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Up until recently I was in the process of making music for a short film. The film was about a girl who gains "superpowers" from an old tree, and with these superpowers she's able to save her dying father and the forest. When i sent them my music they immediately said that they hade chose to pursue other options with the motivation being the music was too different from what they had in mind. I'd love to receive some basic feedback on this short piece. I'd like to know wether if it's straight scraggy or if it's alright, if there's something missing and what that could be. I'll be glad for any opinion on my work. I have some confidence in my ability to create music, but since I'm working by myself I never really have any idea what others think, so just a couple of words of opinion would make my day. Thanks 😊

Alright, after months of working, learning, and trying not to procrastinate too much, I'm freaking done with this project. This project took wayy longer than it should but gosh darn it it's hella worth it. It's literally my first time I've done something like this, and I thought it was okay. There were some parts that definitely could've been improved but I'm really proud of the score that I've made. About the scene: Two rival, young, and new deputies on the force, DUSK and BOYD, had found themselves in an one-on-one conversation after BOYD ran off to the top of a hill because DUSK had mocked his behavior of drinking and got sent off duty after the death of his horse, Bandit. The conversation ended in an ambiguous way after they each spoke of their feelings about each other. Credits in the video description. Server from WildRP. I've provided score, just the music, and some context to some of the dialogues as well. Lemme know what you think! -Ferrum

I recently finished this composition and am looking for more advice. Considering this is my third piece where I’ve written for Strings, i think I’m getting better with writing for them. I can’t think of a name for it though so please recommend any possible names or ideas for names!

Hey, I’m new to this website but I figured it’d be a good idea to get advice from other composers since I’m almost entirely self taught with composing and I could always use advice. Anyway here’s one of my pieces. I use Finale and some of the dynamics may seem too quiet or loud for an actual player but I most likely wrote it like that for making it sound the most ‘realistic’ when Finale played it back.

Im new to this forum so this is my first submission here. Action/drama track with strings and percussion with slightly developments. (Im not sure if it needs more development or works as is...any idea?) Cheers, Danny

Had fun writing this crazy piece. Probably not the finished version.

Hello everyone. I'm trying to find some special percussion techniques and effects (like bow with a team tam or a cortales). I want to see what can I fit in prices for the future. If anyone has a table of techniques (and maybe sound samples) I'd like to see them!

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-Xs1G5fupIjZPYNOiLDBoq7EijalRdUI/view?usp=sharing Recording on the way hopefully.

https://musescore.com/user/20408661/scores/5815863 Trying to make sure this is as good as it can be before I attempt to get a live recording for college pre-screening (due dec. 1st), any info regarding my composition will be helpful. Midi percussion sounds bad but not much I can do about it. If there are any formatting errors please call me out, I need this to be as clean as possible. Also should I change the name to something more interesting? If so what are some suggestions that fit the aesthetic and sound of the piece. Thank you!

Anyone know of some tutorial videos on how to apply filters for a drumkit all on same track(snare, toms, etc.)(or would it be better to separate to apply individual filters?

Can ghost notes be used as a kind of muting effect to a previously played note ex: a med snare, down to a really low snare for to cancel some of the previous ringing? Is this an effective method, or is there a better way to get more precisely defined note values?

So a while back, I made a piece for school using only percussive sounds for the intro car chase scene in Quantum Of Solace. Considering how little time I had to actually get it done, I think I did alright. Let me know what you think 🙂 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1PaP_ApAmvMbKranVjV_ocS0nQKwJBPbK/view?usp=sharing P.S: It's google drive file because that's how I would submit my assignments. If you're having trouble viewing the file, I will provide an alternate link for you

My master's degree is starting to draw to a close, and I'm very aware that every piece I write now will be one of the last while I still have my tutor. For that reason, I've really tried to push myself beyond my current boundaries wherever possible. This piece, while not incredibly 'contemporary' sounding I suppose, in some ways represents the culmination of my efforts and explorations while at this institution. I've pushed my harmonies and chord progressions as far as I'm personally willing to right now, and also used some new string techniques that I'd not really explored before. Some of this piece, especially the second half, is definitely among my favourite music I've ever written. I've still kept to my usual style of working with very short bits of material and seeing where I can take them, but this piece is roughly divided into three or four smaller sections which have their own separate ideas as well. I've also become very interested lately in sounds that 'morph' over the course of a single note. Usually, that just means fading multiple instruments in and out on the same note. I feel that this is an area that isn't adequately explored in a lot of the more widely played contemporary repertoire, especially in more amateur-aimed music. This piece will be performed at the start of May by a professional ensemble (including a very skilled concert pianist, fortunately). It'll be conducted, which is why I put the piece in this section. I've put it on Soundcloud as well if that playback is working better than this site for whatever reason. There's a couple of really minor changes between the score and the recording, because once you start polishing the score in Sibelius you often kind of ruin the playback.

