Ballade in D minor for solo piano, and first movement of my symphony (Syncopation in Cm)

My ballade dedicated to my sister and brother in law's marriage.

and 

Syncopation in C minor (violin, piano, 2 cellos)

Quaret in F# minor called Yebae (Worship).

Thamks for lsitening guys. 

If you want to keep in touch/contact me, it's soloyhk on instagram. 

Hey @SoloYH,

I will review the pieces one by one as I don't want your post to sink quickly.

I have listened to the ballade first. For me it's very cool and I like your idea or organically spreading the major second of E-D idea rhythmically and adding interesting harmonies to it. My favourite is b.38 where you have two lines in the RH for the similar playing of the motive, also the overall mood is really cool!

My concern will be the following: First is the tied notes of the left hands, you can just a crotchet instead of two tied quavers; second is the wide range of the chords as some will be unplayable on Piano, e.g. b.89. Moments like b.41 will be playable but pedal will be needed and may muddle the sound.

Thanks for sharing! I will review other pieces after I listen to them.

Henry

9 hours ago, Henry Ng Tsz Kiu said:

Hey @SoloYH,

I will review the pieces one by one as I don't want your post to sink quickly.

I have listened to the ballade first. For me it's very cool and I like your idea or organically spreading the major second of E-D idea rhythmically and adding interesting harmonies to it. My favourite is b.38 where you have two lines in the RH for the similar playing of the motive, also the overall mood is really cool!

My concern will be the following: First is the tied notes of the left hands, you can just a crotchet instead of two tied quavers; second is the wide range of the chords as some will be unplayable on Piano, e.g. b.89. Moments like b.41 will be playable but pedal will be needed and may muddle the sound.

Thanks for sharing! I will review other pieces after I listen to them.

Henry

 

Yeah thanks henry for listening. Unfortunately I agree with you, that it will be incredibly difficult to play that part and voice it properly. But I believe it is doable with enough skill and practice. 

I have a vision for how it should sound, but real performances tend to change my visions, so hopefully I will make edits in the future to make it sound more proper.

♫ Ballade:

• OK, first of all the piano sound you have chosen is a bit weird to me, specially the for lowest notes —which sound almost like an electronic bass—. Concerning the playability of some parts and without and in-depth analysis, I would say that Henry's comment is accurate in the way some parts would definitely need pedalling but that may have unwanted consequences in the sound during a real performance. But well we have some "playable" parts too that seem to be intendedly hand-breaking, haha:  
• The piece itself improves with time in my opinion, from a no-go to me in the beginning to very fascinating rhythmical motives at the end. So in my opinion, you have a potentially good piece there but it needs polishing and more directionality (in case you think this is what you seek for) in some parts. Engraving issues are also a thing to mention and we don't have to dive too much to see some stuff like this  where stems direction to indicate voices isn't clear and some silences are either unneeded or can be better aligned (or even compressed). I do encourage you to use 8va bassa and alta —or even change the clef— whenever you see that most of the stuff you put on a section happens to be located off the staff.

• Another question regarding the engraving: what do these double bars mark?   (e.g: end of M33).
• Since this is a personal choice I won't really criticize it but seeing that this piece has lots of beamed notes changing the time signature might be worth considering, but that's just a detail, it's not like there's lots of pieces with much, much more beam density out there!

♫ Syncopation:

• I would say that the beginning was a little weak to my taste but just as it happened with the Ballade, it does improve with time. Why are there notes in red BTW?

• I would say that I liked this piece more than the Ballade overall. It's more simple yet (or as a consequence of that) the melody flows easily. Again you don't lose opportunity to try some rhythmic variations on the theme —those tenths in the piano are killing though—, but these are the only noticeable variations. There's barely to no dynamics, and the more the piece advances, the less meaningful the initial motive is. I believe the climax and my favourite part was reached before starting these rhythmic variations that despite telling me there's ambition in this piece, it is just not well executed in my opinion. The ending didn't convince me either, it was too abrupt; the momentum you created with the ostinato went nowhere.

