Hi Jos,

your arangement of La douce flute was so beautiful.

If I might guess this recording was a live performance?

Anand

Hi William, Anand, Errikos,

It was not my intention to open a post in a post. I merely wanted to state that classical composers took inspiration and advantage from street tunes (or let's call it folk music) and vice versa. This one here was the 'versa'. Mozart's "Die Zauberflöte" must have been so popular that even in Flanders the tunes were picked up by the crowd to sing and dance to. The extract here was indeed a live recording by my chamber orchestra in 1998. When I found that tune, I didn't realise it was written originally by Mozart (unless Mozart would have heard it elsewhere, but I've never read anything about that assumption). I wrote an arrangement for my ensemble and a few weeks later, I heard the Mozart tune in the south of France, performed by a brass quintet. Then I realised that it was an air taken from Die Zauberflöte. It was a strange experience to compare the two pieces (one set by Mozart, one by me).

William: all over Europe you can find thousands of the-like pieces, mostly collected by anonymous musicians in a single melody line, sometimes with limited basso continuo annotations, sometimes with some kind of steno dance description (interesting to define the original tempi).

Errikos: you've made your point perfectly clear now and I see we actually do agree. But I want to explain why I reacted to your post. In my country, the term 'academic' has two different meanings: learned scholars, scientists, philosophers... but also pedantic know-alls pretending to have all wisdom. The latter is always meant ironically with a rather negative connotation. And true folk musicians are quite the opposite: honest, simple players/singers/composers producing fine and well inspired little pieces. (Although the late 19th century Quadrilles are not so much little music anymore.)

That said, let's go back now to the essence of this topic. 😉

Jos

What was the essence? 

The essence? Well it would be an appreciation of VSL 1.2... Wandering off the road from time to time. And that's exactly what I like best here. Subjects evoking new subjects, like a journey without a clear direction, without knowing where to arrive.

But another thing bothers me a bit. I've noticed during the past two years, that there are less and less comments to members' compositional contributions and I feel sad about it. To be more specific: the longer the work is, the fewer the comments are. Is it so that our modern ears can't support anything over 3 minutes? Most topics have an avarage of 90 visitors/viewers. But are they really listeners as well? Definitely they are not commentators (about 2 % are). I'm a relatively new member here (since 2012) and I have the strong impression that the comments are diminishing gradually as time goes by. That would be a negative evolution. What else are we doing here? Only opening new post and closing them immediately after? Aren't we all eager to present new work, but whom are we presenting it to? To an anonymous silent audience that doesn't bother listening? I truly hope I'm wrong about this. Since we all use mostly VSL libraries, this could be a good topic for further discussion.

Jos

@Jos Wylin said:

But another thing bothers me a bit. I've noticed during the past two years, that there are less and less comments to members' compositional contributions and I feel sad about it. To be more specific: the longer the work is, the fewer the comments are. Is it so that our modern ears can't support anything over 3 minutes? Most topics have an avarage of 90 visitors/viewers. But are they really listeners as well? Definitely they are not commentators (about 2 % are). I'm a relatively new member here (since 2012) and I have the strong impression that the comments are diminishing gradually as time goes by. That would be a negative evolution. What else are we doing here? Only opening new post and closing them immediately after? Aren't we all eager to present new work, but whom are we presenting it to? To an anonymous silent audience that doesn't bother listening? I truly hope I'm wrong about this. Since we all use mostly VSL libraries, this could be a good topic for further discussion.

Jos

Well said, Jos.

I agree on that and it is one of the good things about this Forum that music can be presented openly.  I try to listen as much as possible and comment.  One person stated he never comments because composition is a personal thing. That is one of the silliest things I have ever heard - that is the whole point of a Forum. Discussion, argument and commentary.   

I have noticed that people often do post their music on this forum, but are rarely -if at all- able to accept negative criticism. It is my forum experience that they almost invariably take such criticism as an affront (instead of a well-meant commentary), and react accordingly (especially those with lengthy contributions). It is amazing to me how people react badly even when people's criticism is focused exclusively on production issues (let alone composition...) Therefore, I only comment on works that appeal to me for the most part and avoid others, even when I find aspects worthy of praise in those works. This doesn't mean that if I don't comment on a submission, I have heard it and didn't like it; I don't listen to everything.

For example, I found a recent entry rather interesting in places, even strikingly good (unexpectedly) at specific points. However, I could not comment since I would also have to say how tedious and dilletantish I found many other pages of the thing. And I know I would then have to enter a rather lengthy, and mostly confrontational discussion.

I can empathize with this attitude. I myself am very bad at taking criticism, but then again I don't post anything here.

Yes that is a problem.  However I basically feel we need to let loose with whatever we think.  If  music is good it will deflect criticism and weather the storm. 

