Andante for Strings

Subtitled "Night Music for Large String Orchestra", this is an old piece that I salvaged from back when I was writing straight into the sequencer.  I copied it to paper and finished it, then entered it into Musescore 4.  This is my first experience with Musescore 4 and Muse Sounds and I'm pretty satisfied once I worked out some of the kinks!  I think I probably won't need to use any DAW given its capability. 

The key signature for this piece is A major because the piece is bi-tonal.  It's in both F# and C and A major is right in between those two so it was the most convenient key signature.  This is version 3 - Musescore kept omitting certain notes for some reason.

This piece is partly inspired by Bartok's Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta, although I hope you agree that it is quite different.

Thanks for listening and I'd appreciate any constructive comments, observations or critiques you're willing to give!  Merry Christmas!

Edit:  I've updated the score and mp3 to include some more dynamics, sul ponticello instead of mutes, and centered the panning of the contrabasses.

Don't neglect your Daw!

The strings are not bad for stock sounds. MuseScore for the win there. I will still say though, please do not give up your Daw over the stock sounds (if you can afford to do so), because EWQL and the professional sounds are still better. Strings are VERY hard to emulate, and although the new sounds are good, they still sound very stock and synthesized.

Musicality of your piece

Given the nature of your work, I was clearly able to pick out your motif, as it is evident from the very beginning, and love how you do variations around it throughout the entire piece. This is a very well written work. I also can appreciate how you mixed a hint of romanticism in here (I love Romanticism, so extra brownie points from me here 😄). The pianissimo sections are a little too soft, and the instruments sometimes sound muddled. But in a piece like this, instrument clarity is critical given the dissonance and reliance of different instruments picking up parts of the motif and rhythms. This is a perfect example of why you'd want specialized instruments over stock.  It's also a good example of the importance of orchestration.

Instrumentation / Orchestration

I almost want to hear how this piece would sound with a chamber orchestra, or even string quintet. Solo instruments may help bring out the individual parts a little more effectively. Your signature by Gustav Mahler, "A symphony must be like the world - it must contain everything" is actually something I disagree with. I'm more of a minimalist and I think too many instruments can sometimes ruin the listening experience. Don't get me wrong, I love a grand orchestra! But in this case, I feel like you can nix 2 instruments, and perhaps convert this to a solo instrument listening experience.

Nixing instruments - maybe

Perhaps you can nix the second viola and the contra bass. The contra bass doesn't have much of a part, and the 2nd viola is unnecessary given that you have 2 cellos. This would simplify your piece, force you to merge parts, and this would make your instrumentation cleaner. Then you'd have yourself a really nice quintet. Fewer players = lower cost and easier to manage and play (I know we aren't always thinking about that), but you'd get the added benefit of simpler orchestration and a cleaner audio.

Please listen to...

I want you to listen to the first movement of Sergei Bortkiewicz's Piano Concerto 2. He wrote the piano concerto for the left hand only, and it shows you that you can make really awesome and full sounding music with 1 track of music; it can be done. There's also a solo violin in there somewhere, and it is super clean. Solo instruments are great, even in big orchestras!

this is great! Those musescore sounds really work well. The continuity surpasses my abilities by a lot.

I guess my criticism would be that it needs more emotive moments harmonically. Idk thats just my personal taste. There are quite a few though that I noticed that I thought were pretty adventurous and spot on. 

Overall, great work! Your skills continue to grow homie.

Peter---

  i thought this was a great piece---very evocative of Bartok's "night music", yet more accessible ("Accessible" is a compliment in my book!).

          I would love to experiment with this type of bitonal/atonal writing at some point.  The atmospherics create a sense of rootlessness, mystery, and anticipation that can't be matched in any other music mode--as shown here!

  Very nicely done.

Wow Peter, this is superb. I'm not blowing smoke up your ass just because you're my friend, it really is good. 