• All in all, I liked it more than the Ballade, specially the "build-up" part before the rhythmical variations came.

♫ Quartet:

• The title says "2 hour composition". What does it mean? That the full piece lasts 2 hours or that it took you 2 hours to compose it?

• Yet again, the very first bars were not so convincing, but after that there's a truly enjoyable section that lasts till 1:40 aprox, where (too) suddenly a more peculiar section, featuring a more rhythmical approach appears, and while it stands a bit better than the other two at the beginning, it ends into a mess where the piano squashes and gets rid of what was left of the very nice melody and balance that you made at the beginning of the piece. And yet again, the ending doesn't make justice to the momentum you questionably created out of the nothingness.

• Engraving "issues" like uncompressed silences are present, but much less than in the Ballade.


In summary, none of this three pieces you presented convinced me. In my honest and humble opinion, all of them followed the same pattern: A weak beginning, continued by a very promising section that at some point suddenly transitioned to a higher or lower degree of chaos, showing in not the most desirable way that the ambitions of these pieces.

Working on dynamics and phrasing, as well as being more careful on not hindering readability of the scores will probably be of great help towards unlocking the full potential of the pieces you brought here, and carefully choosing which ideas fit better (and where) is something that one should not forget, too. In my opinion, you create nice rhythms and other interesting combinations but there are better ways to introduce them without making your works extremely difficult or by doing so in a sudden, without preparation, etc.

Hope I've not been to dense and that something I have written is of use to you.

Kind regards,
Daniel–Ømicrón. 
 


 

1 hour ago, Omicronrg9 said:

♫ Ballade:

• OK, first of all the piano sound you have chosen is a bit weird to me, specially the for lowest notes —which sound almost like an electronic bass—. Concerning the playability of some parts and without and in-depth analysis, I would say that Henry's comment is accurate in the way some parts would definitely need pedalling but that may have unwanted consequences in the sound during a real performance. But well we have some "playable" parts too that seem to be intendedly hand-breaking, haha:  
• The piece itself improves with time in my opinion, from a no-go to me in the beginning to very fascinating rhythmical motives at the end. So in my opinion, you have a potentially good piece there but it needs polishing and more directionality (in case you think this is what you seek for) in some parts. Engraving issues are also a thing to mention and we don't have to dive too much to see some stuff like this  where stems direction to indicate voices isn't clear and some silences are either unneeded or can be better aligned (or even compressed). I do encourage you to use 8va bassa and alta —or even change the clef— whenever you see that most of the stuff you put on a section happens to be located off the staff.

• Another question regarding the engraving: what do these double bars mark?   (e.g: end of M33).
• Since this is a personal choice I won't really criticize it but seeing that this piece has lots of beamed notes changing the time signature might be worth considering, but that's just a detail, it's not like there's lots of pieces with much, much more beam density out there!

♫ Syncopation:

• I would say that the beginning was a little weak to my taste but just as it happened with the Ballade, it does improve with time. Why are there notes in red BTW?

• I would say that I liked this piece more than the Ballade overall. It's more simple yet (or as a consequence of that) the melody flows easily. Again you don't lose opportunity to try some rhythmic variations on the theme —those tenths in the piano are killing though—, but these are the only noticeable variations. There's barely to no dynamics, and the more the piece advances, the less meaningful the initial motive is. I believe the climax and my favourite part was reached before starting these rhythmic variations that despite telling me there's ambition in this piece, it is just not well executed in my opinion. The ending didn't convince me either, it was too abrupt; the momentum you created with the ostinato went nowhere.

• All in all, I liked it more than the Ballade, specially the "build-up" part before the rhythmical variations came.

♫ Quartet:

• The title says "2 hour composition". What does it mean? That the full piece lasts 2 hours or that it took you 2 hours to compose it?

