i did have a thread, but cant be bothered to find it... and i've kinda changed the way i write since then.

these are 12 pieces i wrote to experiment with different ideas and techniques. the titles were added after they were written; just because i didnt feel numbering them 1-12 was very original.

only 8 are here at the moment because im still inputting the last 4 into sibelius. hopefully when ive got all 12 looking neater on sibelius, i will be able to use the college recording studio- at the moment they are just in horrible MIDI form. but i will record myself playing them asap.

the others (will add as i finish inputting):

added nr 9

added nr 10

A very nice twist of influence is in your style. Liszt, Debussy and Ravel all wrapped into one. Lol. It's kinda weird sounding actually, took some time getting used to; it made more sence when I got to Elegy.

~~

I enjoyed Nocture, Pixies and Landscape the most. Waves and Prelude were probably right behind those.

I wouldn't call this random, just good compositions with a lot-A LOT-of experimentation in them, other than sevenths. I hope that was mainly messing around since it sounded weird.

I wish to hear these being played--I can already hear how much better the quality can be. Keep it up, Thorn.

thanks for comment =)

next piece added!

i can send you the sheets for any of them if you wants

Thorn, these should definately be recorded properly and then re-posted here. Listening to these in MIDI format for just a couple of seconds will scare off 50% of your audience here (at Ichigos). It's not because they're poorly written, cos they're not, but the fact that the style of your compositions don't match to the majority here. So by giving them a human feel, more people could relate to them.

Personally I liked the Elegy and the Nocturne. My advice to you would be to give your songs more of a signature melody.

Oh wow, Tocatta is some etude there hey? Nice octaves I'm hearing.

I've love to see the sheets for that, for sure. I love it.

Ooooh! Fancy 20th century stuff you've got there! I don't think many people would like this kind of music, as it's more of a thinking kind of music. I like them as a general, they all have their own characters and are special. Though, I think you could've added more ethereal and mysterious elements to some of your pieces and go even more atonal. Definitely impressive! I wish to hear more pieces from you~! :)

Finally got nr 10 on here... it was the most irritating to input as you will be able to imagine when you hear it =P

as for the comments:

yeah i know the MIDI is really rubbish, i will record them properly after christmas.

thanks for the suggestions Noir 7 and Sir Dotdotdot. i will definately develop these pieces; they were originally meant as just practise composition exercises but they've grown on me- especially with the reassurance here that they're not total rubbish =P

im thinking of calling this set of pieces "Sketches" or something along those lines, as that's exactly what they are.

Heh, the Scherzo made me think of somthing I'd write actually--really odd, and humorous.

I really liked how you played with so many textures with the scherzo, though for some moments, I felt that you should lead into a more lighter in texture atonal part. Also, the final note could be spiced up a little, since it's a scherzo. =P

I didnt realise it had been so long since I last posted anything =0

anyway, ive finished the MIDI of nr 11. like the rest of them the title 'Legend' was added after it was finished; i find if you try and write a piece around a set title or theme it tends to go wrong because you try too hard.

let me know what you think =]

the final one will be uploaded soon.

there are some parts here and there where it felt like you did´nt know where you were headed and there are some notes that just seem, not that necessary.
overall its an ok piece. Im talking about the legend piece ofcourse

Thorn, since going to see a famous pianist, Joel Fan, I have been inspired in a more contemporary style of appreciation. Before it was moreless all interpretation of noises, but now after studying for the past 2-3 weeks, I really have a large appreciation and attraction to it.

If you don't know Joel Fan, can't really search well on the internet, he's quite a famous Contemporary-styled pianist, and I got his autograph in person. ^.^

I nocited one of the songs on the CD sounds, literally, like I improvised it--I'm really loving your music man, hope I can get some time to sit down and write a contemporary piano piece.

By the way, Legend is really great. Keep up the good work.

Thorn! Hope your still composing, you've gotten me in Contemporary btw-- I'd like if you PMd me all the sheets or whatever. I'd like to record them at school sometime in the future, and maybe revise the sheets in Finale for fingersing and interpretations--since editors usually do those instead of the composer. :shifty:

Finished the final piece in this set.

