MaestroUGC's Compositions *In Progress - Symphony No. 2 in D minor - Mvt. I-IV*

[FireArrow]

I can, give me a second.

Yes, I use Finale for everything. I even use Finale to wash my dog that I don't have.

Ah ok, I was wondering because I don't know how to get a violin that actually sounds good... and an easy way to wash my dog

[Jompa]

Ah ok, I was wondering because I don't know how to get a violin that actually sounds good... and an easy way to wash my dog

If you change playback into Audio Units up at "MIDI", you get a new set of sound fonts playing in your playback. The violin font you then get sounds way better, however there are som problems with it - it sucks at playing short notes..
Those fonts you get are basically just the fonts that plays when you save something as a midi and play it instead of opening it in Finale.
Some of the fonts are good, but in my opinion most of them are bad :/ but it is possible to only assign this font change to specific staves!

[MaestroUGC]

https://www.dropbox.com/s/zra78g7tjmdhco6/VG%20Compositions.zip

There you go, it has most of the tracks.

[MaestroUGC]

Wrote another one, this time it's another Level theme.

Level Theme C - Draft 1 - I went for a more industrious, folk-sy style with this one, so it'll probably end up as a theme for a mining/mountain town.

Level Theme C - Draft 2 - I played up the folk elements by giving the melody to a solo violin and solo flute, with counterpoint by a trumpet.

I've got another two themes I'm working on right now, so look foward to those in a few days or so.

[MaestroUGC]

They sometimes say music is like fine wine, you have to let it age before people can begin to appreciate it. Well I don't know if that's true, but I've been sitting on a composition of mine for about 2 and a half years now, and I think it's a good time to let it air out a bit.

When I first wrote this, I only showed it to people whom I thought would be able to uderstand what I was doing. Before this, all of my music was rather simple and bland, but there were those who had been following my work since I started writing music. This was mainly just my close circle of friends, but they were at least enthusiastic about my work, even if they didn't typically listen to the genre "classical". Before this, my best music comprised my Symphony in C Minor, and my Cello Concerto. Both works were far better than my earlier efforts, as I began to learn how to write music, instead of putting notes on a page.

Here I wanted to write music and a massive scale. I'm not really sure why, but I did (somethign to become a theme with almost everything I write; "why not?"). Before this, my largest works were designed for a traditional Romantic orchestra, no unusual instrumentation or exaggerated numbers of players.

But first I needed to know what I wanted to write about. All my life I've had a fascination with mass destruction; natural distasters and cataclysmic accidents and other things of the sort. One of my favorite legends was the destruction of Atlantis. It always amazed me that and entire civilization, not to mention an entire continent, could just disappear in an instant. I was aware that it was just a myth, but the idea of it always fascinated me. The story behind it, as told by Plato, made for the basis of a great narrative and so I chose my setting.

Going back to the scale, one of the things I wanted to do was just make it as big and as unstageable as possible. (Ok, I didn't, but clearly that's what I was going for.) The instrumentation is as follows:

Piccolo, 2 flutes, bass flute, 2 oboes, english horn, 2 b-flat clarinets, 2 bassoons, contrabassoon, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 2 trombones, 2 bass trombones, tuba, contratuba, two sets of timpani, triangle, cymbals, gong, snare drum, bass drum, glockenspiel, tubular bells, harp, piano, celeste, organ, SATB chorus, and strings. That's at least 37 players plus a full chorus and string section.

This is, by far, the largest piece I have ever written, and clocks in at around 22 minutes.

But why did I hide it for so long? When it was finished all those years ago, I thought it was the most impressive thing I've ever done. So I began to show it to my usual circle, and they liked it. They didn't exactly love it, but they could at least see it was something great (for me, anyway) even if they didn't understand it. Hell, I'm not even sure I understood it. This was the result of months of endless work, and when it was done I couldn't show it. Before this my music was fairly conventional, and it still is for the most part. But this was a beast of another name. So I hid it away, waiting for the day when I felt would come in which I would know what this was.

I'm not sure that day is today, but as I look back on it I think I know what I had done. I will also be sharing the score. This is something I've never done before, but I feel a work of this scale merits a read along. It also helps that the audio is absolutely overwhelming.

Score

The video included instructions I had for my initial audience. I was aiming for a Total Sonorous Experience. Essentially I want to drown people with sound.

[MaestroUGC]

^Well that went over well.

How about a children's song? Everybody knows the song Frère Jacques, right? I mean who doesn't? Who? John doesn't count. He barely leaves his room, and he never shuts off his alarm. The man can sleep while being under the bells of Notre Dame; ding, dang, dong indeed.

Anyway, I wrote a set of variations for Frère Jacques over Thanksgiving break for string quartet. There are 36 variations in all, and the work stand at 22 minutes long.

Variations on "Frère Jacques"

Broken down into six groups of variations, each group varies the theme in similar ways, but all unique to themselves.

Intro and Theme: I begin by giving a quick summary of the orignal theme, but what a slightly altered chord progression. I follow this by stating the original canon true to form.

