So when I joined this site, I didn't know that "sum1" was too short for the system to handle...anyway, here's my stuff. I've only taken a year of theory so far, and it REALLY shows, but I'm slowly getting more competant. Anyway, here's a string quartet I wrote a while back, loosely based on Irish fiddling tradition, and it's probably the most polished thing I've ever written. Not very interesting harmonically, and the themes doesn't really develop, but hopefully the accompaniment and counterpoint are interesting enough to make up for that. This piece is VERY idiomatic...

And yes, I know the MP3 is HORRIBLE. It's meant to be played on actual instruments, and I don't know anything about MIDI rendering.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/735783/Fiddle%20Quartet.pdf
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/735783/Quartet%20Final.mp3

makes me wanna tap dance... or watch someone tap dance. Patatata patatata patatatatatata. haha. I liked it.

hmmm... really folky. It's pretty. I like it. A year's theory is enough, especially if you're you. Congratulations on the piece. Oh, I'm quite knowledgeable when it comes to theory, if you ever need anything. Doubt you will, though. Truly love the piece.

Thanks a ton! Almost everything I write dissolves into a formless pile of cluster chords, so this one was a nice change, though it took me about a year or so to get it finished. The theory will have to come in when I want to write slow pieces that require more harmonic variation, or write for a less homogenous medium.

Are you a violist? I love string quartets! I just joined a new string quartet (as a cellist), and I'm about to write one myself. I really like this one; you seem to know what you're doing. You have pretty good balance and fun give-and-take, which is what a quartet is all about. WANT HEAR MO-AH!

Violinist, I'm afraid, but I'm always very focused on making sure everyone gets the spotlight at some point. Though in actual practice, this means that EVERYONE in the quartet needs to be very skilled; this piece is much harder than it looks. Oh, and if anyone wants to perform this, they're perfectly welcome to, as long as they send me a recording! PM me if interested.

MO-AH hopefully coming (this is the third movement of a hypothetical larger work), but I'm not a prolific writer, and it'll be a while before I have time to finish this.

Yeah, it's always good to have more composers who think about each instrumentalist they're writing for in their compositions. Kudos to you for that. =D

It's one of my peeves when composers add in an instrument almost as an afterthought, where it basically only has 24 measures (or fewer!) of play in a 120 measure piece. Or if the part has more than 24 measures, it's a very boring and/or repetitive line (I'm looking at you Pachabell, with your stagnant cello part in D Canon). So it's cool that you're thinking about the players. =)

Sounds great and you put out a decent score too! One thing you may want to consider is adding some rehersal letters.

Yeah, rehearsing this piece was a bit of a nightmare, so I'll add those marks eventually. I'm glad the score came out the way it did; Lilypond can be a pain...

Two short little pieces, much (MUCH) rougher than my quartet. "Space Canon" is a composition exercise written last year, and "72° and Breezy" is a pretty good example of what I can do in a day. The latter is me trying to learn to write background music, and will probably double in length before it's really finished.

Another more polished piece. This was written after an analysis of Maeda Jun's To the Same Heights (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NaG7pyYAfI4), one of my favorite tracks from Clannad, and I tried to imitate the pattern of setting the chord with the first note of the phrase and then riffing on the pentatonic scale. I'm pretty happy with how it came out.

MMMMMKAY, I like the cadences at the very end. They're quite good. This style isn't really my cup of tea, but it works within the genre pretty well. One tiny suggestion, though. From 47 until you modulate to G, while you're dropping those fifths in the left hand, I'd like to hear the middle note of the chord sometime. The harmony sounds hallow without it, and actually the fifth isn't as important as the third, since the overtones of the root note are heavy on the fifth anyway. Overall, though, it's a really pleasant piece, and I think you accomplished what you were setting out to do, so bravo!

I'm not really a big fan of this style either, unless it's done really well (To the Same Heights), but I'm trying to learn how to write background music, and how to write melodies. It's difficult to make things repetitive and unassuming without being inane. This piece leans pretty strongly to the inane side of the spectrum, but I'm slowly improving.