Unlike the others, I had a set theme in mind; the Japanese legend of Yuki-onna.

Yuki-onna is a ghost who lives in in the mountains who appears to lost travellers in blizzards. She can be either gentle or cruel; in some stories she either freezes travellers or leads them further away from civilisation to die naturally. In others, she leads them to safety.

What I attempted to do in this piece was not to try and describe the ghost herself, but to create ideas borrowed from the legends: being lost, general uncertainty, and being lulled into a false sense of security. And yes, I admit i did also try and create the impression of snow.

edit: of all the pieces, this one sounds worst in MIDI- i will record it myself very soon

@ Mazeppa- yes i will PM you all the sheets; just need to do some revising of them myself first. if you record any of the pieces, please let me hear them =] and yeah if you feel like revising, fingering and editing them then go ahead (Y)

Your new piece is very beautiful with all the ornamentations, though I felt you could've used more variation in style (i.e. tempo, more dynamics, more rubato, rit., rall......). I also really liked the build up to the last chord.

Mmm, very good neo-impressionist work. Brilliant! *is jealous* The only problem I have with it is that the ending really left me hanging, but maybe that's the effect you wanted. I think it would be more effective if you let it die away a bit more in tempo and dynamic level, though.

I have finished a new set of compositions.

They are a set of 14 variations on the Japanese tune "Sakura". I originally intended to do more but im pretty bored of the theme after 14. Maybe I will revisit it and do more at some point.

I used this project to practise different textures and methods of accompaniment without worries of melody getting in the way. I didnt intend to post any of them but I actually like some of them so thought I would share.

vars 5-9

vars 10-14

Var 14 gave me a headache. Too fast, too many repetitive notes. I can hardly hear the theme in Var 7, sounds jazz? This could be a lesson tool, what did the composer do to modify the theme in Var _ ?

it would probably give you less of a headache if it wasnt a MIDI hehe... but as they were just exercises i dont really see the point in recording them tbh.

yeah it could be used as a lesson tool lol

i can explain what i did in each one if you want me to

I listened to these right away, but I didn't have much to say then because it was prefect. . .today me and my teacher we're talking about the theme and variations form/s (I'm making my own Theme and Variations on a short compositional exercise--Funeral March). But I really like how you variated these piece in these very interesting ways--like I said it's not much to say other than it's great! (Big inspiration to complete my variations and all that).

And if it isn't too much trouble, I'd like to know exactly what you did in the variations (although I analyzed them a little with listening closely). ^_^

Sorry, i didnt notice the reply otherwise i'd have replied sooner lol.

I can send you the sheet music of the variations if you want- would probably be easier to tell what I did from looking at the score/playing through.

I've added my latest composition to this thread, which was for the latest composition contest. I really need to get an mp3 done of this though- MIDI is a bit crap.

Also- random thing i just found; for my A level harmony exam 2 years ago we had to harmonise a Bach Chorale, and i finished mine before the time limit and wasnt allowed out, so i re-harmonised it in a less diatonic fashion.

I commented on your Dream Coast piece before, so I don't need to go through that again~

But as for your chorale...

You're totally distorting the meaning of a chorale here, which I'm not quite pleased of. I don't really care about the fact that it sounds nothing like a Bach or baroque piece anymore (in fact, it was kind of neat that you made it 20th century), but you made the piece more of a piano piece than a chorale. It sounded nothing like a chorale. What you usually associate with a chorale is not something as rhythmic as yours, I mean, most singers couldn't sing all those runs you wrote. Think of slow, moving melodies here.

it was meant to be a piano piece

the "properly" done chorale was what i submitted for my exam- i just had a play around with it at the end as i had half an hour or so free.

it was meant to be a piano piece

the "properly" done chorale was what i submitted for my exam- i just had a play around with it at the end as i had half an hour or so free.

I see, but the fact that you kept the name as chorale and never explained the fact that you want it to be a piano piece made me think you still kept it as a proper chorale.

yeah... im going to extend it and change the name etc at some point *nods*

currently attempting a fugue- but they're harder than i thought to compose!

currently attempting a fugue- but they're harder than i thought to compose!

Lol, tell me about it; I was starting to write a tocatta and fugue a few weeks ago, but it so damn hard for counterpoint and going through ideas that compliment each other. :heh:

lol- ive got quite a lot of mine done today- might even have it ready to post over the next week

i decided i was making life too difficult for myself trying to compose an atonal one so gave it a fixed key- and i might write a prelude for it

Had a mass burst of creativity over the past few days, finished my fugue and revised something I wrote for A level composition as a prelude.

The fugue is in 3 voices. The MIDI isnt as bad as my composition ones usually are- i think i managed to get the subject to stand out anyway lol

It will probably be a long time before I can get a mp3 done of the fugue though- im not the best performer of them and writing my own hasnt seemed to change that x_x

I am a real freek about music just to let everyone know.
That was very nice sounding and plesant. I would give it a five star rating.

Prelude:
This piece was not really up to your par, in my opinion. There wasn't much in it to add any interesting personality.

Fugue: Sometimes the chords created seem a bit wrong, but for the most part this one is a lot more harmonically interesting at least simply because you have so much modulation going on. I think it could have had some more dynamics in each of the parts to really bring out the interesting elements of the polyphony going on.

Well the Prelude was written about 4 years ago which is why its "behind". I dont know whether or not to develop it or just write a new one to go with the Fugue.

Yes, I agree with the Fugue comments- I think part of the "wrong" chord and lack of dynamic thing is that I composed it bits at a time- sometimes voice by voice because I cant actually play Fugues to save my life x_x I just thought if i wrote one it would help me to understand them better. When I do get round to playing it, there will probably be loads of things i can improve on- looking at the chords for starters!

You're totally distorting the meaning of a chorale here, which I'm not quite pleased of.

I kind of wonder if Chopin received letters like this after he wrote his 24 standalone preludes.

lol- i bet the critics had a field day

Couple of new compositions.

They are from a set of five pieces I am writing that are concerned with aspects of light and darkness. I haven't yet decided what to call the set yet as anything involving the words 'light' or 'dark' sounds a bit unoriginal.

"Twilight" is basically a simple experiment on a Japanese mode which Takemitsu calls the "dark scale". I wanted to create the silent, sleepy atmosphere of sunrise/sunset- the sense of absolute stillness.

"Sun under water" started off as an experiment on what Takemitsu called the "light scale" but the temptation to throw in dissonance was too much to resist im afraid x_x I was trying to create the idea of a powerful flame under a lake; trying to stay alive but eventually going out. The quote at the top of the manuscript is "A prism suspended in rain and darkness" and comes from a research paper I read on Ravel's 'Ondine'.

I will also add that the MIDI does not do either piece justice, but im a bit wrapped up in auditions at the moment so cant think about getting anything recorded just yet

Twilight - It actually felt too busy to be sleepy since the parts are constantly moving. Also, maybe throwing in some more dissonances would be nice. Being a semi-atmospheric piece, it felt too complete throughout, give the audience some surprise. I also feel that it's a little too imitative of some Japanese folktunes. From some of the pieces I heard from Takemitsu, he incorporated the elements in such a subtle way, you don't even need to hear it to acknowledge its presence. He used it in little things like small motifs and accompaniments. So I think that even if you wish to do something Japanese-y, it'd be interesting if you just hint it here and there instead of making it so exposed and obvious. Impressionistic, and 20th century composers aren't known for their musicality and their 'nice-ness', it's mostly for their intelligence of painting with interesting and new sounds. You should strive for that too.

Sun under Water - I like this one better than Twilight. However, it felt a little tedious having the tremolo in the background for so long. Yes, it's a nice way to depict watery scenes and all that, but it doesn't mean that one should overdo it. Because it's such a nice effect, save it. Make the audience want more of those. Be the commander of your audience, don't let them get tired of the nice thing you did. You could also utilize the tremolo elements as something different. At 1:03, it felt that it should not resolve so perfectly. Again, sometimes, the piece felt a little too tonal for its purpose and style. I feel that this piece's elements could be varied and utilized in many creative ways, but you did not do much to them.

