Score: 8

"Much better!"

submission: Intense Sig Maker v2

date: February 2, 2006

It's improved a lot, and in a short amount of time. Well done!

Now for a bit more detail.

1) The banner selection is a million times better, but there are so many that it gets complicated just having two buttons. If possible, make a menu where one can view multiple downsized samples of the banner design and choose on to their liking.

2) As far as logos go, I'd recommend adding:
a) all the letters of the alphabet.
b) numbers 1-9
c) brainstorm hobbies and find a logo for each (i.e., composing, an eighth note)
d) maybe make the logo draggable with the mouse, so the person can put it exactly where they want
e) an extra option that opens a box of text detailing how you can save your banner and add the logo (that isn't in the program) you want in MS Paint or whatever

3) You definitely need more font selection. If you can manage it, being able to choose exactly where in the banner the text is. Also, bold, italics, and underline options. Finally, similar to my recommendation e for logos, a text box detailing how you can save the banner and add the exact text you want.

This is a very promising program! I'm sure many people will find it useful.

Score: 8

"Actually..."

submission: Intense Sig Maker v1

date: January 24, 2006

Here's how you save it on your computer for PC users:

With the window that has your desired banner up, press the Print Screen key (some laptops may have it as Prnt Scrn), which is somewhere to the top right of the keyboard. Open an image editing program such as regular 'ol paint and Paste (you must not copy or paste anything inbetween those two steps!). Edit out everything else in the image of the screen, edit the banner, save it, whatever floats your boat.

It's a nice idea, but could be expanded on a lot, for example,

-More logos
-Turn-off-music feature

I'm sure you can think of a lot more than that, but y'know, that sort of stuff.

Score: 8

"Look..."

submission: A Film For MyK-Alix

date: January 24, 2006

If the author had WANTED the animation to be better, even a detail like a more accurate cut out of the picture of the girl (very clearly intentionally half-assed!), I'm sure he would have. It should be obvious enough that this was a mockery of Myk-Alix's (or whatever) review.

Score: 10

"Re: instrumentation"

submission: A Difficult Parting

date: August 27, 2008

Truth is that harp is a colorful instrument and certainly functions as such in an orchestra, therefore the solo repertoire is post 19th century impressionistic color or extremely diatonic simplicity in anything before that (this is also due to how the mechanics of the harp developed, blah blah blah). In this piece, to me, the "minimalism" sounds more like "safety zone". Nico Muhly recently gave a lecture-class at Columbia and he gave what I think is a very effective summary of minimalism, something along the lines of, "Your musical materials stay the same for so long that when there is any change it sounds like the most beautiful thing you ever heard." By that description, this is certainly simplistic (which is not at all a criticism) but not entirely minimal because the change is abundant and therefore can't set up the tension of repetition repetition repetition and, finally, change. All of these stylistic approaches (diatonic simplicity, impressionist color, minimalist sound world) are I think equally viable with the harp as a solo instrument and it then comes down to what you intend to portray to your audience.

"Difficult parting" is a complicated idea because there are so many untold stories and nuances to any parting, particularly difficult ones. While I'd have absolutely no objection to adding instruments to the existing piece, I still think solo harp can capture the multi-faceted idea of a difficult parting if you're willing to simply escape from your comfort zone here - the harp is full of interesting mechanics (the complexity of the pedals) and possible effects (harmonics are actually included in GPO so I encourage messing around with those; there are also other markings like "pres de la table" [near the sounding board, which means plucking farther down on the string rather than towards the middle], super easy glissandos in any scale, etc.).

While I hesitate to make any suggestion on this scale, I think this is an idea and a piece worth re-exploring entirely, not with the approach of setting up musical materials and then rewashing and reusing, but rather with the approach of balance and finding so many different ways of expressing a difficult parting tastefully and effectively yet emotionally. Even if GPO doesn't have the capabilities of a real harp (thus making a totally accurate recording impossible), I think it best not to sacrifice anything for the sake of absolutely correspondance between concept and GPO realization.

That said I realize I'm not at all factoring in the "video game" part of the description, which obviously changes function and execution of an idea completely; a big congrats on being able to pull off a piece that sets a mood but would not be too distracting when used in an actual video game. Call me crazy but somewhere I feel like this piece comes from somewhere deeper than a simple desire to write video game music and set a mood and to that end I think there's so much potential.

Just when I was thinking that a nice sustained melody strummed out on top of the texture would be lovely, there it was at :39. No matter how much I say about this piece, there's so much that's done RIGHT. I won't saturate this review with too much praise other than to say that there is so much going for you with your ear and talents; keep up the awesome. ;)

Score: 10

"Not bad for a 23 year old!"

submission: Largo for Full Orchestra

date: August 11, 2008

If I rate you against the other composers on this site it's because I don't know how the review the piece based on its own merits. If I compare you with cinematic composers I'm missing the mark by about five miles seeing as though this is programmatic it clearly does not function as a film soundtrack. If I compare you with the student composers that are studying composition around the world and give you a 3 it's to inflate myself as one of said composition students. If I compare you with the greatest composers of all time I'm not actually helping you at all, I just sound like a douche for comparing apples with oranges. And here is a list of names I like to throw around like certificates of how well rounded I believe I am as a musician, and also just to sound like I'm helping you when in reality I'm mostly showing off
(I mean, you obviously haven't heard of Stravinsky, what a no-name).

Who knows, maybe I had good intentions? Maybe, until I send you an obnoxious PM full of baseless accusations.

Hey would you look at this! It's right underneath this text box I'm typing in:

"If you are giving this submission a low score, please offer constructive criticism that will be useful to the artist. The review space is not a place for you to act like a total asshole."

ANYWAY, you captured your mood very well, sometimes I wanted a fuller orchestration because the celesta has a tough time supporting the texture by itself. Slightly unrelated: whatever happened to your GPO :( Back to the orchestration comment, it's really a question of texture and supporting the more mobile and essential elements at spot like 3:52 where the drama could be enhanced by some subtle additions that don't take away from the skeleton already outlined there (melody, violin runs, bass line), same thing with the couple of spots with timpani and horn/clarinet (and eventually violin) melody.

Blahdiblah, anyhow amazing work, see ya ;)

Score: 10

"During my various and sundrey adventures..."

submission: Sketch for String Orchestra

date: August 5, 2008

I downloaded this and have been listening to it for about a week and it gets better every time, the piece is saturated with meaningful details (time changes and such) and the result is short but just amazing. I dunno what I could have inspired (besides shoving strings in your face for the past few months...) because you took the string orchestra and made it your own. That said I'm thrilled to see my name in the description ;)

My brother spent several weeks living with monks with Tibet; judging from what I've heard from him about his experiences, thay context adds a lot to this piece which is already phenomenally powerful on its own.

I've also noticed that you have two even more recent submissions, so I'm gonna go check those out. Amazing job here!