The bit from m. 47-54 is tricky. I don't want the harmonies to be quite as full, in contrast to the note-heavy passages that it connects. That part always seemed weaker to me, but I don't know what to do with it yet.

The chords at the end are more representative of my usual style (I love writing for choir), except with flat-sevens and flat-sixes. The problem is that you can't always make an entire piece out of them. :P

EDIT: Here's a snippet of my usual style, on one of the rare occasions when things actually fit together.

Oh my dissonance!

Yeah...Eric Whitacre (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Zqp0OpzMAI) was my ideal for a while, and it shows pretty dramatically. What I'm trying to learn how to do is write more simply, and learn how to use chromatics without changing keys like a madman. Economy of expression, ya know?

Sounds good! But it also sounds like your missing a chord to resolve the composition at the end (Bass going to G?).

This is only the first verse. Having spent all my good ideas at the start, I have no idea what to do with the rest of the piece...

I'm wondering about your begining now. Why do you choose to start out in D# minor / F# major?

It's actually in G# minor / B major. I can see where the confusion would arise, as the piece starts on a D# and I modulate on V, which happens to be an F# chord.

A four-part chorale arrangement of "Credens Justitiam," a.k.a. Mami's theme from Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica. I was wondering if I made any errors, aside from the parallel octaves in m. 25-28; those are from the Nico Nico Douga arrangement, which this is partially based on. I know my doubling is probably off, but are there any really obvious mistakes that I might have missed?

Mmmmkay. I wasn't familiar with this piece, so I looked it up on YouTube. At first I thought you were doing a straight-up transcription, and I was going to come down on you for ignoring key changes/obviously different chord progressions.

I love the renaissance feel you give it. It almost feels like a Schütz piece.

There's some hidden fifths and octaves in there (tenor and bass in the 2nd measure for starters), but I always feel that once you move into 3+ voices those rules are more like guidelines, and violating them is mostly a matter of taste. I DO feel like you need more in the final cadence at the end. A plagal cadence is a pretty weak cadence, so you should lengthen out its duration and maybe add some more more movement in at least one voice at the end.

Good job. This sounds much more liturgical than the original, but I like it!

EDIT:
P.S. What's the significance in the title? Believing in justice?

I think you did a wonderful job. I really enjoyed it. It was almost simple sounding that I wanted to learn how to play this song. Perhaps I will. The best part is that I had my music player in repeat so I didn't even realize it was looping until like 3 mins later. I guess I'm trying to say that it was very fluid.

@Alfonso: I think it's something like "Believe in Justice," yeah. It's a character theme, and I guess the significance would be that it fits the character pretty well. All the songs in that soundtrack have Latin titles. You're absolutely right about the ending cadence, but I like the feel that IV-I gives so I'll have to strengthen it some other way. The litergical feel is intentional, as I always thought this would sound good as a baroque-y chorale.

@Ander: Thanks! Though it's easy to be fluid when the song is so repetitive. ;)

Just strengthen it by making it longer. A nice little rit. leading up to it and then some voices moving around as they slide into the last chord.

Example:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efovxTooW6U

Start at 2:56, and listen to the oboe part at the end. Just a little flourish like that would 1) Make it sound even more renaissance/baroque and 2) Make the final cadence more obvious.

I listened to the original again, and it sounds like it might actually be a V-I cadence on the end. New version, now closer to the original and a with slightly more baroque finish. Lyrics also added. They don't mean anything, just there to sound pretty, I guess.

EDIT: Curse you Bach, for making everything look so easy. :P

I think the ending does have a much more final feel to it, but I don't know if it HAS to be V–I instead of IV–I. Either way, I like your new counterpoint at the end better.

I'm pretty sure that in the original, when they repeat the first system, it ends on a C major chord. I don't know if you intentionally left that out or not, but I think it sounds really cool.