I normally can't stand this sort of music, but it does sound appealing, which is always good. You should really try to record these pieces or get some sort of music software because MIDI and überartistic music don't go well together.

yeah- i couldnt agree more. once my auditions are over i shall record *nods*

@ dotdotdot- well with the tremolo in the second piece, i wanted to keep something going continuously through the piece like the rhythm of the aug 6th chord at the start of Ondine. but i can see what you mean.

o.O i havent posted anything since 2007???

right, basically im asking for help here. i have exams starting in 2 weeks, ive been working like mad on essays and havent even started revision yet and now they tell me im meant to be handing in something for composition on friday >.<

anyway... in a mad panic i sat down this morning and just wrote. it has to be a 3-4 minutes and using the instruments in my class and in a style we've covered.

so ive chosen serialism as its easiest thing available when thinking i have like under a week. its for piccolo, oboe and horn. in the space of a few hours ive come up with a first section and would be amazingly grateful for any suggestions and just general opinions- like can you tell by listening to it i rushed it etc...

edit: lol xD i even forgot to attach the damn thing =P
also 12 note is not its title its just what ive saved it as

oh yeah and please dont comment on it if you have no idea what serialism is... sorry but its not helpful atm and im really stressed and not in the best of moods >.<

Is that really it? I think you could do some cooler things like have a serialistic fugue with your theme. The theme itself was really interesting, though.

I haven't posted anything here for a while =O

Some of you may remember the set of 12 pieces I posted at the start of the thread, like 3/4 years ago. I decided a while ago to work on these again as I have changed a lot as a musician and as a composer since writing them. I guess I do a sort of Liszt thing in that for most of his works you can find 3/4 earlier versions >.<

So what has changed... originally they were written as Preludes, thinking of Debussy/Rachmaninoff but now I am pushing them more in the direction of Etudes and experimenting to find my own style.

So, here is the first one which I just finished re-working. Originally it was called Prelude, but I don't really like it anymore so have let the tempo indication 'Vif' serve as a title. I have uploaded the original too. (To make it clear; 'Prelude' is the 2006 original, 'Vif' is the improvement).

I have been working on the first two pieces together, so expect another one in the next few days =]

Wow. I can tell that the two pieces came from the same composer, but they seem like two totally distinct entities now.

Vif is quite cool. At times it sounds almost like a rag and others almost like Rachmaninov. I actually like both pieces a lot. I agree with your analysis that Prelude is a prelude and Vif is an etude.

I love it. It's very original, and it's true to you, my friend.

That's what counts.

I've got competitions coming up plus had general distractions so not done much on the composition front...

However, my teacher was going on about throwing something into end of year exam that would be totally unexpected in my program. So... thought I'd try an original transcription of a song; sort of a Liszt style transcription- him having a habit of arranging anything he liked for piano so he could play it.

So yeah, my end of year recital is going to have the usual classical stuff, plus this transcription of Helena (MCR) xD- I think it still needs tweaking but it works pretty well as a piano piece.

oh... and thanks for the comments on 'Vif'... it's probably the first composition of mine I've not been ashamed to post. maybe that's a change in attitude over the past year though.

...Hmm... interesting... wait, did you come up with this, or is it a transcription? I'm not really understanding what you're saying, because it sounds extremely original >_<

...Maybe add more harmony to it...? It seems to all be a lot of octaves with some minor change between the right and left hand... if you added more notes in between, it would sound... "fuller"... in my opinion...

But great piece, whether you transcribed it or composed it :D

Half and half... obviously I didn't compose it, I listened to the song wrote what I heard then made it pianistic. More like transcribed it then made it original if that makes sense?

as for the harmony point... i don't know, i think with a song transcription/arrangement if you overdo it with a load of technical stuff you lose its character. because all popular music songs are essentially very simple and i don't want to lose that. by simple i am not meaning to offend them or put them below classical music, but to me Debussy is complex, Ligeti is complex, this isn't.