First, I think anyone wanting to become a better composer should take notes listening to this. You were able to stretch material from a simple theme and develop it across 7 minutes of music. It's very through composed. Your theme is very catchy too, I really like the constantly changing intervals with the wide leaps. You also do a great job with textures too; there's lot of variety with tutti and sparse sections. Maybe one thing you could think about for the future would be to give solo instruments a little time as well. Might sound cool if for example violin group lines played a majority of the phrases, but giving a solo violin a melody, especially in lighter textures, to vary up the timbre of such a homogenous ensemble. 

I really liked the pizzicato rhythmic spots, it gave me video game OST vibes. In fact, the entire piece sounded like it could have been in a game soundtrack. You're game influences are strong lol, which I think is a good thing. Even if people who listen to your music don't have much classical music listening experience, they perhaps would be subconsciously drawn to your music, bringing up some nostalgic memory of some game they loved. 

You don't let any one instrument be more important than the others. You cleverly give the main theme to many of the instruments, really giving variety to the sound, as well as making all the parts interesting. I really enjoy the contrabass, I think it fits into a large string ensemble well. I'm on the team of write for whatever ensemble you want, unless you're writing for a specific ensemble. You could always amend the music written to fit something specific that may come up (and I hope it does!), but go with what you want the music to sound like first. Most of us will only have the sound samples as our voice for most of our pieces, so make it sound like you want.

Speaking of which, the only thing I didn't like was the mixing. I suppose it's the default way musescore arranges the panning, but I hated that the 1st violins were all the way to the left, and the bass was all the way right. If it gives you the option, put the bass down the center and then spread out the other instruments. I know you heard my piece "A Dream's End", and that was a mistake I made in hindsight with the mixing. I was going for "if you were listening live", but it doesn't come across well, especially with headphones. I hope there's an option for that in musescore, but if not, it's not that big of a deal since the sound sample changes they've recently made are a very LARGE improvement. 

I'm curious on the key signature decision. I have no frame of reference since I've only ever written two bi-tonal pieces, but why A Major? Sure it's "in the middle" for the two keys you used, but I would have thought just not using a key signature would be a better option. I'm interested to hear your thoughts on this.

I hear Bartok influence, but don't hear Bartok in this. This was completely your own music.

I know this isn't exactly a "new" piece from you (not sure how much of it was written in the DAW some time ago), but this was a treat to hear, and it made Christmas for me. You know I'm a huge fan of your work, and an even bigger fan of your character, so thanks so much for posting this piece. I hope the changes made to musescore continue to better represent your musical ideas, and inspire you more to compose more often. I know you're busy with rl stuff, but I'm always excited to see the newest PeterthePapercomPoser piece. Merry Christmas, and congrats on such a wonderfully crafted piece of music!

It's a grand piece without doubt, accomplished polyphonic lines that develop interesting and engaging harmonies. Above all, superb development and unification of the thematic material. Accomplished phrasing. 

But while I think the composition is fine, some things didn't convince: the strings sound (as Chopin says) stock. That's fine for a mock-up but I felt the material deserved better than that. The timbral variation between pp and f suggested the "layering" was too limited if samples, or the modelling needs a bit of a touch up. The stereo spread seemed too left and right. Can you spread as well as pan the sound in Musescore? I was listening on earphones and had to switch in the stereo cross-feeder. The climax at around 3'50" seemed unduly dense (around bar 80). This may be due to the sounds themselves. It might also be the stereo directionality. Your scoring seems as good as it gets. 

There was a point in the score. The sudden switch to mute in bars 14 and 90 (there may be others but I didn't stop to look at the score in fine detail). Violin 1 in bar 14 is asked to flick down the mute in an instant at the end of a tremolo, not even a semiquaver rest to do it so the player will have to be bowing very close to the frog! In bar 90 all violins and violas mute very quickly and come back to senza just as quickly a few bars later. It'll probably take 1/2 a second longer to lift the mute. Viola 2 is expected to do so instantly in bar 101. This assumes you're happy with the clip-on mutes and don't want a heavier one pushed on the bridge which needs a couple of bars at least (at your tempi) to achieve.

I'll have to ask you to excuse me agreeing with Chopin about not giving up with DAWs. They do offer far finer control than sounds generated through notation software. (I mean, there might be some software about that can do it (have yet to hear one) but great though the improvements are in Musescore 4, they aren't there yet.) The dynamic variation, particularly within phrases, doesn't always yield a good result. 

So aside from these production issues the music is superb. Congrats. 

Really love this piece, Peter! As a motivic guy I really how you develop and twist the motives to all parts, but the manipulation itself is espressive, not only "purposeful and deliberate". 

I always love your texture and counterpoint. In this piece I love the occasional rests. It really sounds to me like a breath before a sigh! And the contrast between tutti and sparse sections mentioned by @Thatguy v2.0 is great as well! Letting the concertmaster to play a solo melody is a really great idea though. Every time I listen to the ending of the slow movement of Brahms' 1st, or the solo passages in Mahler 2nd makes me shill. This will add something like an "individual suffering" instead all together a collective one!

I do find some influence of the slow movement and some of the sections of the fugal opening of Bartok's Music for Strings. But I also hear something personal from you. Bartok's Music for Strings is dark and mysterious, something unfathomable except the folk last movement; yours here is dark but sometimes gets to pathos which I can feel more easily here. (Good word of "accessible" by @Rich!)

I love how you wander between tonality and ambiguious tonality (for me it doesn't reach dissonant post tonality), quite late romantic in this. I absolutely love b.39-52 and b.163-176, which are the similar passages of a more tonal falling fourth motive when the opening theme disappears! So beautiful inside a more ambiguious tonality context!

I think using the key signature of 3 sharps a good choice. For me this piece is not really that atonal to use no key signatures.

For the mixing itself, I really don't care! I can imagine it played a concert hall by a real string orchestra anyways, so that's not a problem.

Hopefully you will continue to produce this kind of compositions due to Musescore 4! Thank you for your sharing, Peter!

Henry

Peter,

Not a bad piece at all. I think I can see why you chose F# and C -nice little play on the tonic/dominant relationship via substitution. 

There are just a few things I'd consider:

1. The planing at m 116 is a nice touch -however, I'd be cautious doing this with the strings. Much like vocal writing, contrary motion -within at least one part is advised. Strings tend to produce a great deal of strength when playing similar material -hence why you often see very powerful passages showcasing the full string choir in unison or split at various intervals. 

2. I'm not sure about the chromaticism at bar 145 - 147. This one passage seems a little off to me. I'm not sure if its the fact that viola II is doing a similar contour to the violins. You might try having the viola II do a suspension here on the C. This would help support that passage and create a sense of 'passing tones' for the chromatic alterations? Just a thought.

3. MM 39-48 and 163-173: I like the rhythmic augmentation and diminution here and think you could probably expand these two similar passages (or at least one of them). Perhaps instead of the suspended tones in the lower strings (which don't really seem to add much to the texture here), you could really make this section pop with some contrapuntal prowess. Take the descending motif and spread it amongst the parts. You can play add some interest by having each part apply different augmentation/diminution -or split the instruments up into sort of a call and response. This material here would also be a good jumping point to some varied material. 

Finally, I think you've got some good material here and would love to see this polished up a bit more -and explored a bit more. I get the feeling that the theme seems a bit odd to you in terms of potential for development. By that, it almost seems like you're unsure how to develop it -or which way to take it. (At least, that's what it seems to me). There doesn't seem to be much thematic or motivic development of the theme proper (my 3rd point above does showcase development of a segment of the theme -but not the most interesting point of the theme itself). That said, don't be afraid to develop that awesome leap. I can really see a great deal of potential in that. Perhaps you can use that leap to move into further remote tonal areas -even border on a full escape from the constricted bounds themselves. Just a thought.

Good work! Can't wait to hear more!

