism

I'm not learning anything that difficult. I have a violin adaptation of Claude Debussy's "Clair de lune". Its not that hard but it sounds very abstract without the accompaniment which it comes with. If you haven't heard it (but you probably have its the piece of the Chanel advert with Nicole Kidman) I would recommend it. Its very beautiful,slow and airy. And its only grade 5 (well it might be grade 6 my teacher said it was either or)

When I learned to play violin I didn't start with my own violin at all; my parents rented one incase it was just a phase. When I got better I got my own. I started with a book called strictly strings but if you are an advanced musician I wouldn't advise it since a lot of the first part of the book is devoted to learning to read music. The tunes in it are ok I suppose but I found better ones outside it. Oh and everything everyone else says about posture is absolutely right. You'll need a teacher for that.

I looked him up on youtube and I quite liked his piece called "Cross Hatch". It was quite relaxing. I also liked the piece called "Rain tree sketch". Anyway thanks for recommending him because I've never heard of him before and its always nice to find out about a new composer.

meh I hardly ever write for an audience. The only time I would write for an audience would be if I was writing for a specific occasion for example the piece I'm working on just now which is to be played in our cathedral for my violin teacher's retiring concert. Obviously then I might have to take the audience into consideration a little since obviously if I composed something evil, dark and violent it might send out the wrong messages about my teacher lol or perhaps even offend some of the more religious people there, although I doubt that very much. Having said that, I would still not write with the audience's taste in mind. They might actually really like a genre but not know that they like it because they haven't experienced it yet or worse; think they have experienced it but haven't. I, like Mitchell, write for myself and only for myself. If you don't like modern music Sauls why don't you challenge yourself and look for one you do like. I thought I didn't like modern music because of a certain piece I heard on the Proms (I think its called crushing twister. Its about an orchestra trying to emulate the sounds of a dj or something) and then I heard other modern pieces and discovered that infact, I really like modern music; I just didn't like that one piece. I would recommend the "Rite of spring" (if you haven't already heard it. It's by Stravinsky) if you think that all pieces require beauty to be effective. In places I thought it was really scary and believe me it carries emotion without being that beautiful (IMO). Its one of my favourite pieces and its truly violent lol. Or if early 20th century isn't modern enough for you listen to some serialism. Some of that is weirdly hypnotic.

I think his suite "Model Animals" for orchestra (the actual name's in french but I can't for the life of me remember it) is really cool. He's definitely worth a listen for those who don't know him.

I've never heard this piece before! Its great. Its just so descriptive and evocative. Thankyou so much for recommending it!