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What are the basis to participate in the contest (what type of composition etc)

After all I will not be participating as I was not able to compose anything good enough to be sent to the challenge. Sorry for saying this so late. I was trying to compose something good but all of the compositions I wrote were just not good enough

I like the piece, it feels very dreamy. One thing I would do to improve it is to make the piano accompaniment faster and more impressionist (like in un sospiro or un barque sur le ocean)

Hello @Bjarke I agree with what has been said before about this work: About bar 45 and the unplayability, I would suggest writing it so each semiquaver is followed by the other hand in a different register (look at the last 20 seconds of Rachmaninoff’s second sonata if my explanation wasn’t clear), for bar 114, maybe change the register of one of the repeated notes. It would fit the music and the idea you are trying to pursue to add thematic material with tritones and minor ninths, as these intervals (specially the tritone) are usually representative of the devil. Other techniques regarding this would be repeated notes (at a lower pace than the ones you wrote, because on the piano it is very difficult to play them) or petrushka polytonality, as the two tonal centers are a tritone away. Or you could experiment with passages where the harmony shifts by tritones. I am waiting to hear how this work progresses (my favourite part is bar 67 onwards). You could include it in the Halloween challenge. Thanks for sharing Manuel

Hello @Bjarke I am really fond of the progressive distortion that you choose to implement in this piece, it sounds like it is trying to take over the purity of the beginning in a way, though, as Henry has mentioned, this piece would benefit a lot from being longer, as, among other reasons, this structural technique is much more effective in longer works as you can see more easily how the music has changed (or kept the same after a rough development), as it has developed more. I would have added the lower strings a little earlier, but that is just personal taste Thanks for sharing Manuel

Hello @Bjarke Very nice references to dies irae. They fit the feeling of the music. Moreover, adding them mostly in the lower register makes it even more eerie. I think a way to make it even eerier would be to use very low octaves in the piano part, and double it rhythmically displaced in the very high register if that makes sense I also like your ability to maintain tension by the addition of an (almost) moto perpetuo The section at 1:47 sounds a bit anticlimactic though, I think you should extend the work a bit more after and before that point. However, if the piece extends the elevated intensity throughout might be a problem. A solution I suggest is to bring the music to a climax and then in subito piano add a simile section. I find it very effective, specially in orchestral music Thanks for sharing Manuel

I agree with what has been said that the piece sounds like a piano transcription for orchestra: If it was written for piano here are some thoughts on the piano figuration: the doubling of the voices is excessive for a piano, in most cases you don’t need to double the voices too much on a piano, it will sound too saturated; the textures are too unstable, with this I mean that there are no clear patterns and you go from one texture to another too quickly, sometimes on the same phrase and there are almost no breaks between the different textures; the textures themselves have almost no running fast voices, in the most complex piano works texturally (rachmaninoff sonata 2, night wind sonata, sonata minacciosa) there is almost always a fast voice like this in their most dense moments; the fanfare motif sounds very difficult and slightly unpianistic, I would state just in octaves with maybe one of the voices of the chord (ideally one that repeats) being played too; the lack of pedal and quality of the midi also chastises the recording severely, so I think in a real piano it would sound much better. After writing this, I think you meant this for orchestra. Structurally I like the way you develop the first themes (and as this is a sketch, I believe that you will also develop the g major theme) But in order to understand it correctly it took me some listenings. I think this problem could be easily solved by adding some resting moments before introducing new material (kind of like a medial caesura, but not in sonata form) Thanks for sharing Manuel

Hello, I need help with learning more advanced Roman numeral analysis for chromatic harmony. I came across this problem when trying to write my analysis of Rachmaninoff’s elegy. In bar 4, the harmony is a dominant seventh flat nine without the root over a tonic pedal. And it is also a tonic prolongation. I have read, though I have no confirmation that tonic prolongations are just written as tonic all the time. But if it weren’t a tonic prolongation, how do I write it. Is the pedal point written separately or is it notated like in jazz with the / sign I have some other doubts such as: Is a tritone substitution notated as a Neapolitan seventh or does it have its own name in Roman numeral analysis? What is the Neapolitan is not in first inversion? What if an augmented sixth is not in a usuals inversion Etc Etc Etc. So, as I have an infinite amount of doubts: Could someone recommend a book or website that covers on Roman numeral analysis of experimental/daring harmony?