Okay so here's my first kind of 'major' piece I've written for my degree. It'll be performed by a professional ensemble in May, and I'm sending off the score this week. The brief was to write a piece of maximum length 12 minutes, for an ensemble of maximum size flute/clarinet/perc/2 violins/viola/cello/bass. After a bit of agonizing over what on earth I would do, I did what usually works for me and just sat down and put some notes out to see what happened, and then went from there. The piece is kind of loosely following around a character as he explores a world. I haven't put too much more thought into the precise story than that, except that the first movement is introducing the character, and the second and third are two little adventures of his, with the third ending in his triumphant return. I kept a fairly light tone throughout, which seems to be a common thread for all my compositions. Some of my tutor's suggestions that I put in were expanding the first movement slightly, experimenting with string harmonics, and just some general score tidying. He liked the ending and I do too - his comment was that it sounded like something a composer might have written a hundred or so years ago, but in a good way. The piece is fairly tonal, almost to a fault at times, so mostly my concerns were with trying to keep it as fresh and interesting as I could, in my own ways. Mainly, that involves trying to vary up my chord progressions and harmonies. I had particular fun towards the end of the second movement where I literally was just putting in whatever I felt like in the strings. The title has no significance whatsoever, except that I wanted it to evoke something childlike and innocent. I originally had 'Tinky-Winky' instead of 'Timmy' but my tutor thought that was going too far, and it would seem like I was going for a jokey piece, which was not quite my intention. Recording is a slightly dodgy/quirky/stuttery Sibelius output but it's mostly okay.

My entry for the Winter competition 2018! **If you get anxiety, this music is a little tense........ fair warning A piece in three movements inspired by three nuances of the emotion Fear: I - Rush, II - Dread, III - Phobia. All parts attached. My written notes regarding the questions for the competition are on the Composer's Notes page. I did include some extra bits because I got pretty thorough with this: CHANCE MUSIC TABLES.pdfThe Cue sheet is meant to guide the electronics and instruments in alignment and timing, the Chance Music Charts are in case anyone wants to see how I created my chance music. Any feedback and thoughts are welcome. Thanks all! Gustav Johnson

Hey everyone! It's been a very long time! I first joined here around a decade ago, and never stopped composing! I've since moved to Sweden from the US, and am studying composition at a conservatory here. I wanted to share my first big project from last term, where we were to compose for a chamber ensemble of fantastic musicians (Norrbottens NEO, in case you're interested). As first years, we weren't on their actual recital and were encouraged to write music as difficult as we wanted and try new things. Unfortunately, their percussionist was ill on the day of the rehearsal/recording, and we only had about an hour each to rehears and record, so it didn't turn out as great as I had hoped. It was still an awesome learning experience, and given a few more hours of rehearsal I'm sure it would have turned out great. In lieu of that, I'll attach both the midi and the recording, as well as the score. The ensemble is for flute, clarinet, violin, viola, cello, piano, and percussion. Instead of writing one piece, I decided to write four short movements, each one exploring a different idea. The first two are played as one, and explores some cool scales (double harmonic major as well as a fully diminished locrian), the third movement deals with time signatures/rhythm (and, seeing how the percussionist that was there that day was sight reading, I think he did fantastic), and the fourth movement was to see how much I could have acoustic instruments sound like synthesizers in a dubstep-like movement. Obviously it's a finished piece, but any and all feedback would be welcome! I hope to be posting here more and getting to know the new people as well as catching up with the old ones :D