• Yet again, the very first bars were not so convincing, but after that there's a truly enjoyable section that lasts till 1:40 aprox, where (too) suddenly a more peculiar section, featuring a more rhythmical approach appears, and while it stands a bit better than the other two at the beginning, it ends into a mess where the piano squashes and gets rid of what was left of the very nice melody and balance that you made at the beginning of the piece. And yet again, the ending doesn't make justice to the momentum you questionably created out of the nothingness.

• Engraving "issues" like uncompressed silences are present, but much less than in the Ballade.


In summary, none of this three pieces you presented convinced me. In my honest and humble opinion, all of them followed the same pattern: A weak beginning, continued by a very promising section that at some point suddenly transitioned to a higher or lower degree of chaos, showing in not the most desirable way that the ambitions of these pieces.

Working on dynamics and phrasing, as well as being more careful on not hindering readability of the scores will probably be of great help towards unlocking the full potential of the pieces you brought here, and carefully choosing which ideas fit better (and where) is something that one should not forget, too. In my opinion, you create nice rhythms and other interesting combinations but there are better ways to introduce them without making your works extremely difficult or by doing so in a sudden, without preparation, etc.

Hope I've not been to dense and that something I have written is of use to you.

Kind regards,
Daniel–Ømicrón. 
 


 

 

Thank you for listening and your feedback.

Yes, if you see through my playlist I used to compose 2 hours per day. 

Usually 1 hour composition 1 hour sound design. 

I would time it, then upload the result immediately if I liked the result.

The F minor quartet is the result of that, so is Korean Playground Memories, and few more on the "Old Videos for Mom and Dad" playlist.

The dynamics are weak due to me working on professional recordings to release once they are complete to my satisfaction.

And red notes are whenever I introduce a new theme.

I will take your feedback and work on it. Thank you again.

5 minutes ago, SoloYH said:

Yes, if you see through my playlist I used to compose 2 hours per day. 

That's a very sane practice. I am barely able to compose on a daily basis but when I do, it's usually in bursts of 10-15 hours which isn't sane at all.

I am glad some of my criticism is worth of your consideration mate, looking forward to check further works from you, specially if those are already finished.

Kind regards,
Daniel–Ømicrón.

G'day @SoloYH,

I listened to your Quartet and I must say that I wasn't really convinced by it at all. I feel that it was way too repetitive melodically and the Piano RH did nothing which didn't really exploit the full potential of the instrument. You could have just given that Piano LH to a Second Violin or Cello to play. 

With that being said, you have potential, you just need to refine you compositional technique. I do hope my crticism is of some value and is not too harsh. 

Kind regards, 

Arjuna

1 hour ago, expert21 said:

G'day @SoloYH,

 

I listened to your Quartet and I must say that I wasn't really convinced by it at all. I feel that it was way too repetitive melodically and the Piano RH did nothing which didn't really exploit the full potential of the instrument. You could have just given that Piano LH to a Second Violin or Cello to play. 

 

With that being said, you have potential, you just need to refine you compositional technique. I do hope my crticism is of some value and is not too harsh. 

Kind regards, 

Arjuna

 

 

Why does every piece have to expose the full potential of every instrument? Simplicity sometimes is the key to good things.

I dare you write something so simple that sounds good.

I mean are you telling me this >> 

 << exploits the full potential of the piano?

Here's the updated sheets btw, https://musescore.com/user/45989792/scores/10057675 to the Quartet.

And yes, there is  right hand and you don't have to mansplain what a string quartet is. 

Not to be rude, but you are under 13 years old right to have written that?

On 4/2/2023 at 10:53 AM, Omicronrg9 said:

♫ Ballade:

• OK, first of all the piano sound you have chosen is a bit weird to me, specially the for lowest notes —which sound almost like an electronic bass—. Concerning the playability of some parts and without and in-depth analysis, I would say that Henry's comment is accurate in the way some parts would definitely need pedalling but that may have unwanted consequences in the sound during a real performance. But well we have some "playable" parts too that seem to be intendedly hand-breaking, haha:  
• The piece itself improves with time in my opinion, from a no-go to me in the beginning to very fascinating rhythmical motives at the end. So in my opinion, you have a potentially good piece there but it needs polishing and more directionality (in case you think this is what you seek for) in some parts. Engraving issues are also a thing to mention and we don't have to dive too much to see some stuff like this  where stems direction to indicate voices isn't clear and some silences are either unneeded or can be better aligned (or even compressed). I do encourage you to use 8va bassa and alta —or even change the clef— whenever you see that most of the stuff you put on a section happens to be located off the staff.

