My very first classical piece but stuck and want some general feedback

I recently have been turning to classical for the first time (ikr kinda crazy) and decided to give it a shot for composing. After being inspired by the famous Swan Lake I asked chat GPT to create for me a ballet tracklist with acts and tracks. After this i decided to modify it and finished the list of 21 pieces in total. I tried my best to create a waltz but i feel like I did a bad job. PLease give some feedback. Also this is my first time writing sheet music for a song so please if i messed up somewhere tell me. Thank You.

This Piece is an unfinished work at the moment but I want t know if it sounds any good before i continue.

Une Étoile parmi les Étoiles

Acte II., No. 7, III. Ombres Tentatrices (Waltz)

Hi @Gabriel Carlisle,

The waltz is quite funny to listen to. What will be the number of performers for each instruments? If it!s just one for each instrument, the clarinet won’t be able to play more than a note at a time! If it’s for two clarinettists you should write I and II next to the notes to indicate which note will be played by which one.

For the E harmonic spelling, the Eb should be D sharp in b.11, 23 and 33-40. The trill of the flute should be written with just one long B in b.33-36.

Thx for sharing!

Henry

Thanks so much!

I think it sounds really good. Up until 50 seconds in, I feel it's perfection. At the 50 second mark and beyond, I think it starts to get a perhaps a little too slow paced. I know you are trying to build tension and that the piece isn't finished yet, but maybe if you trim that section in half (where the violin repeats a section to finish off with a cadence), it would improve the flow of your piece.

But really good job so far, I can't believe this is your first classical piece.

Thank you! I’ll try it out and see how it’s sounds.

Hi Gabriel,

This might be more a matter of personal taste, but I like to put crescendo's and decrescendo's into parts of my phrases, giving the phrases more musicality and life.  Although there's also the school of thought that since this is an exposition of the theme it doesn't have to be too fancy dynamics wise.  Ultimately, it's your decision but I would have (for example) a crescendo in the Oboe from measure 9 - 10 and a decrescendo 11 - 12 (and I would have the whole thing played legato with a breath right after that long E in measure 12).  In measures 13 - 16 I would have a long legato crescendo culminating in measure 17 at its loudest point.  Then 17 - 20 I would have a decrescendo, followed by a crescendo 21 - 22 and a decrescendo again 23 - 24.  And that would bring you back to the original theme orchestrated more fully (where I would follow the same pattern dynamics wise as when the Oboe alone had the melody).  If you try that idea let me know if you like or dislike how it sounds!  Thanks for sharing.

Peter

I totally agree. I’ve been studying the pieces in Swan Lake and found that Tchaikovsky uses lots of dynamic energy especially when an instrument is soloed. I thought perhaps that the term espress. would take care of the expression and emotion properties but I assume I was wrong. I’ll definitely try these things out! Thanks so much!

1 hour ago, Gabriel Carlisle said:

I thought perhaps that the term espress. would take care of the expressession and emotion properties

You're not wrong, but just because you declare bankruptcy, doesn't mean it to be true. That's a reference to The Office btw, where Michael says I Declare Bankruptcy!

The point is, you should do everything you can to make your audio output as appealing as possible. The words are fine, but tweaking your midi is critical to convey that espress term.

...I unfortunately use musescore 3... 😞 Do you suggest that i place the midi, once im done, in my DAW and place vst's?

8 hours ago, Gabriel Carlisle said:

.I unfortunately use musescore 3... 😞 Do you suggest that i place the midi, once im done, in my DAW and place vst's?

Even though I am an absolutely idiot and bonehead on the sound quality, I am sure the DAW will make it much better than the MS3 sound! Or the MS4 sound is better I think?

Henry

There are all kinds of things you can do to make a midi sound more natural. I recorded 6 early YouTube videos about quality of playback, and made a playlist around this. The first video in that playlist is more general information based. But the other videos actually show you how I transformed very robotic sounding piano pieces into something much more natural. And I go over the techniques.

Thanks! I’ll check it out. Unfortunately I can’t use MuseScore 4 since my Mac is too old.

On 1/10/2024 at 2:24 PM, Gabriel Carlisle said:

musescore 3

If you are able to, you may wanna consider updating musescore - the latest version is 4.2.1.

On 1/10/2024 at 9:56 AM, Gabriel Carlisle said:

Thanks! I’ll check it out. Unfortunately I can’t use MuseScore 4 since my Mac is too old.

 

Yeah…I would if I could.

2 hours ago, Gabriel Carlisle said:

Yeah…I would if I could.

 

Oh, sorry that I didn't see it😅 and to hear about that.