Yeah, I read some time ago that Open AI (the company that created Chat GPT) is going bankrupt Last year, a Spanish soccer team “hired” an AI to decide what players they were going to buy and sell and for what price etc, and they ended up having one of their worse results in the last fifteen years. Let’s hope something similar happens with music

Hello @Pianistikboy, Welcome to the forum. I like this piece, specifically because it evoques in my mind a sense of profound melancholy. However, it is not a Russian long chromatic melody that creates this effect by having a long line (which I also like), but a simple, yet effective melody built on shorter phrases. To me, it doesn’t seem to tell a story dramatically, as a first person narrator, but more like an old person looking back at the memories of his youth, revisiting a specific story, but as an external observer that reflects on them. However, as the piece goes on, that person gets more and more personally involved in the story, to the point of it seeming real (the climax of the work). But finally, it is remembered again that those were the past times. All of this tinted with heavy melancholy, triggered by the alarming thought that death is near, and those past experiences will never ever come back. Similar to op 62 no 2 by Chopin or op 39 no 8 by Rachmaninoff. This is a really deep interpretation but it is what it came to my mind Thanks for sharing Manuel PS: Why “Asturia” music, did you name it after the region in Spain?

I don’t use MuseScore, but I’m sure there should be an option to export as mp3. I suppose it is done in a similar way as exporting the pdf, just choosing mp3. But I am not familiar with MuseScore so I don’t know

Hello Frank, I use the version for IPad and it doesn’t require to create an account. Or if it does it requires minimal amount of details because I don’t remember. Then obviously if I want to have the complete features I will have to pay, but the free version is great. As far as I am concerned the IPad version is not a free trial, it works for unlimited time, though with some limitations I think I have by coincidence chosen the best moment to start using Dorico, since now everyone is starting to get used to it too.

Hello @PeterthePapercomPoser, thanks for your comment. I have almost everything already composed in my mind. I will be superposing teme and variation and sonata form. Being the part shared the theme and the introduction to the sonata simultaneously (kind of like Valle d’oberman) I will share here my plan: Bells Theme/Introduction “Cadenza” Exposition First subject: Var 1 (Eb min) Bells (I will use pedal points and dissonant chord extensions as unsettling elements Var 2 (A min) River (I will use uneven bars 11/8 or 13/8 and dissonant chord extension, but this time in arpeggios as unsettling elements) Transition Var 3 (Atonal/ quiasi whole tone/mystic/a lot of French sixths) Forest with bats and birds (high tremolos and a constant state of modulation over a whole tone or something accompaniment, misplaced accents) Second subject Var 4 (Cb “”Major””, lots of whole tone) mystical spirit (whole tone runs, French sixths resolving to first inversion half finished chords, chromaticism and the melody itself is kind of unsettling)(this will not feel like a variation at all, since it uses the high pitch motif used in the introduction and combines it with a twisted version of the melody) Codetta: Ending of var 4, (Gb “Major”) Development: Not fully structured yet Recapitulation: (Ebm/Am) “First Subject” Variation 5 (though it will be a different number because there are more variations in the development)(a variation on variation 2 itself) River (Apart from all what I said before about this variation, tritone (petrushka) politonality in minor modes is added) Transition Variation 6, birds and bats and the forest, (really similar to variation 3 but shorter) Second subject: Variation 7, a mystical driving spirit ( really similar to variation 4, but what was before a languid melody is now driving and maintaining tension to end the recapitulation First subject: Variation 8 bells (like variation 1, but fortissimo and the bells are now polytonal, growing intensity) Coda: Variation 9: birds and bats petrify and hit the monastery bells (another version of the transition, the tremolos done to represent birds and bats freeze into repeated chords) Variation 10, the driving force of the spirit intensifies and encourages the possessed monks to burn the monastery (like variation 4, but much stronger in character Polytonal mess that builds up to a climax Restatement of the theme, now polytonal, being played simultaneously in Am and Ebm. Devil’s laugh As you can see, I have almost everything in my mind, and there is a program, which I will not share in its entirety until the piece is finished

I started using it a week ago: I find it quite unintuitive for the simpler things. Though for the more advanced things it is easier to use. From the writing perspective, it has pretty much everything you need, and it also has a lot of sound editing options (I haven’t used them yet, so they might not be that great)

Let’s hope that this is not because people are not writing music sheets anymore. That would mean that basically all professional music softwares will fall. 🙁