• Another question regarding the engraving: what do these double bars mark?   (e.g: end of M33).
• Since this is a personal choice I won't really criticize it but seeing that this piece has lots of beamed notes changing the time signature might be worth considering, but that's just a detail, it's not like there's lots of pieces with much, much more beam density out there!

♫ Syncopation:

• I would say that the beginning was a little weak to my taste but just as it happened with the Ballade, it does improve with time. Why are there notes in red BTW?

• I would say that I liked this piece more than the Ballade overall. It's more simple yet (or as a consequence of that) the melody flows easily. Again you don't lose opportunity to try some rhythmic variations on the theme —those tenths in the piano are killing though—, but these are the only noticeable variations. There's barely to no dynamics, and the more the piece advances, the less meaningful the initial motive is. I believe the climax and my favourite part was reached before starting these rhythmic variations that despite telling me there's ambition in this piece, it is just not well executed in my opinion. The ending didn't convince me either, it was too abrupt; the momentum you created with the ostinato went nowhere.

• All in all, I liked it more than the Ballade, specially the "build-up" part before the rhythmical variations came.

♫ Quartet:

• The title says "2 hour composition". What does it mean? That the full piece lasts 2 hours or that it took you 2 hours to compose it?

• Yet again, the very first bars were not so convincing, but after that there's a truly enjoyable section that lasts till 1:40 aprox, where (too) suddenly a more peculiar section, featuring a more rhythmical approach appears, and while it stands a bit better than the other two at the beginning, it ends into a mess where the piano squashes and gets rid of what was left of the very nice melody and balance that you made at the beginning of the piece. And yet again, the ending doesn't make justice to the momentum you questionably created out of the nothingness.

• Engraving "issues" like uncompressed silences are present, but much less than in the Ballade.


In summary, none of this three pieces you presented convinced me. In my honest and humble opinion, all of them followed the same pattern: A weak beginning, continued by a very promising section that at some point suddenly transitioned to a higher or lower degree of chaos, showing in not the most desirable way that the ambitions of these pieces.

Working on dynamics and phrasing, as well as being more careful on not hindering readability of the scores will probably be of great help towards unlocking the full potential of the pieces you brought here, and carefully choosing which ideas fit better (and where) is something that one should not forget, too. In my opinion, you create nice rhythms and other interesting combinations but there are better ways to introduce them without making your works extremely difficult or by doing so in a sudden, without preparation, etc.

Hope I've not been to dense and that something I have written is of use to you.

Kind regards,
Daniel–Ømicrón. 
 


 

 

On 4/3/2023 at 10:08 PM, expert21 said:

G'day @SoloYH,

 

I listened to your Quartet and I must say that I wasn't really convinced by it at all. I feel that it was way too repetitive melodically and the Piano RH did nothing which didn't really exploit the full potential of the instrument. You could have just given that Piano LH to a Second Violin or Cello to play. 

 

With that being said, you have potential, you just need to refine you compositional technique. I do hope my crticism is of some value and is not too harsh. 

Kind regards, 

Arjuna

 

 

Outlined here are criticsms that one can improve upon, vs an insult that a person makes to feel good about themselves. 

Learn from criticisms, defend yourself from insults and don't be an Arjuna.

Alright, I see how it is. Let's break down the Piano Quartet No.1 by Young-Ho Kim.