4 hours ago, jawoodruff said:

Not a bad piece at all. I think I can see why you chose F# and C -nice little play on the tonic/dominant relationship via substitution.

Yes - I think when I first wrote this piece (over 10 years ago), for me the tritone substitution was a very novel approach to harmony and I had at the time first heard some great pieces that used it very effectively such as the fusion classic "Dance of Maya" by Mahavishnu Orchestra.  It was kind of a craze for me and in an orchestration of a fellow composers piano piece "Katrina" (named after hurricane Katrina) I even used a chain of tritone substitutions each going down by half step to the next as a transition.

4 hours ago, jawoodruff said:

1. The planing at m 116 is a nice touch -however, I'd be cautious doing this with the strings. Much like vocal writing, contrary motion -within at least one part is advised. Strings tend to produce a great deal of strength when playing similar material -hence why you often see very powerful passages showcasing the full string choir in unison or split at various intervals.

I totally get your point, but I purposely avoided doubling at the octave in this particular section of music.  In some of the sections where tonality seeps through a bit more (for example when G major is tonicized) I use doubling of the melody at the octave for precisely that effect to strengthen the texture and the melody.

4 hours ago, jawoodruff said:

2. I'm not sure about the chromaticism at bar 145 - 147. This one passage seems a little off to me. I'm not sure if its the fact that viola II is doing a similar contour to the violins. You might try having the viola II do a suspension here on the C. This would help support that passage and create a sense of 'passing tones' for the chromatic alterations? Just a thought.

Maybe what's bothering you about this passage is the cross-relation between the A natural in the 1st Violins and the A# in the 2nd Violas?  I think that's what you're referring to.  I never really noticed that when I was writing it.  I think I considered the countermelody playing in the 1st Violins at that point to be a kind of F# minor with chromatic modifications, while the melody in canonic imitation in the 2nd Violas and 1st Cellos is more in F# major (of course the main melody in the 2nd Violins being in C major).  I don't really see myself changing this at this point as the function and role of each instrument in this set up is very clearly defined and indispensable.

4 hours ago, jawoodruff said:

3. MM 39-48 and 163-173: I like the rhythmic augmentation and diminution here and think you could probably expand these two similar passages (or at least one of them). Perhaps instead of the suspended tones in the lower strings (which don't really seem to add much to the texture here), you could really make this section pop with some contrapuntal prowess. Take the descending motif and spread it amongst the parts. You can play add some interest by having each part apply different augmentation/diminution -or split the instruments up into sort of a call and response. This material here would also be a good jumping point to some varied material.

Honestly, I like all your ideas.  It's just that this piece was written a very long time ago and being this far removed from the original conception of the piece, I set out to just do the minimum amount of work possible in order to finish it and move on to something that wasn't started over 10 years ago (LoL).  I also didn't want the piece to overstay it's welcome and try to not have it drag on too long.  Developing itself into oblivion was a real looming threat for me when finishing it and I wanted to complete it promptly and succinctly.

4 hours ago, jawoodruff said:

Finally, I think you've got some good material here and would love to see this polished up a bit more -and explored a bit more.

For the reasons mentioned above I probably won't be working on it anymore.  I'd rather apply what I've learned from completing the piece and from feedback given here to new music.

4 hours ago, jawoodruff said:

I get the feeling that the theme seems a bit odd to you in terms of potential for development. By that, it almost seems like you're unsure how to develop it -or which way to take it. (At least, that's what it seems to me). There doesn't seem to be much thematic or motivic development of the theme proper (my 3rd point above does showcase development of a segment of the theme -but not the most interesting point of the theme itself). That said, don't be afraid to develop that awesome leap. I can really see a great deal of potential in that. Perhaps you can use that leap to move into further remote tonal areas -even border on a full escape from the constricted bounds themselves. Just a thought.

