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Want to hear what your music sounds like when done by a real musician?? This is your chance! I've lined up a vocalist who is ready and willing to provide a reading of your vocal music! She will review your work and then, if she can do it, will provide a recorded reading of the work/part. Leave your questions here -but, upload via the music uploads section. Be sure to tag the work with 'needs reading' so I can pull the scores for her. Thanks!

Alright, I made some revisions to my piece. Not everything with the MIDI version is perfect (gradual tempo changes straight up don't work), and when I tried to add dynamics my computer crashed so there isn't any of that here either. But hopefully this will at least give you an idea as to where this thing is going.

This is a setting of the Goethe poem Erlkönig that I decided to write after discovering Beethoven's version of the piece. Please be constructive with your feedback, I'm very proud of this piece.

After writing several small pop/easy listening style pieces, I have decided to go for it and write a larger work: an opera. I have the story down and I even named some of the characters after composers I really admire. I decided to outline the story and journal about my characters before doing anything else. Now I am going to move along and start writing the libretto. The biggest obstacle for me is writing for orchestra. I am a pianist and I can write for piano, voice and a solo instrument like one violin or one flute. But a full orchestra? I have zero experience in that. Maybe if I write a piano part and then transcribe it to various orchestra parts that will make my life easier. I also want to know the little nuances like the difference between writing for C Trumpet vs. B Flat Trumpet? Any recommendations on how to learn about this? My community college does not offer an orchestra writing class.

Hello all! I've been composing for quite some time now, but I'm new to this forum. It seems like a really cool place though. Here's my first Lied I've ever written, a setting of Goethe's Wandrer's Nachtlied. I got a complaint from someone else that the music is "too depressing" for the words, but I disagree with him entirely. What do you guys think? Comments on the music are also encouraged. Thanks in advance. The poem and its translation can be found here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wanderer's_Nightsong Also a quick note, the Gb chord in m16 is meant to function as an F# chord going to the B minor section, I just didn't want to use all those accidentals.

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/

Morning, Not posted here before, but seems like the sort of place I might get useful feedback. I've been composing in a few different styles for quite a while, but this seems to be the most genuine sort of sound for me at the moment. I'm not sure I can justly call it 'chamber music' so any better category suggestion would be welcomed!

Hello everybody, I need your help / advice! A few years ago I wrote a poem and I now want to set it on music. However, I want that the soprano tells the story. Only in some cases she is singing along with the other instruments. When I want the soprano to speak, do I have to write down the exact rhythm on the staff or should I trust her interpretation of how the rhythm of the words has to be? How do I notate this? In class, we learned that sprechgesang is not singing, nor speaking. It is between the two, but I want the soprano to talk like actors do in a theater show. Thanks for your help, Maarten

Sketch No. 107.mp3 (The player seems to be malfunctioning for the post) Hi. I just thought this would be fun to post. Had to compose and perform graphic scores a while back and this is the sight-reading attempt people had on mine. It was performed by baritone saxophone, violin, piano, and tenor voice, but not written for them.

UNFINISHED VERSION! I am trying to compose one of my favourite poems for soprano or tenor voice (octave below), but I'm littlebit confused, right now. I have never composed for solistic voice and accompainment before, only pure choral and some orchestral pieces I have worked. I'm asking for advice, if my work fits in some style of solistic pieces, because just like I said, I have no experience with solo, nor browsed any sheet of the "old masters" to have a look at how it works basically. So the poem is about spring, and the first verses could make out a sleeping song too. This work is unfinished, I have 3 more verses, in which I'd like to use more themes, more joy and sadness, etc. My question would be if it works well so far. The lyrics are in Hungarian, so I try to make a freestyle translation. Here you go: When Spring divides its kissis, and within the greening forests, sunshine is present, Waking up on the wet lawn, Tiny, small, white stars of Earth. To the velvet of the fields covered with dew, Whitening and falling down thousands of starflowers, And above, the wind blows softly, So the trees are waving at the edge of the forest. (...)

