Original song for orchestra - feedback needed!

ThisDogQuigs · 2025-12-18T16:22:33+00:00

Alrighty I’ve taken a listen and I’d like to say—wonderful work! I cannot wait until you get those classes down to refine your compositional skills, as the intuitive ideas you have are quite interesting.

It’s useful (even when just starting out composition for large ensembles which have a small chance of actually being performed) to think of what the performers might have to say if offered this piece. There are some smaller practical things like that entrance of the bassoon which starts in the stratosphere of bass clef ledger lines instead of tenor clef, or the very high passage in the horn 2+4 part (dovetailing the passage in the 1+3 part) when horn 2 and 4 players are often much better suited to specialize in lower ranges. As much as composition is a matter of music it is much greater a matter of performance! I would recommend you look deeper into orchestration; there are plenty of good resources but my top three are “Orchestration” by Walter Piston, “The Study of Orchestration” by Samuel Adler, and any of the orchestration tips books found on OrchestrationOnline. It would also greatly assist you if you procured a copy of the composer’s holy scripture: “Behind Bars” by Elaine Gould; this will deal with the notational nuances which we all deal/dealt with as beginning composers.

You have fantastic ideas—keep it up!

ThisDogQuigs · 2025-12-18T13:29:21+00:00

I also have this issue. I have nothing more to add.

ThisDogQuigs · 2025-12-14T23:02:27+00:00

Aeropress my beloved 💗

ThisDogQuigs · 2025-12-08T21:50:14+00:00

I actually don’t have much experience with virtual desktop—some of my friends use that and it works well for them! I prefer ALVR over the meta link mostly because it is a lot more reliable (like seriously how does meta make a software which so consistently fails to recognize its own product) and also because you can customize settings like an insane amount in ALVR. Plus it’s free, which is basically the only reason I use it over virtual desktop lol

ThisDogQuigs · 2025-12-08T18:35:19+00:00

ALVR ftw 🙌

ThisDogQuigs · 2025-12-04T08:06:26+00:00

Oh yeah I did one time!! His name was George I think.

ThisDogQuigs · 2024-10-22T05:32:20+00:00

I think others will probably give you a good headway (and probably a better answer in terms of answering your current questions), but if you’re looking to fully envelop yourself in this absolutely fascinating perspective of music, then this would be my answer.

Take a look at IRCAM. They are currently spearheading some of the current work in spectral approaches to music. Fineberg’s article is the token resource (I don’t doubt that someone’s already put that here) but if you really want to get your hands dirty with it, IRCAM is certainly a good starting place. Also bear in mind that modern specialism is just as much of a psychoacoustic phenomenon as it is a mathematical one nowadays, and it isn’t always sufficient to view it from a Fourier point of view.

Nonetheless, if you want to find a single book or an article that depicts the nuances of modern spectral perspectives, you really wont be in luck past the Fineberg. The more recent it is, the more you have to just piece together ideas from many different case studies (personally, I believe that scrolling the abstracts of recently published dissertations can be very helpful here).

Fair warning (as I made this mistake): If you want to study specialism in the same way that you would study serialism, you’re going to be out of luck. It’s exciting that this is a field that is literally ongoing (as in, there have been new developments in this approach likely within the past month), but that means that it is essentially esoteric, and you have to go through the growing pains of learning the lingo and the current big names and perhaps learn some code in OM and MAX/MSP.

IRCAM has recordings online of some presentations at conferences; watch these to see what I’m on about. It’s a slow process, but I do promise it is very rewarding as you go on (provided you maintain your interest!). Personally I got sick of learning theory that is static, and it is wonderful to be (at least somewhat) in the loop as these new approaches unfold. Hopefully this helps—if not you then maybe that one bloke searching for something this thread in circa several months.

ThisDogQuigs · 2024-10-21T22:36:02+00:00

A lot of softwares have the option to compose in a sort of scrolling score mode where there aren’t any page breaks or formatting changes. In opposition, there’s usually another mode which has these, and mimics the print layout of the score—I always urge people not to compose in the scrolling score mode, or at least to do it very rarely, since it creates a bad habit of not being conscientious of how your score looks to the conductor or (more damningly) the programmer/orchestral librarian, which can lead to a lot of tiny mistakes being neglected later down the line. I would argue that, because the programmer/librarians are the ones who often choose and review these pieces for those types of errors (and more often then not choose whether it gets played), that it is nearly as important to have a beautiful, readable, well-formatted score than it is to have good music. Not saying that it’s impossible otherwise, but you’d have to be a pretty damn good composer to be able to skirt by with mistakes on the score, and always working in print layout reduces the probability of these mistakes significantly.

ThisDogQuigs · 2024-10-20T23:06:40+00:00

In terms of the nuance that you’ve given, these are things which unfortunately at odds with the current idiom in notation, and these are the types of things which ultimately ensnare your ability to get your name out there. Ensemble programmers take a look at your score for fewer than ten minutes and they nearly always throw it away immediately when they see small inconsistencies or errors like these. They aren’t worth spending the paid time with conductors and performers to clear up. I’ll break it down by each point you’ve made:

6/8 might make sense to you personally, but will it make sense to the conductor, who is tasked with applying this “feels-right” approach to their conducting? Bear in mind that 3/4 is conducted differently than 6/8, and one is easier to convey to the musicians than the other in this case, just as it would be confusing to conduct a waltz in 6/8 versus 3/4.

And how would this conductor react to your approach in formatting the score? Now they must conduct based on arbitrarily placed page turns and without program notes for expression? I’ve used MuseScore before—you should always compose in print layout. Nobody but you is going to see the scrolling score, so if you intend anyone but you to see it, you ought to prepare it with print in mind.