P.S.
Just thought you should know that I listened to/analyzed your piece when I had only 30 minutes left for a psychology paper deadline. I had not started the paper. This is how much I like this piece. (I still got the paper in on time. B))

Thanks! Of course, the quality of the source material is definitely a contributing factor here. Kajiura Yuki is AWESOME. And I'm glad you got your psych paper done in time. :P

The chord you mention is in m. 15, though I had originally transcribed it as open fifths. You're right, it's much better as a CM chord, and I realised that while playing through it this morning. I moved it because I thought it worked best as a transition into the B section; the original piece starts something like A A' B A A' B', and since I took out the first B section, I thought I should save the transition for later.

An E natural added, a few editorial changes, and I think I'm done!

Yeah, do you know where I can buy the original song? I'm getting tired of just being able to listen to it on the YouTubes.

I'm not really looking for a detailed critique of this piece (I know it's riddled with parallels and other fun stuff), as this is the very first piece I ever wrote and finished, and what got me into composing in the first place. I won't get into the background of the piece, as it represents a very dark time in my life, but I was interested to see what people thought of it. The poem is probably my favorite of all time (and is unfortunately under copyright until 2018).

EDIT: You can look up the Madoka OST, but I'm not sure if it's out yet, and if it was, you'd have to import it from Japan for a ridiculous amount of money and effort...

EDIT2: The timing's horribly off in the playback; there should be substantial pauses when indicated by a breath mark or caesura.

The beginnings of a violin trio, and what may eventually be the first movement of a string quartet (the first post in this thread would be movement three). I love writing Celtic-inspired music!

sounds like a party... hahah. just add some claps!

An 80% finished trio for violin, viola, and piano (the last 20% is the recapitulation). I'm pretty happy with the chords in the B section.

Is it for viola or cello? The score says cello, but the file name says viola. It goes too low for a viola, and it's in the wrong staff. I'm guessing cello?

You have every reason to be proud of the chords in the B and C section. They're great.

I have a couple problems with the A section, though. Mostly it's a problem with parallel motion. The piano part at the beginning is kind of boring, and borders on grating because of the parallel motion in the two hands. This could be easily remedied. And then the section starting at around m. 37 is just down-right lazy. If you want to do parallel tenths, at least do something cool like flat the cello's notes to make each one a major tenth or something. But as it stands, it's really boring. You also have loads of times where the two instruments go into eights and fifths in parallel motion. And then measures 70–74 sound eerily familiar to me. Melodies of Life? I can't quite place it.

BUT, your B and C sections really do sound quite nice. Fantastic harmonies. You should be proud of those.

Oops yes, that is indeed a cello part.

I don't know exactly where 70-74 came from, but I'm getting resigned to the fact that I subconsciously steal almost everything I write, and, courtesy of being an ex-music major, I can now recognize where I'm stealing from. :\ The beginning of the B section was almost certainly stolen from either "Annie Laurie" or "A Heart Full of Love" from Les Mis, and I'm sure I could name a few more if I really thought about it. I don't know Melodies of Life, though, so I doubt that's where this particular fragment came from.

I can see what you mean with the piano part, but am hesitant to change it, as that accompaniment part is the only thing that ties that section together. There's no other melody to speak of. I also see what you mean with m. 37, but being a bit of a n00b composer, I don't know what else to do. The violin and cello REALLY need some moving lines there, and one of them should have the melody. I could have given one of them a countermelody, but that's a weird place to stick something new, so I compromised by switching the melody between the two. Another 'problem' is that I'm trying to keep the mood constant until m. 45.

Now with more interesting parts at m. 37. The piano part starts off a little wonky, and I still need to do work on the violin part, but overall it sounds much better.

For the piano intro, you could just have the left hand move in the opposite direction. So play the second note of the measure first, etc.

There are a couple things you could do for m. 37 and afterwards. You could do the whole parallel harmony thing I was talking about last time. (It's a trick Debussy invented, I believe. If he didn't invent it, he certainly capitalized on it.) I use it a lot in my own writing. Or you could have the cello play a more chordal based accompaniment. Or you could just write a counterpoint line. Or you could have one of them drop out. I recommend choosing one of these options.