Hello! [Partly the description in the program booklet and youtube video] Maarten Bauer – Melodrama No.1 ''The End of His Story Started Here,'' Op. 45. 11th of August 2017 Dedicated to all the victims in concentration camps during World War II. The music begins at circa 2:00 On the 18th of November 2017 (one of the) most prestigious composition competition(s) in the Benelux took place: Prinses Christina Compositie Concours. I submitted my Melodrama No.1 ‘’The End of His Story Started Here’’ and to my surprise I won the first price of competition! I cannot express my gratitude for the judges, the performers (Trio Burlesco+) and the audience! Furthermore I would like to thank the other participating composers for the amazing experience and relaxed atmosphere during the stressful day. Description This melodrama uses the poem, which I have written in 2014 (see the text below), based on John Boyne’s astonishing book The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas. This composition is composed for the Trio Burlesco and a soprano and a percussionist (Trio Burlesco+). The text and music strengthen each other, so none of the two can be omitted. The innocent soprano is both narrator and singer and she symbolizes the actions, the emotions and the thoughts of the main character in the poem: Shmuel. Shmuel is a Jewish boy, who has just arrived in Auschwitz, which is called Out-With by Boyne. He does not know where he is and he cannot find his family, consisting of his father, mother and his big sister, whom I called Anat, which means ‘singing.’ The motivation for me to write such a heavily-weighted piece, namely an innocent young boy who will probably die in a Nazi concentration camp, is because I noticed that people in my surrounding realize less and less that freedom and peace are not obvious. It is the greatest gift that we can live in freedom and peace in the Netherlands. I noticed that this important consciousness gradually drains away by the years. Therefore I wanted to compose a piece, which remembers us that we have to be grateful for the lives we now live and that the indescribable terrible crimes may never be repeated. When I wrote the poem, my tears flowed. When I composed the Melodrama, my tears flowed. And now again, my tears flow, because this may never happen again. Never. https://christinaconcours.nl/alles/9667/

I was contacted a couple weeks ago about a project in Belgium which intended to get 25 composers to each write a 2 minute piece in any style for a certain percussion setup (choice of three), and a 50 minute piece would then be strung together. This is what I came up with! It's for marimba, bongos, and temple blocks (all one player). I had a lot of fun writing for my native instrument for the first time in a few years. Unfortunately I don't have access to a marimba to test out the part on, but I air-marimba'd a lot of it to make sure it was theoretically doable. Doing the notation in Sibelius was a pain but I felt that it was worth making sure the marimba part looked intuitive.

This piece uses the claves, tambourine, bongos, congas, cabasa, hand clapping, and marimba. It's primarily rhythmic, so the marimba is used sparingly.

I wrote this piece for an assignment which had us write a 4 voice piece for non-pitched percussion instruments (spread between 2 players). I'm not a percussionist so this assignment was a bit difficult for me, especially in trying to keep the piece from becoming dry and uninteresting. I also had some trouble figuring out what a single percussionist would be able to play and what they wouldn't be able to play. So, if anyone here is a percussionist and you have any advice for me in regards to the score, the piece, or it's playability, I'd love to hear it!

I would like to share with you my new composition. It was exceptionally painful and frustrating to finish, but I hope that those emotions added a bit of an artistic and melancholic spice to this silly little piece. Enjoy and thank you for listening.

Hello! When composing a symphonic work that includes timpani, xylophone, and suspended cymbal, should the composer specify which sticks to use? Is it irritating as a percussionist to be told which sticks to use, or do you like being given specific instructions? If percussionists prefer to make their own choices, I am happy to give them that freedom, and will instead just indicate dynamics. Thanks for the advice!