Maybe you're referring to the fact that although the piece seems classically inspired (by Bartok) it really functions as more of a cinematic or video-game background inspired piece (as @Thatguy v2.0 mentioned) and so doesn't develop the materials in a way a classical composer would?  But if you feel you'd like to explore this theme in the way you specified you have my permission to use/quote/vary the theme in your own music (as long as you send me my royalties through paypal I approve! LoL j/k)

4 hours ago, jawoodruff said:

Good work! Can't wait to hear more!

Thank you!  And thanks for your informed remarks!  I really appreciate all the attention that this piece has inspired!

@Henry Ng Tsz Kiu Thanks for your enthusiastic review as always!  I'm glad to hear that the panning doesn't seem to bother you.  I will definitely continue to explore Muse Sounds - I think if not completely rendering DAW's obsolete (at least for me) then it will at least make writing better rendered compositions more practical to create (for me).

Thanks for your review!

8 hours ago, Quinn said:

It's a grand piece without doubt, accomplished polyphonic lines that develop interesting and engaging harmonies. Above all, superb development and unification of the thematic material. Accomplished phrasing.

Thank you!

8 hours ago, Quinn said:

But while I think the composition is fine, some things didn't convince: the strings sound (as Chopin says) stock. That's fine for a mock-up but I felt the material deserved better than that.

My only concern is the trade-off between the amount of effort I'd need to make it sound only a bit more realistic (from my perspective) compared to the relative ease with which I created this rendition in Musescore 4/Muse Sounds.  I'm one of those people who create everything in notation first rather than a DAW so I'd have to export the midi data/xml to a DAW and the amount of busywork needed that it would cost me seems impractical for only a marginally better potential result.

8 hours ago, Quinn said:

The stereo spread seemed too left and right. Can you spread as well as pan the sound in Musescore? I was listening on earphones and had to switch in the stereo cross-feeder.

The panning was my doing.  But I am ignorant about what you mean here by "spread"?  What else is there besides panning?  Is spread the amount of actual room that a sound takes up on the stage?

8 hours ago, Quinn said:

There was a point in the score. The sudden switch to mute in bars 14 and 90 (there may be others but I didn't stop to look at the score in fine detail). Violin 1 in bar 14 is asked to flick down the mute in an instant at the end of a tremolo, not even a semiquaver rest to do it so the player will have to be bowing very close to the frog! In bar 90 all violins and violas mute very quickly and come back to senza just as quickly a few bars later. It'll probably take 1/2 a second longer to lift the mute. Viola 2 is expected to do so instantly in bar 101.

In an actual performance I'd want the 1st Violins to decrescendo to niente before applying the mute in bar 14 - maybe that might make it at least a bit easier?  And the amount of rest before the mute is applied in bar 90 would be flexible rather than metronomic.

8 hours ago, Quinn said:

I'll have to ask you to excuse me agreeing with Chopin about not giving up with DAWs. They do offer far finer control than sounds generated through notation software. (I mean, there might be some software about that can do it (have yet to hear one) but great though the improvements are in Musescore 4, they aren't there yet.) The dynamic variation, particularly within phrases, doesn't always yield a good result.

I know DAW's are useful - it's just that getting any kind of good quality result with a DAW requires so much monetary commitment that I cannot afford, not to mention extra work!  I have high hopes for the future of Muse Sounds and it's realism (plus I'm already familiar with the tricks/kinks needed to get Musescore to perform things the way I want - why learn something else?)

8 hours ago, Quinn said:

So aside from these production issues the music is superb. Congrats.

Thank you!  And thanks for your detailed review and performance assessment!

10 hours ago, Thatguy v2.0 said:

Wow Peter, this is superb. I'm not blowing smoke up your ass just because you're my friend, it really is good.

Haha thanks.  I always appreciate your honest opinion.

10 hours ago, Thatguy v2.0 said:

First, I think anyone wanting to become a better composer should take notes listening to this. You were able to stretch material from a simple theme and develop it across 7 minutes of music. It's very through composed. Your theme is very catchy too, I really like the constantly changing intervals with the wide leaps. You also do a great job with textures too; there's lot of variety with tutti and sparse sections. Maybe one thing you could think about for the future would be to give solo instruments a little time as well. Might sound cool if for example violin group lines played a majority of the phrases, but giving a solo violin a melody, especially in lighter textures, to vary up the timbre of such a homogenous ensemble.

You're totally right that giving out some solos would have given this piece more charm, although I think it works really great as a piece for string orchestra.  I don't know why but I'm really attracted to the ensemble sounds of the various string instruments.  I think it was Mahler who wrote really great solos in the middle of his gargantuan orchestral works though that really added a chamber music charm to his giant pieces (contrasting the large ensemble with the really small just proving the case in point that "A Symphony must be like the world - it must contain everything")  But definitely, in future string works I'll try to consider the use of solos to help vary up the timbre.

10 hours ago, Thatguy v2.0 said:

I really liked the pizzicato rhythmic spots, it gave me video game OST vibes. In fact, the entire piece sounded like it could have been in a game soundtrack. You're game influences are strong lol, which I think is a good thing. Even if people who listen to your music don't have much classical music listening experience, they perhaps would be subconsciously drawn to your music, bringing up some nostalgic memory of some game they loved. 

I'll always take that as a compliment despite how tacky it sounds LoL!  I sometimes think that Romanticism and Cinematic and Video-game music has to be more emotionally seductive than other types of music and hence end up being more accessible.

10 hours ago, Thatguy v2.0 said:

You don't let any one instrument be more important than the others. You cleverly give the main theme to many of the instruments, really giving variety to the sound, as well as making all the parts interesting. I really enjoy the contrabass, I think it fits into a large string ensemble well. I'm on the team of write for whatever ensemble you want, unless you're writing for a specific ensemble. You could always amend the music written to fit something specific that may come up (and I hope it does!), but go with what you want the music to sound like first. Most of us will only have the sound samples as our voice for most of our pieces, so make it sound like you want.

Yeah definitely.  I conceived of having this many parts in the ensemble to allow room for the texture to go all the way from thin to really really thick.  That was my intent as the composer.  I think if the instrumentation were to be changed in the future for whatever reason, this variable would have to be considered and accounted for if arranging for a different ensemble.

10 hours ago, Thatguy v2.0 said:

Speaking of which, the only thing I didn't like was the mixing. I suppose it's the default way musescore arranges the panning, but I hated that the 1st violins were all the way to the left, and the bass was all the way right. If it gives you the option, put the bass down the center and then spread out the other instruments. I know you heard my piece "A Dream's End", and that was a mistake I made in hindsight with the mixing. I was going for "if you were listening live", but it doesn't come across well, especially with headphones. I hope there's an option for that in musescore, but if not, it's not that big of a deal since the sound sample changes they've recently made are a very LARGE improvement. 

No the mixing was definitely my own personal doing.  I manually adjusted all the panning to the settings you hear.  I didn't have a problem with it in an orchestra setting (when listening on headphones - although you did tell me that that's much different than hearing a live orchestra).  But you're not the first one to claim that sticking the bass in the center is preferable.  @AngelCityOutlaw mentioned the same thing for my "A Brand New Day" piece.  I'll just have to try it and see if it works better, especially for a bass guitar.

10 hours ago, Thatguy v2.0 said:

I'm curious on the key signature decision. I have no frame of reference since I've only ever written two bi-tonal pieces, but why A Major? Sure it's "in the middle" for the two keys you used, but I would have thought just not using a key signature would be a better option. I'm interested to hear your thoughts on this.

Well, A major is also F# minor which is the parallel minor closely-related key to F# major, which I consider to be the more dominant tonality of the two I use in the piece.

10 hours ago, Thatguy v2.0 said:

I hear Bartok influence, but don't hear Bartok in this. This was completely your own music.