Notes from first lesson:

• Melody: Repeats the same bar constantly and consistently over again in melody. No phrases. Melody unmemomrable and boring. Work to be done on Melody, Phrasisng and expanding ideas.
• Instrumentation: Poor instrumentation. Instruments doing bizared thing all over the place. Piano plays LH only and doesn't use both hands which is a waste of the potential use of the instrument. Needs to work on instrumentation and writing for different instrument. I suggest studying an orchestration manual to learn what instruments can and can't do.
• Structure: Introduction is uncapitvating, sections which repeat the same bar over and over again bore me to death, unfortunately the piece get worse as it goes on. 
• Harmony: Good as far as I'm aware.
• Overall judgement: Poor piece. Needs to work an all aspects of composition except Harmony.

Yooooooooooo what's up my dude

Glad to see you're back with some more music! 

Wait a minute...before I even listen...I'm reading the chatbox...

Are you sure you're so fragile that you can't comprehend what a teenager has to offer? Do you know everything? Are you Beethoven? Dude, I'm probably older than you. I'm in my thirties. So what if someone younger than you has critical advice to offer. They could of said nothing, but instead they chose to say something about your music. 

Do you have to adhere to every word? Of course not, but don't neglect the fact that anyone who is interested in music that CARES ENOUGH to give you some words has something to say. Dude, I teach music for a living. I play stuff I've wrote to students of all ages... my ego is never hurt by honest opinions. Be man enough to recognize constructive criticism... no one is perfect. I've been doing this stuff for years, and I STILL post to this forum because I love hearing the feedback. I don't care if you're 10 or 70 years old, I'm here for advice to grow as a composer. Do I listen to all of it? Of course not, but I'm so happy that anyone who takes the time to not only listen, but to offer some words of advice/criticism/critique/slander are available to me from anywhere and everywhere in the world. That's part of the beauty of this place, and why I've been here for so many years. 

But if you're just going to get overly defensive on any critical comment you may receive, then it's your loss. You mentioned you're getting recorded my some hot shot producer (I actually don't remember exactly where I heard this, remind me). That's great. If you're that good, you have so much to offer here, instead of infecting the forums with toxic garbage reminiscent of a twelve year old. 

I hope that you'll come around, I have faith in anyone that calls themselves a composer, but the way you're handling yourself is immature and bullshit. 

Poke around on the forums more. You'll find that people don't often post multiple pieces in one post. What's your goal? If feedback is a priority, then make multiple posts in the future. Just ask Syrel, he loves popping up every once in a blue moon to post 17 songs/pieces he's written.

So... after all that, I did listen to one of the pieces you posted. The Ballade in D minor.

As Expert expertly commented, this didn't conVINCE me at all. There were some notable discrepancies. 

- For one, don't listen to the people that commented on Youtube. If you're REALLY interested in getting better, I have a lot to say

- If you're going to notate both hands on one clef, it's best to arrange the note lines to align with which hand is playing. You seem like a guy that would offer money to people interested in playing the piece, so I'd write the best you can as far as playability 

- 

   just write the tied eighths as a quarter, we know where the beat is

- 

random double bar lines just for a change in material? Nah bruh, wait for some drastic change

- 

there are countless times I could mention playability. Yes, this looks like it COULD be playable...but how would it sound? It seems impractibly difficult regardless. 

- 

come on dude... I watched you play Rach... does he do this?

- 

this all seems kind of jumbled... what are you going for here?

- 

again, maybe you could help me understand. It just seems all cacophonic, like there's no logic to it

I could sit here and link a bunch more examples, but I'm just not understanding what you're going for here. Every aspect of music seems neglected, and I don't mean to be rude, but perhaps I'm just not skilled enough to understand fully what you're going for. I hear no sense of harmonic progression, the melody seems all over the place, and the rhythms are jaunty and dysfunctional. 

Like I said, I don't mean to be obtuse and abrasive, but what you've displayed here is inadequate as far as a composition goes. But just know, we're all here to help you. And when you stop being destructive in your feedback of criticism, all of us here would love to help decipher what it is you call music. Until then, I'm eager to hear your criticism of my criticism, and would love a conversation and not teen angst. I applaud @expert21for giving you honest feedback; his advice will only make you better as a composer. You must love to hear that. 

Vince