Gary at Secret Composer

If you can, I recommend you check out the score to "Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun" by Debussy. Look at bars 11 through 14. The orchestration and range of the instruments are very similar to what you want to do. It worked very well for Debussy. Debussy instructed the tremolo strings to play "sur la touche". This creates a softer, mellower string sound.

Nice work. And I agree with GidonRicardo about not needing the violins on the melody at 0:48. But you can probably compromise and just lower the volume of the violins at that spot. And the sus. cymbal entry at 2:15 is a little startling. You can lower that as well. But again, nice work!

Hey Ron, I just listened to your Ballerinas of Ganymede. And since it was on the same audio player, I also listened to The Jungles Of Ganymede. I've now heard about 7 or 8 of your pieces, and I have to say that they are consistently fascinating and full of surprises. I really love your inventive harmonies and orchestral colors. You have a great sound. I mentioned to you once before that your harmonic and orchestral colors remind me of Charles Koechlin. But you never confirmed whether or not you're familiar with his music. If you haven't heard his stuff, you should check him out. I think you'd really enjoy it. You are both very unique composers.

Hi BD, I like the piece. I'm not sure if I have much complaints about your orchestration here. I think the element that I might suggest you focus on is the melodic and harmonic development. If your aim is to write ambient music, then you're doing fine. What I would personally like to hear is more exploration of the thematic material. I think one of the best moments of the piece is from 2:15 to 2:36. Here, you not only departed from the continuing rhythmic pattern that you had previously set up, but you have some very nice harmonic and melodic development. It's very effective writing. I would like to hear more of that. Your ears also get a sense of relief at 3:44, when the solo piano comes in. Even when composing ambient music, your ears still want to hear some variety every so often. In terms of your desire to fully orchestrate it, it really doesn't need much more than what you've already done. What you feel is lacking in your orchestration, might be a recognition that something is missing. But I think the missing element might be thematic and harmonic development. I'd like to hear more of your stuff.

You got it!

Thanks, Morivou. And you're probably right. We should demonstrate some more of the advanced topics in the demo.

Hi Morivou, It sounds as though you might be assuming that we're considering selling two products: the complete program and just the advanced package. Actually, we're not. We're selling one package. For the advanced composers, they are still getting a substantial amount of information for the $24.95. To separate the program into two packages would be like selling two different versions of a dictionary. One version would have just the easy words and another version would have just the difficult words. And like a dictionary, Secret Composer has been designed to move seamlessly between the beginner and advanced materials. There is no way to cleanly subdivide the program. Beginning readers might want to follow one topic to a more advanced level and advanced composers might want to double check a reference that might be considered "simple". Our goal is to make sure every composer has access to ALL the information we provide.

Hi karelm and Morivou, Thanks for the good reviews. I appreciate the time it took for you to test Secret Composer and to post your comments. I wanted to briefly address some of the points that were brought up. First, regarding some of the comments from karelm. You had mentioned that you would like to see a dictionary section. We already have that in the form of our Glossary, which appears in the left hand navigation column when you click the Glossary button. In addition to that, you can use both the Search and Index function to quickly find where in the program we use a particular term. You had also mentioned that you would like something that moves across the score so that students can follow along during the playback. You had noticed that we had done this in the "Putting It Together-Orchestral" lesson. I want to point out that all of the full orchestral pieces in the Composition Moods also have this feature. You simply click the Animated Score button to the left of the topic's text. We included this function for the full orchestral pieces, because they would be harder to follow than a score with just 2 or 3 staves. I'm sure you noticed that we color coded the lead elements in orange and the background elements in blue. I don't want to bore the readers of this post with my answers to your other comments so I will send them to you directly - but yes, we do have the "before" and "after" version right next to each other. And thank you for the fact that you would you recommend Secret Composer! To Morivou, I want to thank you for both the "four out of five stars", and the "five out of five stars". The only comment I want to make is along the same lines as the comment that I made to Weca, regarding his review. Both of you recognized that for the advanced composer, their main interest in Secret Composer would be the Composition Moods and Quick Tricks sections. And I agree. So again, the question remains as to whether $24.95 is a fair price for these sections alone. And again, I still believe it is more than fair.