Thanks!  The VGM influence apparently was in full effect even more than 10 years ago!  LoL

10 hours ago, Thatguy v2.0 said:

I know this isn't exactly a "new" piece from you (not sure how much of it was written in the DAW some time ago), but this was a treat to hear, and it made Christmas for me. You know I'm a huge fan of your work, and an even bigger fan of your character, so thanks so much for posting this piece. I hope the changes made to musescore continue to better represent your musical ideas, and inspire you more to compose more often. I know you're busy with rl stuff, but I'm always excited to see the newest PeterthePapercomPoser piece. Merry Christmas, and congrats on such a wonderfully crafted piece of music!

Thank you!  For me, the Musescore 4 and Muse Sounds has been my greatest Christmas present I've ever gotten!  LoL  Thanks for your review.  I always look forward to your comments and I'm glad that you attach so much meaning to music that a piece of music can still make your day, and especially one as cherished as Christmas is.  Christmas is over now so I'll just wish you a Happy New Year!

12 hours ago, Rich said:

Peter---

  i thought this was a great piece---very evocative of Bartok's "night music", yet more accessible ("Accessible" is a compliment in my book!).

          I would love to experiment with this type of bitonal/atonal writing at some point.  The atmospherics create a sense of rootlessness, mystery, and anticipation that can't be matched in any other music mode--as shown here!

 

  Very nicely done.

Thanks Rich!  I'm glad you thought my music is accessible!  I take that as a compliment too!  I think I already mentioned in other replies how the piece seems to be a kind of compromise between a classical approach and a more cinematic/video-game music inspired one, as lots of my works are.  Thanks for your review - I'm glad you enjoyed my work!

14 hours ago, Left Unexplained said:

this is great! Those musescore sounds really work well. The continuity surpasses my abilities by a lot.

I guess my criticism would be that it needs more emotive moments harmonically. Idk thats just my personal taste. There are quite a few though that I noticed that I thought were pretty adventurous and spot on. 

Overall, great work! Your skills continue to grow homie.

What are you talking about?  You have great harmonic continuity!  You can always find that next magical sounding chord!

About the emotive harmonic moments - I wanted to contrast the emotive moments I do have with a stark bleakness in the rest of the piece that symbolizes the night and darkness.

Thanks for your review!

10 hours ago, PeterthePapercomPoser said:

19 hours ago, Quinn said:

The stereo spread seemed too left and right. Can you spread as well as pan the sound in Musescore? I was listening on earphones and had to switch in the stereo cross-feeder.

The panning was my doing.  But I am ignorant about what you mean here by "spread"?  What else is there besides panning?  Is spread the amount of actual room that a sound takes up on the stage?

Just that when you locate a mono sound on a stereo stage it should be given a range of how far left and right (of that location) the sound spreads so for example the first violins could range from the far left (facing the stage) to about 2/3 over to the right, considering there might be 8 desks ending up fairly close to the conductor. (I haven't looked at the mixer in Musescore but maybe will later to see how it's done. There's a video on Musecore 4 development that mentions the mixer. I watched some of it but was really only interested in the engraving.) That's what the Decca tree mic placement and its variants are about. In real life violins 1 would reach right across the sound stage but in this artificial world it's a matter of where you want the emphasis.  

Hope that helps!

Headphones don't help as they direct sounds literally to each of our ears separately whereas we'd normally hear the sounds in both ears with an emphasis to one side, hence the cross-feed that passes a controllable amount to the opposite ear. It made a difference listening to your work. 

I also do most of my preliminary work on paper which suits the kind of stuff I write in most cases, which can be a chore. After the initial scrawl I have to tidy up pretty quickly to try and get it into some shape responsive to note durations, phrasing and bars etc. Cut and paste is literal, 😄

Then I bung it in the DAW but I still get involved with notation software at the engraving end. 

Sorry about the formal quotes going wrong. I couldn't work out how to delete and rework them. It all went wrong 😄

16 hours ago, chopin said:

Given the nature of your work, I was clearly able to pick out your motif, as it is evident from the very beginning, and love how you do variations around it throughout the entire piece. This is a very well written work. I also can appreciate how you mixed a hint of romanticism in here (I love Romanticism, so extra brownie points from me here 😄).

