Fermion

I have had this problem with the 2008 version of PrintMusic as well (the crackling problem that is). I've found it only occurs when many instruments are playing and I'm running two staves through the same channel, such as I would do with a piano or organ. Sometimes assinging each staff to different channels helps, but I haven't found a surefire way to stop it during playback. However, if you are saving the music to an .mp3, you should be able to save each instrument as it's own sound file, which should stop the crackling (I hope). Of course none of this applies if you are actually experiencing a different problem than I did with 2008.

So, when I have a large ensemble, especially with many different kinds of instruments, Finale seems to pick out one instrument and make it's sound go all haywire. Often there is crackling and loss of volume while this instrument is playing with other instruments. I've tried changing the patches and the Midi channel but the problem persists. It seems to be the placement of the instument more than anything that singles it out. None of the other instruments experience this problem, and it only happens when a significant amount of instruments are playing along with this one. Could it be a problem with RAM? Have any of you even heard of this problem? I haven't seen it in any of the posts in this category. Also, Finale seems to have a problem with ending notes. Instead of simply dieing down into silence as any reasonable player would, when a note ends in PrintMusic, there is one final burst of the note. So many notes that are held out for a couple of measures end in a very anticlimatic "burp". It's not as catastophic to the playback as the distortion is, but it's still very annoying, and makes many of the audio files exported from PrintMusic unusable. Any Ideas? -Fermion

NIce! This could be an overture for some sort of crazy prog rock concept album. There's a bunch of ideas in this song, probably too much for one song. However, you should seriously consider making this a multi-movement peice, where each of the ideas get developed more thoroughly. Also, some of the transitions between sections were rather awkward (specifically 9:13 and 11:33). Again this could be solve by splitting this song into multiple movements, because whenever you wanted to change musical ideas you could simply end the movement and start the next one. Thanks for the music!

Wow, that was quite good. But is seems as though you were going for a Bach-ish sound, and I feel there's something missing. I think it would sound nice if towards the end the counterpoint got more complex. Specifically, if one of the flutes developed into a seperate melody below the main one. Just my thoughts.

eliyia, Most of the books written on this subject will be written for drummers. (Like this one:Drummer's Guide to Odd Time Signatures) So if you're willing to put up with playing from drum notation to learn odd time signatures, that will be fine. However, the best way to get a feel for them is to play/write music that is in odd time. Notation software can be very useful for this since you can get the computer to play the odd time signature while your still getting a feel for it. Also, heres an example of the difference between various time signatures. Played without accents they sound very much the same, but most performers will add the accents in order to "feel" the meter better: Different time.MUS

Cantabile is funny. Like Adagio Cantabile. Why can't Adagio abile?

First of all, Yachar, don't limit yourself to rock bands. It's alright if you include rock elements in classical music, or jazz music, or whatever; in fact, it's pretty cool. Also, many of the composers, especially young composers, aren't professional either, so don't feel intimidated. I'm not a professional composer at all. And I love progressive rock. That being said, I did enjoy your piece (although most of the time was spent trying to imagine what it would sound like with real instruments). You may consider looking for better sound samples. You inclusion of flutes and violins was nice, and I really enjoyed the use of an odd time signature. Their my favorite. I also did like your use of dissonance, which is something you don't hear a lot of in rock songs, but definitely adds an extra dimension to your music. Now the criticisms: 1. Although odd time signatures are awesome, you may need to work on getting them to sound more natural to the listener. There were some awkward moments, rhythmically in your song. 2. You should get better sound samples, or try playing and recording the piece on real instruments. 3. You should work on creating more interesting and powerful drum beats for your rock (especially progressive rock) songs. I mostly heard hi-hats, snare drums, and simple cymbal crashes on this track. This could help your time signatures feel less awkward. 4. There was one point in particular that seemed strange... um... it goes from about 1:50 to 2:05. It seems to lack direction. Specifically, I was having trouble following the flute part before that, but once the violin came in at 1:50, the song seemed to fall apart. If this is what you were going for then, congrats. Also, try to avoid the simple quarter note rhythm that is going on at that point in the background. It gets kind of incessant, especially with all the crazyness going on overtop of it. Well, I hope I didn't hurt you too bad. Keep on making music. :)