@Errikos said:

I have noticed that people often do post their music on this forum, but are rarely -if at all- able to accept negative criticism. It is my forum experience that they almost invariably take such criticism as an affront (instead of a well-meant commentary), and react accordingly (especially those with lengthy contributions). It is amazing to me how people react badly even when people's criticism is focused exclusively on production issues (let alone composition...) Therefore, I only comment on works that appeal to me for the most part and avoid others, even when I find aspects worthy of praise in those works. This doesn't mean that if I don't comment on a submission, I have heard it and didn't like it; I don't listen to everything.

For example, I found a recent entry rather interesting in places, even strikingly good (unexpectedly) at specific points. However, I could not comment since I would also have to say how tedious and dilletantish I found many other pages of the thing. And I know I would then have to enter a rather lengthy, and mostly confrontational discussion.

I can empathize with this attitude. I myself am very bad at taking criticism, but then again I don't post anything here.

I agree 100%. 

If the music is exceptionally good I have usually seen that it gets a lot of responses. The music should compel people to say something after listening, or else why would they care to spend time writing? Forum members are not official teachers or anything. As Errikos says, if the listener doesnt like the piece, there is nothing much to do since criticism is usually not taken well.

If no one comments on a piece of music, the composer shouldnt take it personally...there could be many reasons...the piece may have issues to fix, or people may be too busy or this forum may not be the right place for it, or even more simply it may not be exciting enough for someone to go type something about it.

In some sense everyone is their own best critique.

@William said:

In the post by Guy he mentioned the Variations on Lie Ciocarlie for piano and orchestra, and I finally listened to that.  That is an amazing complex piece of music, virtuosic, really brilliantly written!  I love how it is in a recognizably Romantic style - somewhat Rachmaninoffian especially with the scary pianistic ability required) but also modern.   Btw Guy, can you play that live?  

Thanks for mentionning this William. 

Yes, it has several influences, some bits Stravinsky, Rach and Gershwin. The work is having some success in Romania, recently it was performed for something like the 12th time. This is the most recent performance, on Nov. 30th, Rhapsodic Variations on Lie Ciocarlie (Live). You'll have to forgive the very loud snare drum, either it's picked up by a close mic or I need to redo the dynamics on that part. Never thought the snare could stand out so much, strange. The virtual version is much better balance, although it's virtual. Hopefully a professional recording will happen soon.

You asked if I could play this live?  Well, thank God I don't have to play it! But I really don't know. Probably not in public and would struggle with some passages keeping it clean. 

@Errikos said:

I have noticed that people often do post their music on this forum, but are rarely -if at all- able to accept negative criticism. It is my forum experience that they almost invariably take such criticism as an affront (instead of a well-meant commentary), and react accordingly (especially those with lengthy contributions). It is amazing to me how people react badly even when people's criticism is focused exclusively on production issues (let alone composition...) Therefore, I only comment on works that appeal to me for the most part and avoid others, even when I find aspects worthy of praise in those works. This doesn't mean that if I don't comment on a submission, I have heard it and didn't like it; I don't listen to everything.

I used to submit works to other sites where peer reviews were encouraged and I would get all kinds of feedback.  I found that I would much rather have a single constructive and thorough point by point negative review of one of my pieces then an endless stream of brain dead "YOU ROCK DUDE!!!" responses.

In fact, I much preffered those negative reviews as long as they were constructive.

I appreciate critique, especially if coupled with a suggested change for improvement. I may or may not agree, but in some cases the criticsm could point out something that causes me to look at that element in a new way. A new paradigm. This is crucial to learning and improving. Since none of us are in the genius category, we all have room to grow and improve. 

I do find it much easier to avoid being defensive if the critique comes from someone whose music I appreciate. It is difficult to accept criticism from someone who is less accomplished. But even then, if we have an open attitude, the results can be helpful.

I was playing one of my pieces for my adult son, when he told me that a certain passage was all wrong for the piece, it didn't fit the mood and the emotion of the rest of the piece. My son knows very little about music, but in this case he was completely correct. Upon reflection I decided to alter that section and the piece was stronger as a result.

"Thanks for mentionning this William.

Yes, it has several influences, some bits Stravinsky, Rach and Gershwin. The work is having some success in Romania, recently it was performed for something like the 12th time. This is the most recent performance, on Nov. 30th, Rhapsodic Variations on Lie Ciocarlie (Live). You'll have to forgive the very loud snare drum, either it's picked up by a close mic or I need to redo the dynamics on that part. Never thought the snare could stand out so much, strange. The virtual version is much better balance, although it's virtual. Hopefully a professional recording will happen soon.

You asked if I could play this live? Well, thank God I don't have to play it! But I really don't know. Probably not in public and would struggle with some passages keeping it clean. " - Guy Bacos

Guy that is fantastic! To have your music played repeatedly means it has a life of its own. