evory

Just for the fun of it, I decided to arrange a piece for Western orchestra which takes themes from 3 Chinese orchestra pieces which my school is playing for a national competition. They aren't pentatonic so I'm not sure if it's evident if they were Chinese orchestral pieces originally, but well, comments if you may? :) Somehow converting the file to mp3 (I can't upload the WAV) results in lots of clipping and noise (and amazingly, a Youtube link doesn't), so well, here's the Youtube link. (The file uploaded to the site is a blank jsyk) 3 Chinese orchestra pieces arranged for Western orchestra

Hahaha omg I totally forgot that was there. One of the criteria was creativity so we were trying to think of creative stuff to do (the piano duet apres Victor Borge one of them). That one didn't materialise because well, on hindsight it just looks stupid haha :P Thanks for the compliments :) The main reason the piano was almost omnipresent was because we didn't have any tenor instrument, and I thought the sound would be rather sparse and disjoint if there was a bass/tuba pounding away some distance beneath the flute/violin etc. I'm not sure if that's a valid concern, but that's how I imagined it, so well, yeah!

Hey, was wondering if anyone would care to comment a little on an improv I did. I'm not fully satisfied with it (the stress of recording gets to me really easily), but I thought I'd just post it here to see what others think? :) Hope to hear some replies yeah! :) Piano Improvisation No.1

This was an entry in a school competition for which I co-arranged, conducted, and had a cameo on the piano, the score's in quite a mess (whoops), but comments if you will? There's a video of our performance below as well, which should sound better than the computer-generated file attached here, so please do watch that instead :) If you want to you can try to identify the songs and the different cultures we alluded to haha :P (We won best arrangement + 2nd overall jsyk :D) From the piece descrtiption (yes my writing style is super pretentious) "There are a few things you can find almost anywhere you look around the world: one is language, one is a McDonald's outlet, and another is music. As the essential and quintessential means of expression it is, the music we make is an insignia we take, a mark we wear, and an emblem we bear. From the ethereal sighs of the simple pentatonic to the unbridled rush of raw chromaticism and more, we will show you the world in its untempered glory, shining, shimmering and splendid. Let yourself be swept on a magic carpet ride into a whole new world, and be taken wonder by wonder on an eclectic journey meshing the very best of folk tunes, classical music, and even movie scores, in a singular celebration of myriad cultures. For centuries the Earth was believed to be the static core of the universe, because nobody could stand and watch it turn unfaltering. We can't either, but instead we can bring you around the world, full circle, to let you see for yourselves, to let you see how music indeed makes the world go round." Live performance: Medley of songs from 'Around the World'

Haha guess I'm overthinking things then, thanks guys! It's probably just the descending semitone bass that I've associated with Rach 2 playing tricks on me haha.

Well the problem is that my 'melody' is essentially one repeated note, which makes the chord structure all the more important. Thing is, I don't even know if the chord structure I used is the same as Rach's, or if it just evokes the same feel as the song =/ Well I guess if it doesn't scream out 'rip off' to you, it's fine haha, thanks~

Just a quick question here, I played around on the piano after listening to some Rach and came up with this, problem is, it sounds eerily similar to the second movement of Rach's piano concerto no 2. As far as I can tell I don't think I'm ripping off the chords wholesale, but then again I'm really not very sure BECAUSE IT SOUNDS LIKE IT FITS RIGHT IN *flails*. Could someone tell me if this is pure plagiarism (ooh then I can be Eric Carmen), or is it just heavily inspired. Thanks! (Maybe the key and harp bassline I used aren't exactly very favourable to my case, so ignore them if need be haha) Is this Rach.wav

Just wanted to say that this is really really amazing work. I can't really give any constructive criticism because it's way too complex for ignorant me, but whatever it is, it sounds brilliant. Great job! :) Hoping you'll upload more stuff to this site haha.