I need to try and find a balance though that's what i meant when i said it needs tweaking. I don't want it to sound like a mass of octaves but at the same time I don't want it to sound "nice" because that would totally destroy it's character.

Tierce de Picardie!

I actually really like how the sound tends to get more full as the song goes on until it's quite full at the end. Good luck with the recital!

yeah that's what i was aiming for cos most piano transcriptions are quite boring and predictable. i wanted to make it different; this particular song gets destroyed if you don't follow (loosely) some cliches i guess but i've done with it what i can. i am working on some others just because i enjoyed doing this; they are a lot more fun but probably won't be ready for recital just because they are more complex

anyway here is a better version:

Today is a great day for most people.

huh? o.O

well i said in a few days you would be seeing this, but it took longer than i thought to get this in any kind of sharing shape.

Here is the second piece, 'Pour la gamme par tons' (For the whole tone scale). If you can't guess from the title, this is an attempt in the Debussy etude. I only know of one other person who likes the Debussy etudes (who happens to be on this forum =P) so yeah it may be a bit outside the tastes of most.

Like with the last one, I've reposted the original 'Landscape', which was originally the 7th in the set (doing a bit of re-ordering as well)

land scape was nice. I enjoyed that one alot actually. The whole tone one I wasn't too fond of. It felt like it kept building up but dissipated before the tension was released. That might be what you were going for with the song though. Also, I think, you could have transposed it a some point or shifted your tonal center within the same wholetone scale but that's just my opinion.

I only know of one other person who likes the Debussy etudes (who happens to be on this forum =P) so yeah it may be a bit outside the tastes of most.

I really enjoy them (both the Debussy etudes and your emulations). We've been studying a few of them in my composition class this semester. I can definitely see the similarities, especially with all the whole-tone stuff going on in both pieces.

i kinda felt uncomfortable listening to them. i guess i'm not ready for the tone scale. i was able to "withstand" the whole thing til the end though. for some reason it kept me from just stopping. i guess i wanted a closure. lol.

Kaitou: glad you enjoyed landscape- i wrote that almost 4 years ago and looking back felt it needed a bit more focus as it sounded weak in parts. the false build ups in the whole tone etude were exactly what i was going for so maybe thats a matter of taste. i do shift the tonal centre in the middle section- it changes from one whole tone scale to the other. maybe i need to make that more obvious.

deathraider: yay for another Debussy etude fan lol. glad you liked them, although the first one was not influenced by them, so it is interesting you say both of them have similarities! maybe a subconscious influence was there.

Ander: if you feel like it, i would be interested if you could listen to some of the Debussy Etudes and let me know if you get the same impression from them. because strangely enough, that was my exact reaction when i first heard Debussy's Etudes.

i think i have heard some of Debussy's stuff. my friend loves him. in fact she was learning to play some of his piece, but i remember that piece being more... Chopin-like. maybe it's another Debussy.

Debussy wrote a lot of things, his teacher was 'apparently' a pupil of Chopin, but either way Chopin had an influence on his very early works, then when you get to the time he wrote the Preludes, yes they were influenced by Chopin's innovation of a Prelude as a self-standing compositon, but otherwise they are an entirely different sound world. When you get to the Etudes, Debussy was dying of cancer in the middle of the First World War; he had lost a little faith in the intelligence of mankind and the beauty of nature and was probably also aware of the little time he had left and wanted to ensure he left a mark on the world; because of these factors, the Etudes are unlike anything he ever wrote; although obviously they were influenced by Chopin's Etudes, they are nothing like them. Chopin's Etudes brought the piano study to the concert platform and injected poetry into what was normally something pianists played to themselves to help scales and arpeggios. Debussy aimed to do the exact opposite; I remember reading a quote of his 'an etude is an etude', so went for the exact opposite of Chopin.

so yeah... an off the top of my head at 2am background of Debussy's Etudes xD

that was quite interesting actually. i felt as if i was reading a cliffnotes. lol

lol well if you need to know anything about French music/composers, you know where to come =P

I have done the third etude, Déplacé (Out of place). It is a development of the earlier piece Sevenths, and like that piece, is built around sevenths. I have to admit it is the rework I am most proud of to date, however simple the end result will sound, it took me MONTHS to work out how to make those sevenths sound musical (they just don't in the earlier piece).