I'm sure that most of you know that writing out music is very time consuming, whether you're spending 20 minutes on drawing your staff neatly for your notes to sit on, or constantly erasing notes on Finale because your mouse slipped by a centimeter and placed a Snare Drum buzz roll instead of a rim shot. Over the years of composing marching percussion music, I've developed another method of composing music that may prove useful to composers with limited time. Because this is so different in comparison to the notation that has always been used throughout the history of music, this probably won't gain any popularity at all among percussion composers. But I guess this is worth a shot, since it works for me, and might work for you. So let me begin presenting to you what I call the "Alphabet Notation" for rhythm or percussion. This is what one measure of rest looks like: / [ . . . . ] [ . . . . ] [ . . . . ] [ . . . . ] / / = measure bar [] = one count . = 16th subdivision of a measure A note's value is determined by the number of "." subdivisions that follow it (A 1/16th note having no following subdivisions, an 1/8th note having one following subdivision, and a 1/4 note having 3). Keep in mind that one count can fit four 16th notes in it. The classic "Eights" warm-up would look like this: TD (4/4) / [ 1 . 1 . ] [ 1 . 1 . ] [ 1 . 1 . ] [ 1 . 1 . ] / [ 2 . 2 . ] [ 2 . 2 . ] [ 2 . 2 . ] [ 2 . 2 . ] / And so on... BD (4/4) / [ 1 . 1 . ] [ 1 . 1 . ] [ 1 . 1 . ] [ 1 . 1 . ] / [ 2 . 2 . ] [ 2 . 2 . ] [ 2 . 2 . ] [ 2 . 2 . ] / And so on... SD (4/4) / [ R . R . ] [ R . R . ] [ R . R . ] [ R . R . ] / [ L . L . ] [ L . L . ] [ L . L . ] [ L . L . ] / And so on... For tenor and bassline, notes are represented by numbers corresponding to drum size. s = Spock Drum 1 S = Spock Drum 2 5 = Bass 5 X = rimshot x = stick click r = on the rim For snareline: R/L = right or left hand for each note Rr/Ll = flam notes Rz/Lz = buzzed notes X = rimshot x = stick click r = on the rim Tremolo is tricky, but hear me out. As most of you know, a tremolo line divides the notes value by two and fills the original value with notes of the new value. (A 1/4 note with a tremolo sounds like two eight notes; an 1/8th note with a tremolo sounds like two 16th notes.) In alphabet notation, consider this and maintain the count's value of four 16th subdivisions. When adding tremolo lines in this notation, you need to cancel out the subdivisions that the sound of the tremolo note goes over in that count. For example: (4/4) / [ R . L . ] [ R . L . ] [ R, L, ] [ R, L, ] // The first two counts are normal. But on counts three and four, you can see that I didn't include the second and fourth subdivisions on that count. That's because with the "," tremolo line, the eight note's value doubles into the next subdivision. Applying this concept may become increasingly difficult with drags on 16th notes, thus creating 32nd notes. To put it somewhat simple, you eliminate the "." subdivision that is played over with the preceding tremolo note. Two tremolo lines indicate a double stroke roll, which is basically 32nd notes filling the value of the original note. When placing two tremolo lines on a "[ R . . . ]" quarter note, you would write [ R,, ] since the entire count is played through, leaving no room for "." subdivisions. When placing two tremolo lines on "[ R . R .]" one of two 1/8th notes, you would write [R,, R . ] since the roll fills the 1/8th note value, leaving no room for the subdivision after the "R." Moving on, triplet figures indicated by underlining. For example, (4/4) / [ R L R L R L ] [ R . R L L ] [[ R Rl Rl ]] / [ R L R ] [ L R L ] [ R . . . ] [ R L L ] / [ R . . . ] [ . . . . ] [ . . . . ] [ . . . . ] // **Envision the bracket topped with a "3" that indicates a triplet figure in traditional notation.** The first count in the first measure presents a sextuplet figure, while the second count presents an regular 1/8th note followed by a triplet figure of 1/8th notes. For figures that last more than one count, you can combine the count brackets like I did in the first measure. It presents a triplet figure of quarter notes in the third and fourth counts. And in the second measure, the first, second and fourth counts present 1/8th note triplet figures, with a regular quarter note on the third count. Time signature in boldface preceding the first measure. Dynamics can be placed before the count in which it should be expressed in italics or cursive. Crescendos/Decrescendos between counts. For example: TD (4/4) / f [ 1 . 2 2 ] [ 3 . 4 . ] [ 3, 2, ] [ 1, S . ] / [ 1 1 1, ] > [ 2 2 2, ] > [ 3 3 3, ] > [ 4 4 4, ] > / p [ 4 . 4 4 ] [ . 4 4 . ] [ 4 . . . ] [ . . . . ] // >/< = crescendo or decrescendo And Accents indicated by bold faced notes. I'm sure most of you understand that one count consists of 4 16th subdivisions. That's basically what this notation is based on. There are no rests, you're pretty much looking at the subdivisions for each count and plugging in the notes from there. I believe this can make music translatable through keyboard without needing a special program. And when writing music by hand, this can safe the time-consuming preparations, like drawing the 5-line staff. And this is new, so of course, there's tons of room for evolution if Alphabet Notation turns out useful to anyone else.