Set 1: Lead by the first violin. These variations preserve the actual structure of the canon while varying the melody itself.
1: Alteration of the rhythm, something a bit more vibrant than the original.
2: Leaps abound, going for a more march like feel.
3: Constaantly moving line, now featuring haevy use of chromatics.
4: A shift into minor, but relying on chromatics to drive the progression.
5: The melody is now in the dominant, while the cello fights it in the tonic before giving in to the new mode.
6: The first set climaxes with leaps again, but subverts the ending with the altered progression. A brief transition passage follows.

Set 2: Lead by the second violin. The second set, while still altering the melody, now focuses on varying the actual structure and pacing of the canon.
7: The original melody is preserved, but the timing of the canon is reduced to one measure, rather than the normal two measure entrances. The melody istelf is halved when it repeats and further reduces the entrances.
8: The entrances are still scarttered, but each instrument is playing their own part rather than the true melody.
9:The melody returns, but the rhythm is altered in each part. The repeat has them entering in unison, but each part is playing different rhythms.
10: Rapid leaps  mixed with scattered and ill-timed entrances.
11: The proper timing is restored, but the melody is altered to suit the alternate progression.
12: Each part is playing the true melody, but at different tempi. 2nd violin playing at speed, 1st playing at half, viola at quarter, and the cello at an eighth.

Set 3: Lead by the viola. This set alters the actual tone of the melody to a more melancholic mood.
13: The viola plays the melody while the other strings float around it in suspended notes.
14: The melody is changed while the other voices play the altered progression repeatedly.
15: The viola plays the melody in a constantly rising fashion, while the cellos builds up to its range. The other strings then mimic the viola.
16: Duets as the top voice plays "Three Blind Mice" over the melody.
17: The viola is given a purely chromatic line while the other parts adopt unique rhythmic patterns; the first violin takes the melody on the repeat.
18: The melody played in unison with the previous rhythms. The repeat has those rhythms jumping from instrument to instrument.

Set 4: Lead by the cello. These focuse on reworking the melody into more rhythmical diverse forms.
19: In 3/4, the melody is played while the rest of the string accompany it on open dstrings.
20: In 6/8, the melody adopts a more dance-folk style.
21: Duets in 2/4 over open strings.
22: Duets in two again, both with a different variation.
23: The true melody is played while ostinato eighths keep the pulse.
24: Each instrument takes a prior variation in the set and plays them at the same time to the same pulse

Set 5: A series of variations with no true central link.
25: Each instrument plays one note of the melody at a time; first sustaining the notes until they need to play a new one, then in single beats.
26: Pizzacato
27: A shift into D minor, with the repeat beginning in D-flat and working its way back to D.
28: A pastiche of Shostakovich's 5th Symphony.
29: A more heroic sound over a bouncy figure in 12/8.
30: The fist ans second violins play the melody in a canon-like manner, while the viola and cello chide and taunt them.

Set 6: Needless difficulty.
31: Each instrument is playing the melody at an improper rhythm, except for the second violin. Poor thing.
32: The violin works its way to a staggering high A7. Why? Because.
33: Parallel keys; first in D, second in B-flat, viola in F-sharp, and the cello is playing a D-C# ostinato.
34: Rapid leaps into high ranges in triplet figures in 9/8.
35: The "Paganini" Variation at a faster tempo.
36: The melody finally returns, but with each instrument doing whatever they wish.

The final transition begins with a variation of the first transition before sending the instruments to the stratosphere. The Coda returns us the the true melody as it's subverted one last time before concluded.

Yeah, I don't know why I did this either.

Up next, Mary had a Little Lamb, an Opera in one act.

[Jompa]

Very cool

[K-NiGhT]

Dear Maestro,
You are seriously one of the greatest composers of our generation. I am completely mesmerized by all of your works. Never give this up!

[MaestroUGC]

Oh shucks, that's very kind of you to say.

This was just a fun little idea I had and thought I'd give it a go. This almost began life as a piano solo, but I think the quartet gave me more room to play with the song.

[MaestroUGC]

Happy New Year.

[MaestroUGC]

I was going through some of my compositions, as I tend to do to weed out abandoned/altered/un-started works to  clean things up, and I found some pieces I wrote a few years ago that I had been meaning to put out there but never did for one reason or another.

Six Nocturnes for String Quartet
The first one is a set of Nocturnes for String Quartet. For about two years I had tried to get an ensemble together to get these recorded but it just never came to fruition for one reason or another.
MUS
.wavs and PDF of all 6
No. 1 in F was written as a sort of lullaby-esque piece, with an ostinato cello rhythm underneath lilting and flowing triplet figures in the top strings.
No. 2 in C is a calmer piece, with far less contrast of dynamics as the first. Meant for more subtle movement, it's built around opposite movement of voices.
No. 3 in C minor is a funeral march, driven by a droning cello line on open strings. The main theme is built on moving between c minor and C major.
No. 4 in E-flat is the liveliest of the bunch and prominently features the cello carrying the melody. The middle section modulates to D, modulating between D and G minor until it resolves back to E-flat.
No. 5 in G minor is a cold piece with a dark melody over crisp chords. The pieces begins to modulate halfway through until it resolves in D Major.
No. 6 is a very hollow piece filled with dissonances and a constantly modulates around pedal points of C, E, and A-flat before ultimately concluding on a very full C major chord with double and triple stops.