Hi all, This is a song I wrote under extreme pressure. It was a cold, dark winter morning in the western district of Reykjavík. I woke up at 0730 and within five minutes was in the shower. This was one of those mornings where the hot water was shy to arrive, but I was in a hurry and could not waste precious minutes waiting for it, so into the cool shower I hopped. I am a seasoned cold water enthusiast so it took me but a few seconds to adapt, but when the hot water finally arrived I found myself completely seduced by it. "Bah, there's no rush", I thought, and proceeded to take a leisurely if focused shower. The clock struck 0800 as I exited the shower and upon discovering the time decided that it would not be wise to waste too much time, after all, I was to show up at 0830 at the academy for what my composition teacher called a "special assignment". In a modest hurry I ate a small breakfast and packed a few things to serve as snacks, which my teacher warned his students would be essential. It was 0815 as I left my apartment, clothed for the harsh winter in nothing but a suit, a snow jacket and a hat and gloves, but luckily I had decided to drive home the previous night rather than walk, which saved me a half hour stroll through downtown Reykjavík. It normally only takes twenty minutes to walk, but as it had snowed heavily the night before I would have had to wade knee deep in fresh snow to get to the academy, which adds an extra ten minutes to the journey at least. Unfortunately, the same problems that haunt pedestrians also haunt drivers to a much greater extent. Driving through snow is not necessarily more difficult if you have winter tires, perhaps slightly more perilous so a slower speed is advised, but getting your car stuck is a huge issue. Just my luck, I couldn't even leave my parking space. Thankfully it was easy to dislodge but it took ten minutes if you also account for removing snow off of the car itself. I didn't get stuck on the way, but I passed many cars that did, so I can only consider myself lucky. I arrived at the academy a little past 0900 and found the class in complete silence, working furiously. I greeted the class and apologized for being late, citing the unfriendly driving conditions. My teacher was sympathetic, having showed up a little late himself, but spent no time on idle chit-chat. I could tell immediately as I walked in that the special assignment he spoke vaguely of was going to be crazy. My suspicions were confirmed when he said: "On the table you will find a collection of poems. Choose one to your liking and compose a song for soprano and piano. I am expecting a singer and a pianist at noon to come and collect the pieces. They must be ready by then." I cannot accurately describe my mindset that morning, but it was very zen. Oddly, I did not suffer from any kind of doubts or writer's block or anything like that. I chose a poem, took a seat and began to think. What do I do? Instead of wallowing in inner turmoil over the viability of this or that approach, I pounced on the first idea that I had. I spent maybe an hour sketching out the general architecture and coming up with answers to some questions that would be important to the process. Then I started writing, and I wrote almost non-stop until noon (I went 15 minutes over too), working out all of the fine details that needed to be settled. At last I was free - I handed over what I had done, almost unconscious of what I had been doing the past four hours. The singer and pianist hastily rehearsed the pieces during lunch break and returned at 1300 to recite the pieces as best they could. The performance was far from perfect; most of the pieces were quite difficult and they had little time so nobody blamed them. I was conflicted about the result. On one hand I was delighted that it turned out very nearly how I had imagined it despite the inaccurate performance, but on the other hand it lacked focus in important moments. My teacher said as much, and urged me to revise it. Revise it I did, and I also ended up performing it with the same singer at the end-of-semester concert for this year. The recording you hear is live from that concert. I hope you enjoy. The moral of the story being, of course, do not spend too much time preparing to move. The only way to know if you are one step closer to checkmate or whether you committed a horrible blunder is to move the piece. Do it in an informed manner, but do not be afraid to falter, as it can only serve as a learning experience. A side note to the moral is: Sometimes you just don't have enough time to fully realize your piece. If there is a tangible deadline, i.e. somebody is literally waiting for you to give them the score, you just have to get to work and finish it in any way you can. It is much easier to revise a piece than perfect it before it is finished, and you have plenty of time after the deadline to do that. These are lessons that I now carry with me, having experienced them first-hand. P.S. Before you judge the singer too harshly, know that the hall is notorious for being very difficult to sing in as it is almost completely dead acoustically. Believe me when I say she is a fantastic singer when she is better rehearsed than she was at this concert and is in a space which is not actively sabotaging her. I was a little nervous so I managed to completely space out for the first half second or so of the piece, which is why I came in a little late - I apologize for that.

The New Music Conflagration, Inc. seeks original works of three to six minutes with the themes of solidarity and community in efforts to build a stronger bond, between all, through the universal language of music. A public concert will be presented in December 2014 at a venue in the Saint Petersburg area. Selected compositions will also be professionally recorded and presented on The New Music Conflagration, Inc.’s website. Composers may submit one work per category: Solo Voice, A-cappella Choir, Choir with Accompaniment. Instrumentation by category is as follows: Solo Voice: Mezzo-Soprano, Electric Guitar, Electric Bass, Piano, Drum Set A-cappella Choir: Soprano, Alto, Tenor, Bass Choir with Accompaniment: Male Solo, Female Solo, Chorus: (Soprano, Alto, Tenor, Bass), Electric Guitar, Electric Bass, Piano, Drum Set, Cello, Viola, Flute Composers are not required to use all the instruments/voices in a given category. Composers of any age or nationality may participate in the open call by submitting to the the appropriate division either: Student, Amateur or Professional. See application website for more details.https://thenewmusicconflagration.submittable.com/submit/ http://thenewmusicconflagration.org/ Deadline: 16 Apr 2014 Entry Fee: 7.00 Currency: U.S. Dollar (USD) Web site: https://thenewmusicconflagration.submittable.com/submit