Four naïve dances.

This is the piece I talked about in my presentation. It mostly gathers my ideas of the past couple years, melodies that were running in my head when coming back home at night. I have composed it directly in a midi sequencer and it does not really abide any overarching formal constraint. I like it, because it was precisely what I wanted to hear, thinking “what would feel nice just next” and none of it felt forced to me (except when ending soli sometimes), but it is a way of making music I want to get away from since I want to begin again on good formal bases. Also please excuse the non-technicality and clumsiness of my talking about music.

So my questions regarding feedback would be the following:

1)      What does sound plain unpleasant to you?

2)      Formally speaking, what are the weaknesses preventing it from being enjoyable?

3)      What, if anything, would deserve development in your opinion?

As for the flaws that I can non-technically perceive :

i)                    Ideas tend to be underdeveloped, perhaps too fast and heterogeneous

ii)                   Some solo phrases seem to go on for too long, I have often trouble ending solos in a way that feels justified.

iii)                 I tended not to care about chord progressions which may sound gross to the educated listener.

iv)                 Mouvement I is a bit uncouth and lacks ornaments

So basically, I like it, but I recognize it has to be a bag of mistakes and since I am willing to start again from scratch in music, I am wondering what I should retain from this work, and would like to have your opinion.

Thank you very much, I hope you’ll enjoy listening to this.

First thing's first: Do you happen to have a score? It would be more constructive (and easier) for reviewers to follow along and give you specific feedback if you provide a score. 

Since my audio player is wonky, and I don't have a score to look at, I'll just give you some of my general thoughts. The Stravinsky influence definitely shows in your dances, with those staccato rhythmic patterns and off kilter harmonies. My complaint would be each movement is too homogenous in content and texture, so it gets a little tiring to the ear. The melodic ideas could definitely be developed more, and each dance could be given a more unique, flavorful character (By the way, what do the titles of the each dance movement mean?). 

Thank you very much for listening and for your comments. As of now I haven't written a score, but I am going to do it based on the MIDI sequences, it will be a good exercise as it will require making it more realistically playable (the issue is not so much individual playability, but I have often written several voices on the same part with little caution).

The names of the movements refer to hazardous asteroids which may crash on earth one day, and they were named by there discoverers after ancient deities (much like the planets). I've called these "Danses sur l'échelle de Palerme", which is a play on word with "ladder" and "scale", the Palermo scale being the standard for evaluating the likelihood of a large asteroid falling on earth. So these dances would be meant to appease the hazardous deities.

when listening to stravinsky, or this! (amazing!) i always get ideas of primitive humans, and animals, who still live to stay alive, every creature is looking sharp out of their eyes, looking for danger, mates and food. (i thought about the album ''The African beat'' from Art Blakey and the African Drum ensemble a bit aswell, it is a great album, they work with a lot of sounds imitating the african bush life. about chord structure, i always think if i dont hear it(because of the big staccato all the time) it doesnt matter too much. harmony is best heard legato. this was definetly the best piece of muzic i heard today! really enjoyed it!!