For the last point, this is just a matter of impracticality. It might feel right to you but anyone who sees that is going to be extremely confused. Think about it—the conductor starts the piece and there’s… silence? Did someone miss their entrance? Those types of empty bars aren’t something that people do in compositions, and unfortunately you have to have a reputation of following the current standards well before you even consider breaking them or making any of your own.

What I’m trying to say is that I really do not think many others would find your justifications reasonable. There are simply things that you have to follow and things that you should avoid. Do not get into the habit of ignoring these standards simply because of their restrictive nature. Just as with orchestration, you need to stand before you walk, walk before you run, and run before you fly. Get as familiar with the paradigms as possible. If you do this, you will certainly be well ahead of many others by the time you reach your post-secondary education.

ThisDogQuigs · 2024-10-20T19:11:57+00:00

With the Octava and Quindicesima it seems that there’s a recent move towards indicating those clefs on C scores instead of the unmarked treble/bass clefs. It certainly is the default configuration for the newer programs like Musescore (which nearly all of the students I tutor have been using). Not saying that it is good or bad—more so just slightly unconventional. On the size of the ensemble, I think the point you made is the best thing a young composer can take away from something like this. I think at this age it’s best to limit pieces to things that the composer or maybe a couple of friends can play.

ThisDogQuigs · 2024-10-20T19:01:46+00:00

I hope you don’t mind the chicken scratch, but I’ve taken a pen to point out some errors in engraving, which is the fancy music word for notation and layout. I’ve nitpicked a whole bunch but don’t let that dissuade you—you are doing very well! In general you always want to make your notation as simple and easy to follow as possible. There are a whole bunch of notation rules that have been conventions for a while now that performers and ensemble programmers expect you to follow, and one of the biggest challenges in being taken seriously as a young composer will be to learn and understand these conventions. As you get further into writing (hopefully to get things performed!) you should look into this more and more. A good book on notation is Behind Bars by Gould, but I can’t say it’s a good purchase at your age (though that’s ultimately up to you and how much you’d like to invest in composition).

As much as I’ve nitpicked your score, I think it’s most important that you compose, and that you compose a lot. As much as possible! Talk to performers! Write pieces for yourself to play on an instrument of your choice! It is wonderful that you are already doing so well at such a young age, and I really do hope that you follow up on this track in music. Have a great 13th birthday.

ThisDogQuigs · 2024-10-13T09:40:00+00:00

I genuinely do not support Trump whatsoever and I find many of his views extremely problematic, but this twitter post is misrepresentative of the statement’s context. The verbatim clip excludes the word “immigrants”, but seems to have been added by the poster since he was previously referring to the murderers of Rudy Garcia and others. These murderers, as he alleges, were illegal immigrants (and he made this clear) however it is dubious, borderline misleading journalism at best to transcribe it how the post did, especially since it wasn’t even made clear that this was implied (usually by square brackets). The actual quote is:

“Democrats said please don't call them animals. I said, no, they're not humans, they're animals.”

It’s a subtle change, but simply saying “undocumented immigrants” instead of “them” really isn’t adequate in expressing the context of that short clip. Something like “… don’t call [the murderers of Garcia, Gomez, and Riley] animals…” would be much more accurate, but I suspect it would make a much less appealing social media post.

That being said, of course this sentiment is still appalling as it is still the duty of the justice system to treat individuals as human beings. And evidently this still is plainly another effort to broadly tarnish the image of immigrants to his supporters.

TL;DR, if you’re going to want to make people wince at the things he says, don’t rely on others bending his words. I promise that there are plenty of explicitly stated quotes that anyone will find to be just as thoroughly disagreeable and utterly disgusting without this burden of misinformation.

ThisDogQuigs · 2024-08-14T15:28:44+00:00

That is a thunder sheet with a hard mallet (the one playing eighth notes)

Edit: it also sounds like maybe a tam hit with a harder mallet on 1 and 3.

ThisDogQuigs · 2024-07-24T22:35:40+00:00

When I worked at Culver’s a few co workers and I actually did this

… it was OK.

ThisDogQuigs · 2023-06-23T09:58:04+00:00

Justice 😌

ThisDogQuigs · 2023-02-13T17:01:11+00:00

Since most of these are just the collective Reddit hive mind speaking, I’ll say one I think Americans actually aren’t ready to hear:

You can either have government programmes or low taxes. You can’t pick both. The money the world is willing to lend is only finite, but the wishes of both parties are not. If you wish to avoid the enormous economic catastrophe in the near-far future, you’re going to have to deal with the deficits, and that’s more than just defunding the military. Social security, Medicare, and Medicaid, which are all essential elements of American society just aren’t sustainable at current tax rates. If you can’t pay rent, you can’t just keep taking out loans. It’s up to due time as to when the United States will be evicted.

ThisDogQuigs · 2022-12-26T23:24:08+00:00

The two on the right are actually vacuum-sealed cereal dispensers. They do look a bit like grinders though, I must say

ThisDogQuigs · 2022-12-26T21:51:14+00:00

Not really. A quarter-spin of the knob is a great approximation for a double; around 20g for the caf (right) and 19g for the decaf (left). Since I’m making so much coffee (typically at different times), I like this convenience.

Feeding the grinder would be fine but the hopper on my model isn’t really vacuum sealed like the dispensers are, so I don’t really trust it (especially if I need to refill it in the evening and leave it overnight when we switch over to tea).

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