May Melody

I wrote this piece for a day in May. It features the birdsong I hear in the garden and orchard, and while sitting at my desk, or trying to sleep. There have been several thunderstorms recently, with a lot of lightning, sometimes knocking out the electrical power. I live in a valley, and the rainbows often seemed contained within the valley. 

Ok I'm going to comment extremely brutal on that one, try not to take it too hard and don't let me lower your motivation.

It seems like you're only a beginner, maybe first or second year of composing music.

It's fine, we all were there,  here's a documentation of my thoughts when I read/listened to your piece.

Write "staccato" instead of short notes, "staccatissimo" instead of extremely short notes.

Write "accel" instead of making the tempo a bit higher every bar, "rit" for the opposite effect.

It seems like everything you describe has melody, but nothing ties everything up.

Maybe this rhythm? 

Also, making lots of small breaks into one big break would make it easier to read your score.

Now I see some other similarities.

I'm not removing what I wrote, because I think you might want to see how the mind of me, as a listener, reacted to your piece.

I'm at 5:40. It starts to get boring, don't push your piece, don't try to make it longer than it should.

I did this mistake a few times in the past, people just got bored too quickly.

Try to cut out some things. You can also keep everything, for the full picture of May,

but I think you should cut some things.

I'm at 7:10. The piece is too static. I know that you had some interesting fast and sharp parts, but for me it's getting boring.

I don't feel like it's moving anywhere.

Ok, I finished listening to your piece.

I think that your idea of conveying the month is nice,

and I'm sure that you learned many things when you composed it.

I know that you're probably at your first year or two,

but I believe in honest feedback.

If it makes you feel bad, notify me and I'll delete everything and just write "cool" like @Youngc does instead.

Your labels for each section are cracking me up!  "BBC The Archers."  😄 I just listened to an old Victor Borge routine where he summarized Mozart in about 30 seconds with about 2 bars for each theme and this has a similar humorous appeal:  a whole day squashed into a short piece.  Rabbival may be onto something that shorter is better for something containing so many little snippets.  

I think the "problem" is that a quintet is not easy to handle. If your music is not idiomatic for the strings, it becomes a bit tiring.

It often happens, when one begins to write the tendency is to avoid counterpoint (it's more difficult).

In some spots you break the verticality :  2:35, 3:35 and it becomes much more interesting.

Rabbival507

I truly am most grateful for the attention and thought you have given to my piece, and for taking the trouble to comment in sufficient detail for me to benefit from your thoughts.

I am, indeed, a novice at composition, and as you suspected, this was my first attempt, which goes some way to explaining some of the basic errors. As you use Sibelius for composing, you may be almost as unfamiliar as me with the technical details of how to use Musescore 2.2 effectively. Try as I could, I was unable to find a sensible method for combining many short rests into fewer longer rests. I imagine that there must be a way, but it eluded me.

Regarding the use of tempo marks, I was simply a coward, not trusting Musescore to deliver what I had in mind. I must learn to be a little more trusting. The same applies to the use of staccato. Your feedback will push me to be more rigorous.

I am guessing from the names of composers by whom you feel influenced, given in your profile, that you are not enthusiastic about the minimalist compositions of Philip Glass, John Adams, Michael Nyman and Arvo Part. If I am correct, then our taste differs somewhat. I often like music that is hypnotic, and enjoy listening for subtle changes. I also enjoy the work of Peter Maxwell-Davies, who makes significant use of snippets. However, I also completely accept that to compose minimalist-style music requires a talent that I may lack.

One of the key conceptual themes of my piece was the incorporation of birdsong that I often hear in the garden or outside my bedroom window. I found it challenging to represent the birdsong musically, especially limited to the instruments of a flute quintet. However, Messiaen managed to represent birdsong admirably and famously.

Part of my concern is that my inexperience and off-centre musical taste may be masking a musical immaturity, which is revealed in this composition.

Thank you again for your comments. I did not experience them as "brutal" because they were specific and constructive. If you wish to offer me feedback in the future, I shall receive it with enthusiasm. 

Luis Hernández

Thank you for taking the trouble to listen to my piece, for thinking about it, and for responding with what you have written.

I am ashamed to confess that I do not really understand the concept of 'verticality'. I see from what you have written that 'breaking the verticality' produces music that is more interesting. As I wish to be able to write music that is interesting, I should very much like to do as you propose. However, I am not sure what it is that I should be doing. If you have the time, I should be most grateful were you to explain.

1 hour ago, Hughes said:

Rabbival507

I truly am most grateful for the attention and thought you have given to my piece, and for taking the trouble to comment in sufficient detail for me to benefit from your thoughts.

I am, indeed, a novice at composition, and as you suspected, this was my first attempt, which goes some way to explaining some of the basic errors. As you use Sibelius for composing, you may be almost as unfamiliar as me with the technical details of how to use Musescore 2.2 effectively. Try as I could, I was unable to find a sensible method for combining many short rests into fewer longer rests. I imagine that there must be a way, but it eluded me.

Regarding the use of tempo marks, I was simply a coward, not trusting Musescore to deliver what I had in mind. I must learn to be a little more trusting. The same applies to the use of staccato. Your feedback will push me to be more rigorous.

I am guessing from the names of composers by whom you feel influenced, given in your profile, that you are not enthusiastic about the minimalist compositions of Philip Glass, John Adams, Michael Nyman and Arvo Part. If I am correct, then our taste differs somewhat. I often like music that is hypnotic, and enjoy listening for subtle changes. I also enjoy the work of Peter Maxwell-Davies, who makes significant use of snippets. However, I also completely accept that to compose minimalist-style music requires a talent that I may lack.

One of the key conceptual themes of my piece was the incorporation of birdsong that I often hear in the garden or outside my bedroom window. I found it challenging to represent the birdsong musically, especially limited to the instruments of a flute quintet. However, Messiaen managed to represent birdsong admirably and famously.

Part of my concern is that my inexperience and off-centre musical taste may be masking a musical immaturity, which is revealed in this composition.

Thank you again for your comments. I did not experience them as "brutal" because they were specific and constructive. If you wish to offer me feedback in the future, I shall receive it with enthusiasm. 

 

:)

I'm so glad it didn't hurt you,

I was worried you might take it as a big punch to your motivation.

Good luck with future compositions.

If that's your first attempt... well done, it's much better than mine XD

You really should consider making them shorter though.

That was one of my main problems in my first two years together with repetitivity (is that a real word?).

But it seems like you count it as a good thing, because it's a part of the style.

It's completely fine, I don't expect our taste in music to be the same,

I actually never met someone with my taste in music... so it's not a surprise XD

I'll probably comment on your future compositions.

I don't have much time left before I have to go to the army (btw I got about two more free weeks in surprise),

But I'm trying to give as many useful feedbacks as possible :)

If you are familiar with the board game "Go" that is popular in China and Korea, there is an expression:  "Lose your first 100 games quickly."  If this is your first composition it's a great first effort, but don't have any expectations of success for your work at such an early stage.  Just write, and you will learn from the writing.  You're going to lose the first 100 games no matter what you do.  You don't know the right things to think about yet that would help you win.  So don't take too much time to think for now.  Play.  Enjoy yourself.  And the knowledge will start to seep in from the experimentation.  

I could definitely recognize the bird songs in your piece and enjoyed them.  

To combine rests in musescore, click on the first of the rests to be combined, and then select a higher note value from the palette at the top of the page.  The program will automatically combine the next few rests to make up that note value.  

For the tempo markings, you can specify them exactly as you did, so the playback will sound precisely the way you want it to, but then "hide" them, so that they will not show up on the pdf of the score, or when a paper copy is printed.  Use the dropdown menu to open the "inspector."  Click on the tempo marking you want to hide to select it, and click the checkbox that says "visible" to make it hide or reappear.  It will still be visible in the score while you are working with it, so you can make changes later if you need to, it just won't print or show up on a pdf that you export.  

PS  The "help" section within Musescore is hard to navigate, but there are useful forums for Musescore online.  Just google "how to combine rests in Musescore" or whatever else you are looking for and you should find multiple pages where other people have asked the same or a similar question and gotten a response.  Good luck!

pateceramics

I am most grateful for your comments. The reference to the board game 'Go' (the existence of which I know, but am otherwise unfamiliar) was especially helpful. I heard the deep truth in what you wrote. In response, I set myself the target of writing my second piece from scratch in a calendar month. I have now completed (and uploaded) the piece. I hope to achieve the same again in a month's time. I should like to speed up, for otherwise at this rate it will take me over nine years to complete my first hundred compositions! I also appreciated your suggestion of 'playing' at it, and the truth is, I really do enjoy the process of composition. Equally, however, your comments make it even more important to receive (and accept) constructive feedback in order to highlight what needs to be worked on (or played at) with the following composition, otherwise there is no learning. So although I have tried hard to avoid the errors I made in this, my first piece, I expect my second piece (Latin Jazz) to be full of a whole load of different errors - but I don't know what they are until I receive the feedback. Thank you again.

Exactly.  Writing shorter pieces, and taking the time to make a serious effort, but not agonizing over each decision means you are getting them out into the fresh air and the light of criticism faster and more frequently. 

If you spend three years writing a full length symphony before showing it to anyone, it will contain many elements that could have been better with just a little outside feedback, but it will be hard to hear that feedback with an open mind, since the work has taken three years of your life.  And it will also be very easy to just get lonely or frustrated with your progress and stop. 

On the other hand, if you write a three-minute piece every month, and submit each for criticism, then every month you will have a deadline to work towards, affirmation that other people are listening and working toward similar goals, and you'll have a few new goals to work on, or ideas to study and learn about that will grow your work for the next month.  And most importantly, each piece won't feel like it has to be a masterpiece if it's just a month of work.  It takes a lot of pressure off you. 

Be sure to comment on other people's work here so you can feel like you are part of a team of learners.  Looking at other new composers can help you recognize the patterns common to early work, so you can continue to grow and mature as a composer.  It often hard to really see your own work.  But if you listen to 10 other new composers in a row, you will recognize things that make student work sound like student work, and can start to notice it in your own writing and nip it in the bud when it occurs.  I'm definitely still on the learning path myself, so you're in good company!