Hello Young Composers (and old!), This is an arrangement of the Foreigner song, Cold as Ice, for high school band. I am hoping to get it performed by my former high school's orchestra. I've worked on it throughout the summer and it has been main compositional outlet of an otherwise unproductive three months. I hope you enjoy it. Criticism is welcome: I feel I need particular help with dynamics, and writing for percussion. Here it is. Cold as Ice.MUS Cold as Ice.MID

I think the title suited this piece fine. "Ice Castles on Ganymede" sounds vast, epic and unearthly, which is what this song delivered. I suppose it could have been more unearthly, but other than that I thought this song would have been very appropriate for a tour in an ice castle. I don't think Ice castles would be fragile at all, by the mere fact that there castles. As far as the distortion goes, it was annoying and should probably be ironed out of this piece and any piece in the future. Unless of course you can use it to your advantage? It might make for some cool effects, if you did a bit of experimenting with it.

Bias is a dangerous thing. When I first started composing, I had only had contact with tonal, common practice pieces. I'd never heard an antonal piece in my life. Then one day I came upon one, and absolutely hated it. I honestly thought that this composer had no idea how to write music. It was too discordnant, too harsh, too random to be made by an intelligent person. I stayed away from atonal music for quite some time. Then I came upon another piece of music that would change my musical momentum, even if I didn't realize it at the time. It was also an atonal piece, but this one was different. It was melodious, and suspenseful, and dare I say thought-provoking. But how could these two piece be so different and still be labeled "atonal"? I did some thinking, and even tried to write a few atonal pieces myself (usually resulting in failure), and came to the realization that it is very difficult to make atonal music sound good; it is a very special skill. When I listened to another atonal piece with this attitude, and saw the clashes and "randomness", not as mistakes and unpleasantness, but as another layer of complexity, adding the music, not taking away from it. Then my mind just sort of openned up to atonal music, not as an expression of emotional resonance, but as an expression of intellectual resonance. (resonance isn't a great term, but I can't think of a better one.) It will probably be harder for you to adjust to atonality, having synaesthesia and all (which sounds really cool to me, by the way), but it's probably just a familiarity issue. I would suggest trying to write atonal music, even if it is like "a knife cutting through your mind". No pain, no gain... Right? :thumbsup: Maybe not.

Nice! epic all the way. Nothing but over the top will do. Way to go.

I liked the NEPTILOS stuff more than ARCOSINE, because it was more classical and less repetitive. I really liked the melody in "Walking in the Desert". What was that instrument? I know I've heard it before. Anyway, I know Trance music is supposed to be repetitive, but I think you overdid it at times. One thing I did like, was the fact that you actually changed keys in a very classical, developmental style, and that was something I had not heard much of in Trance music, even if you were just repeating the same thing in a different key. An ending note: "Adagio for Trance"? WHAT! THE! FUUUUUUCCCC......

Well, your not pushing any bounderies of music with this one for sure, but it's a nice little peice of music. It could easily be three times as long, if you develop the song and then recapitulate this first section again. Keep up the good work, just, um, try working on the originality of your music.

While I was listening to this piece, the stupid smile on my face was only interupted by bouts of uncontrollable laughter. This song is quite silly. It just makes you feel good to be alive. That being said, I think it would benefit from being a little shorter. Not that it's obnoxiously long or anything, it's just that... it's hard to sustain happy for that long.

Luckily I have a replacement head stuck so far up my butt that it wasn't damaged by the explosion. ... I think that any positive contribution I can make to this thread ended with that last post. Thus, adieu.