Haha could you give examples of the bits of poor orchestration and places with room for development? (like in terms of time or something) To the second point I agree entirely haha it definitely is computer orchestral music more than music for orchestra :P Hahaha I extended the final bit out of whim and fancy, I agree it sounds pretty strange :)

Haha it's supposed to be just one vibraphone actually, except for one measure where I wanted a glockenspiel sound, just that my computer couldn't load any more samples, so I resorted to adding a couple of notes in the higher registers of the vibes, hopefully that's what you're talking about haha. Mm I agree with that, but well, that's what I get with a virtual orchestra haha :) Thanks for listening and the comments! :)

This didn't bring out an eerie mood to me as much as it did a pensive and contemplative one. The harmonies used were pretty straightforward and never seemed to try to break out of the conventional, which is what I think can make something dark and eerie, though maybe that's just my own flawed opinion haha. The entire thing seemed pretty repetitive as well, though I get the effect you were going for by that kind of instrumentation, it just seemed to fade into background ambient music after a while with no real climax or anything to me. Then again, an album of eerie music is a pretty cool idea, just thought the eerieness could have been put across a little more disconcertingly :P

The beginning in D Dorian reminded me quite a bit of a pirate-y theme, and it sounded pretty good with the entrance of the other instruments.I thought the other instruments could have done more around the 1 minute mark and after though, both in terms of melodic and rhythmic development. On the contrary, I found the modulation (I assume it's the one starting from the introduction of the C#? I didn't follow the score entirely tbh hehe) pretty alright The second half, or your supposed sunset, while relaxing, didn't convey the setting of a sunset at sea that strongly, though it's something very subjective and I've not much constructive advice on that hehe whoops =/

1) Did the site seem to work properly for you? Yeap, as far as I could hear/click/do stuff to it. 2) What browser are you using? What operating system (and version, if known)? Firefox; Windows Vista 32 bit. 3) Have you ever used, or do you presently use an ear training application? If so, which one(s)? Nope, I've never. Unless being sent to Yamaha when I was a child counts. 4) What is your estimated level of musical training? I've played piano for more than 10 years, ABRSM Grade 8 practical/Grade 5 theory, and perfect pitch, which kinda defeats the purpose of this site whoops =/ 5) What was the length of time you spent using rocketears.com? 5 minutes or so? 6) What was your first impression? Ooh this is pretty fun, although I was hoping there could be more options like chords, identifying modes etc. I though most intervals would be pretty common sense to most though, so maybe having more options rather than just two? 7) Did you ever not know what to do? If so, how would you recommend resolving the issue? Nope, it was pretty straightforward. 8) Did the audio play back properly? How would you rank the sound quality? Yeap it did, and the quality was pretty good actually. 9) Do you feel that using rocketears.com on a regular basis would improve your recognition of intervals? If not, why not? To be honest, no, but that's only because of me being lucky enough to have perfect pitch 10) Assuming that rocketears.com was more fully featured (chord-type ear training, functional ear training, statistics, etc) would you continue using it? Would you pay for it? Not for me, but I think it would benefit people who do want to improve their aural skills. And um a random comment, the site name can be unfortunately parsed as rocke-tears, which although makes no sense, sounds a little odd to me hehe =/

Whoops, presumptuous ignorant me hehe =X Haha thanks for the comments! :) Mm I do agree it's subdued at times, though I'm not exactly very sure how to make a purely-orchestral piece pack more energy without stuff like electric guitars or drumsets, because most orchestral percussion lack that kind of punch imo. Haha by no direction I meant the countless buildups and anti-climaxes, I've no idea if they have any place in most orchestral works.

Well to be honest I'm not really fond of turning all my midi information into proper sheet music, because I have different midi channels for all the different articulations, and SONAR's sheet music creation ability is imnmensely frustrating at times. All the time actually. I'm not looking for a full fledged review of the piece, just whether whatever you hear, works, not from strictly a theory perspective, but more from a purely aural one. Thanks for listening nonetheless!