Thanks!  I do not usually compose in a romantic style but that's kind of just something that crept into this work somehow.

16 hours ago, chopin said:

The pianissimo sections are a little too soft, and the instruments sometimes sound muddled. But in a piece like this, instrument clarity is critical given the dissonance and reliance of different instruments picking up parts of the motif and rhythms. This is a perfect example of why you'd want specialized instruments over stock.  It's also a good example of the importance of orchestration.

I almost want to hear how this piece would sound with a chamber orchestra, or even string quintet. Solo instruments may help bring out the individual parts a little more effectively. Your signature by Gustav Mahler, "A symphony must be like the world - it must contain everything" is actually something I disagree with. I'm more of a minimalist and I think too many instruments can sometimes ruin the listening experience. Don't get me wrong, I love a grand orchestra! But in this case, I feel like you can nix 2 instruments, and perhaps convert this to a solo instrument listening experience.

Well - it is subtitled as "Night Music" so I'd rather err on being too soft rather than too loud.  If the instruments are speaking at barely the whisper of a tone then I've accomplished my intent with this piece.  If the instruments sometimes sound "muddled" it's because strings have a pretty homogeneous sound and blend together very easily, which is totally part of my intent with this piece.  The strings should "smear" into each other and create a homogeneous wall of sound most of the time unless things are brought out with dynamics, accents etc.  I think despite this the melodic lines and counterlines are still pretty clear to me.  And although I agree that a better rendition could definitely be created with (probably) a lot more work and (probably) a lot more money (which I don't have) I don't think the instrumentation should be changed.  My intent with how I've split up the string orchestra here is to write for a full spectrum between a very thin and very thick texture.  I think if you'd change the instrumentation you'd lose some of that, but you're welcome to mess around with it if you'd like!

Thanks for your opinion Mr. "Audiophile"!  Haha

15 hours ago, PeterthePapercomPoser said:

@AngelCityOutlaw mentioned the same thing for my "A Brand New Day" piece.  I'll just have to try it and see if it works better, especially for a bass guitar.

Indeed, especially for a bass guitar.

On a recording, bass really only works in the center because we're only technically hearing the sound from 2D instead of 3D like IRL. It's especially uncomfy on headphones, where you basically have two speakers glued to either side of your head.

Edit: What @Quinn said

What you can do, and is often done on orchestra recordings and string music, is that you can mono-sum the bass. So you could set the plugin to say 200hz, and everything from 200hz and below will get centered and the rest will remain panned. So the upper frequencies of the bass will remain panned, but the low-end will be centered.

Bravo, well done. I noticed, just like Quinn did, the absurd mute switches. Even with what you said, it would still be too quick. I would suggest at least a full measure of space between. (For some reason everyone underestimates the time it takes to put on a mute and overestimates the time it takes to go from arco to pizz).

Also, in my opinion, (though it might not be a goal you have), the engraving needs some work.

10 hours ago, ComposaBoi said:

Bravo, well done.

Thanks!

10 hours ago, ComposaBoi said:

I noticed, just like Quinn did, the absurd mute switches. Even with what you said, it would still be too quick. I would suggest at least a full measure of space between. (For some reason everyone underestimates the time it takes to put on a mute and overestimates the time it takes to go from arco to pizz).

In the remote event of this ever actually being performed if it came to that, I would maybe just change the instruction to sul ponticello or sul tasto for that countermelody that's currently marked muted.  That would give the melody a different color and allow the players to change playing styles much more quickly (I think).

10 hours ago, ComposaBoi said:

Also, in my opinion, (though it might not be a goal you have), the engraving needs some work.

I might go back to this work and update it at some future point because I didn't include all the dynamics I desired (for some reason LoL).  Any particular engraving issues you'd like to bring my attention to?

Thanks for your review!