I don't know the best way of getting public performances of your work, but I have some thoughts about getting your work performed and recorded for your personal study. First, if you are a music student at any university or institute, don't be afraid to just ask the music director of any ensemble if they would be kind enough to allow their ensemble to give you a few minutes of their rehearsal time so that you can hear what your music sounds like and record it for your study. You will be amazed at how much they want to help you. When I was a composition major at Ithaca College (over 30 years ago), I did this several times. Each time, I was given almost an hour of the orchestra's time to rehearse and record the performance. By the time I was a senior, all the orchestra members knew me and I was able to put together a 65 piece orchestra myself, for my senior composition recital. And one summer when I was 16, I did the same thing at the Chautauqua Institute in New York. I was there on an orchestration scholarship and I approached the conductor of the youth orchestra and asked if he would allow me 5 minutes, so that I could hear what my very first orchestral piece sounded like. They played it for me twice - I recorded it on a cassette player - and I was gone in less than ten minutes. Music directors are very busy rehearsing their ensembles, but they recognize that they have a responsibility to young composers. You will need to provide the recording equipment of course - but it doesn't have to be elaborate - you're not releasing an album. If you have a small budget, I would recommend you look into "orchestra.net". In my professional career, I've done a few recordings with them. It's a relatively inexpensive way to have a professional recording of a great sounding orchestra. If I'm not mistaken, the orchestra is made up of members of the Prague Symphony. The music is recorded via digital hook up between Prague and a recording studio in Los Angeles. But for most of you who don't live near Los Angeles, you can hook up to the studio via your own computer. The website states that a 50 piece orchestra is $2250 per hour (this price includes the recording). And the rates change based on the size of the group. I realize this sounds expensive, but you can have several pieces, by several composers recorded within each hour. (There is a 3 or 4 hour minimum). If a bunch of composers from this site wanted to group together for a session, you could conceivably get a few minutes of your own piece of music, professionally recorded by a top orchestra for a few hundred bucks a person. This might be cost prohibitive for many of you, but it would be a great experience to hear your work professionally played and recorded.

Hi Denis - you mentioned that you'd like a lot more recipes. Just curious, have you used the entire program or did you just see the few examples from the demo on the website?

Hi Weca - I want to thank you for your extremely thorough and well thought out review of Secret Composer. I haven't had the chance to listen to your own music yet, but if it's as well written as your review, I'm sure I'm going to enjoy it. I also want to thank you for your referencing my "don't do the same thing three times" principle. I hadn't realized Leonard Bernstein said the same thing. I just assumed it was something that experienced composers eventually figure out on their own. Obviously, rules are made to be broken, but as a general principle, this is a good one. I'd like to address a few points from your review. You obviously are at the point in your studies where you don't need the assistance of Secret Composer's theory and orchestration sections. And you were astute enough to guess that many of our customers might need to learn this basic information. That is precisely why all these separate sections are included in one package. Our intention with the Theory and Orchestration sections is twofold: 1. To provide detailed lessons for young musicians, and 2. to provide a reference section for musicians of all levels. Even experienced composers might need to occasionally refer to these sections for additional information relevant to some of the Quick Tricks and Composition Moods lessons. You gave a glowing review of the more advanced Composition Moods and Quick Tricks section. So the question for the more advanced student then becomes, are these lessons worth our introductory price of $24.95? Well, to determine this, you have to consider two factors: 1 - Can you find this information anywhere else? 2 - If you could, how much would you have to pay for it? Regarding question #1, I'm not aware of any software that contains the information in these lessons. There are obviously composition courses and composition books available. But I don't believe they explain the information to students in an interactive fashion as accessible and user friendly as we do in Secret Composer. Even studying a John Williams score on paper is not the same thing as dissecting the music into its various emotional, psychological, compositional and orchestral elements - the way we do in Secret Composer. So the question becomes, now that this information is available, how much should it cost? Well, let's look at the price of $24.95. If you were to find a great composition teacher to study with, you might be lucky if you could get 20 minutes of one lesson from him (or her) for that price. That's just one 20 minute lesson. Total. Certainly, you are getting far, far more information and resources in Secret Composer than you would get in a single 20 minute composition lesson. We do live in a time where so much information is now available for free on the internet. But I think you'll find that the Secret Composer system of teaching, and much of the information itself, is just not available anywhere else. Thanks again for your review and I look forward to corresponding further with you and listening to your music.