I had no composer in mind when writing this, though listening back to it I can only describe it as diluted Ravel meets Ligeti. That is where the title comes from; very Ligetian I thought xD

Fourth etude completed, and have to say it is my favourite composition so far even among ones I have not shared. I am strongly considering orchestrating it...

So without any further fuss, here is Etude 4: Marche funèbre d'un tyran, (Funeral March of a tyrant). As always, the earlier form is posted too =]

sounds intense. i would hate to be in the same room with the guy who plays this on his piano, or a girl for that matter.

I'll take that as a compliment =P

Reviving my old thread now I finished my degree and have the time.

I will upload my recent compositional work over the next few days, but for now I wanted to share my near final draft of an arrangement I've been working on for the past 3-4 months. It is a piano arrangement of Ravel's Daphnis et Chloe; the outer movements of the second suite, Lever du jour and Danse Generale. Ravel already made a transcription of the middle movement, so I didn't see the point in doing one of my own.

lever du jour... very intense piece. Can't believe you arranged that, let alone, wanted to arrange that. Mid portion of that piece is just sooo darn intense... I can just imagine this person playing piano like it's going to give his soul back or something.

danse generale was very upbeat... gotta admit. I could see people dancing to this or a slient movie playing in the old days with cowboys, moving all fast and stuff. I really enjoyed both of them. I didn't think I was gonna like the first one, but that became very interesting as I listened.

Daphnis et Chloé is easily my most favorite orchestral work, "lever de jour" my favorite part in that work. :) I feel that your arrangement definitely did the piece justice - great job with it! I'll comment on the Danse when I have time. :)

Nice to see you again Thorn!

Your arrangements sound great! Just curious, did you adjust the MIDI velocities manually? I was listening to the playback through my sequencer and noticed the volocities didn't look like the work of a program. :lol:

Thank you everyone! I still have some work to do on them and I want to do the whole ballet at some point...

@PorscheGTIII, yes I did it manually (Y)

Will upload some actual compositions when I get around to it...

Right, I finally got around to doing this.

This is my degree composition dissertation- it's a suite for piano and orchestra based on the seven deadly sins that I worked on May 2010-May 2011. It's the work I am most proud of and I got 94% for it.

I am applying for a Masters degree in October and want to include 2 of the 7 movements in my portfolio. I would be grateful if anyone who listens to it could tell me the ones they like best (or just the ones that sound best if you don't like any of it!)

The files are too big to attach so have uploaded all 7 here:

http://www.mediafire.com/?vffoaqe6qa843sk

All of them are really good. Envy and Gluttony I would pick, but it is a hard choice. The ones that interested me the less were Wrath and Greed.

Thank you =]

It's interesting that you find Wrath and Greed the least interesting as they are the two that suffered at the cost of meeting the deadline. Wrath is an orchestration of an old piano piece you will find somewhere in this thread and Greed was written at lightning speed 3/4 days before the deadline through essentially merging the themes of the other 6 together with the idea that Greed is all encompassing.

Gluttony is one of my favourites too.

Purely out of interest, did you get the point of/thing behind Envy?

Yeah, I really like the ostinato in Gluttony. I really like Gluttony. The piano glissandos may be a bit much, but I guess excess is the order of the day, after all. And I'd go for Wrath or Envy after that. I really do like the percussion in Wrath. It reminds me of "Mars" from Holst's thing.

I have been doing a lot of work on my arrangement of Daphnis and Chloe. I am just starting to learn to play the things properly and tweaking them as I go through. Here is an improved version of the Daybreak movement, with the best sound I'm going to get before I have it learned to play myself:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMIhr5qH-tY

Um, this sounds thoroughly awesome. I assume it's for two hands, or is it four?

Thank you! Yes it's two hands- there are various four hand arrangements around but I wanted to be able to play it for myself. I will be uploading the other two movements when I have the time.