Adagio for Piano Quintet
This next one was originally intended as the second movement of a Piano Quintet. I never got around to writing the full work, but I felt this movement had enough weight to stand on its own so I rebranded it as an Adagio for Piano Quintet. There's no real melody per-say, just the idea of a motif of a melody that is constantly developing through the work and it moves between various moods and modes; all while being supported by a constant piano ostinato that's meant to feel like a spinning wheel, constantly turning and propelling the pieces forward. If I could describe this piece in one work it would probably be "longing". This is another one I had intended to record alongside the Nocturnes, but just like the Nocturnes it just never panned out.

I'm really proud of the coda that follows the big climax. It's like you've been stuck in a single moment for what seems like forever and then suddenly you find that the moment is leaving you while time ebbs on.
MUS
YouTube (Audio only)

Violin Concerto in A minor - II. Adagio cantabile
Another near start that I never followed through on. This was actually written for a violinist I was courting at the time; my attempt at a romantic gesture, you could say. I had intended on writing a full concerto, but aside from getting about a quarter through with the first movement, I never saw it through. I may go back and polish this up and rebrand it as a standalone "Romance".
YouTube (Audio only)

Fantasy "Farewell Home"
This was a piece I had written as a send-off piece for a recital I gave senior year of High School. This is probably the most sincere thing I've written for the piano, possibly ever. It's also the most gentle since I tend to favor big bold statements to small personal ones.
MUS

Prelude to Dante's Inferno
I really only want to write one piece in my entire life. I wanted to do something big and bold, something that I felt would leave a mark on this world and when I first started writing music and started to seriously pursue it as a career I had in mind what I wanted to be my great opus. One of my most favorite pieces of literature has always been the Divine Comedy, and as such I have a long standing desire to set the work to music in a series of Grand Operas. While I know I'm not nearly skilled enough nor mentally or emotionally ready for such a monumental undertaking, I have spent the past few years tinkering away at the idea and in my senior year of High School I actually set out to formalize this rough idea I had in mind; mainly to give myself a "proof of concept" that I knew what I was aiming for and what it would take.

This monstrous piece has a few elements working within it. It was designed to be a prelude to the opera so it is meant to set the stage and atmosphere. The orchestration alone is a massive affair as it basically amounts to a double sized orchestra with an organ and all sorts of other bells and whistles. That's not even getting into what I intended for vocal power for all of the people Dante meets along his journey.

It begins with the organ playing simple F octaves with the cellos and basses giving a chromatic descent and resolving an a d-natural and b-natural, resulting in an fdim chord. The full orchestra then just explodes into the "descent theme" which is just a simple chromatic descending line that bends back upwards towards the end (foreshadowing). The strings then just go full tilt in a constant flurry of motion underneath a dark melody that has a twisted harmony the second time around. This whirlwind is very much what I had intended the Circle of Lust to sound like. Halfway through there's a chromatic rise to B minor before the key is beat back down to F minor.

It closes out with the organ playing a more stylized version of the "descent theme" and solitary F's are hammered on like nails on a coffin. This Prelude concludes with the Oboes, English Horns and F Horns establishing what would have been the atmosphere for Dante awakening in the Dark Wood.
MUS
Audio

[mikey]

Hey hey, Nocturnes!  ^_^

I was wondering; have you published music at all?

[MaestroUGC]

Not yet.

[MaestroUGC]

So lately I found myself in a rut, not having written anything for a few months.

So few nights ago I resolved to start writing a Requiem. This is something I've been wanting to do for years now, but every time I start I end up either getting distracted by another work of mine, or what I create ends up turning into another work altogether.

Well it happened again, as while I was working on the Introit, I stumbled upon a theme that I thought would be well suited for dungeon music in my VG project.

Dungeon Theme B - Draft 1 - The direction I think I'm going to go with the dungeon music is that of minimalism and hollow feeling. This one is very inspired by the impressionism of Debussy and Ravel; there are two main melodic fragments that comprise the piece: The long melody of sustained notes and quick, subtle motion, and the syncopated rising figure.

Dungeon Theme B - Draft 2 - Keeping in line with the minimal orchestration, the strings are split into two parts each for most of the work, with some added color by a solo piccolo and English horn and two F horns in counterpoint. The coloring is very subtle, and adds to the dark and gloomy atmosphere that most dungeon levels try to inspire; this one is very much going for some forgotten palace hidden away on top of a mountain. The primary melody seems to want to recall some regal moments, while the bass line is very much a funeral march for this forgotten kingdom.

Draft 2 PDF

[FireArrow]

That game your composing is gonna be known for having a 2 day long OST. .—。 Still waiting on the freaking 20 minute download.