But once again, you do awesome stuff with the chords there.

I eventually went with the counterpoint option (as you can see), but might try something else; I'm still not entirely satisfied with it. How large (spatially-speaking) can chords be for cello? I'll try that out next. I love that parallel harmony sound (I think it was invented by Erik Satie), but I don't feel that it really fits this piece (though I know where it should go in some of my other projects).

You have a lot of 9ths in the counterpoint section. How much of that is intentional?

There's not a simple answer for the size of chords you can do on a cello. A lot of it depends on what falls naturally on the strings. The "classic" chords can all be found in the first four Bach suites. (The 6th suite is crazy and probably wasn't written for a cello. The 5th suite was probably written with a different tuning in mind.)

You're pretty much always safe with 5ths and 6ths. Anything other than that depends on the position on the string.

The ninths are intentional, and will sound better once I post the next version (which I still need to typeset; Lilypond is awesome, but a pain sometimes.)

Good to know about the chords. I figured that Bach would be a good place to look; he does the craziest stuff in his unaccompanied violin pieces as well.

Oh, and by the way, I think it would be easier to read if you didn't bracket the violin and cello. It's often hard for me to tell which group is the strings and which is the piano.

It's getting closer and closer to done...here it is with the recapitulation and about a billion minor tweaks here and there. I might change things up at m. 140, and the parallels are pretty bad at m. 152 (yikes, I see what you meant); also m. 143-145 sounds a little strange. For the most part, though, I'm really happy with how it's turning out.

i think you should lower the volume of the solo violin a little. At least in the beginning... and gradually get louder. Wow... the first piano solo was very pretty. I can't help to think, though, that it's kinda all over the place sometimes and doesn't flow as well as the other parts of the piece... especially after the piano solo.

Yeah, I'm working on that part. It seriously needs more structure...Oh, Alphonso, quick question: would the chords in "track 2" work for a cello?

And yes, I'm still looking for something to do in the piano other than parallel sixths. :heh:

Yeah, those chords all look really good. The one in m. 7 might be a little awkward, but it's still very playable. Good job!

Almost done...I will probably redo the cello line from m. 150 – 158, and after that I'll add dynamics (measure 9 in particular is very jarring), pedaling, and rehearsal marks. My only worry is that the piece is a little too repetitive and formless, but I think it'll work out fine.

Oh, BTW, what's a good MIDI sequencer? I looked at the Free Tools topic, but nothing there looked very promising.

you know what... I've listened to this song before.. and truthfully I didn't think much of it. But then I listened to it again out of the random... because my new macbook saves the song unless I delete it. I listened to the recent one... but I think I like the original better. I don't know why. I especially liked the bridge. 1:45 to 3:32... and I think the piano intro was pretty cool right after that.

Huh, that's kinda funny, as I don't think I've changed those parts. I have shifted some notes arounds to avoid drowning myself in parallel octaves (no, seriously) and those changes do sound kind of strange at first.

A character theme from a story I'm writing. It's much 'darker' than anything else I've posted here.

You don't really do dark then, do you? :P I like it. I like where you take the harmonies, and I'm a fan of the main theme. It has an almost music box feel to it.

No, not really. :P I'm glad you like it! Though do note that this is not the darkest thing I've ever written, just the darkest thing I've posted here.

Another brief piece—I don't have any ideas right now that are strong enough to support a long work, and I don't know enough about form in any case. So right now I'm trying to learn how to write catchy melodies, how to write for piano, and how to stop using bVII chords in everything I write.

One thing I'm confused about: is this piece in F or Bb? I thought it was in F at first, but the more I look at it, the less I'm sure.

Oh, and I know this is a very long shot, but does anyone know what I'd do if I wanted to simulate aleatoric music in MIDI? I've found stuff that can do notes in a scale, but I have a melodic line I want repeated out of tempo.

A choir piece this time, and a setting of one of my all-time favorite poems (Samuel Barber's setting is beyond amazing). I'm really happy with this one. And yes, the parallel fifths at the end of the vocal part are deliberate.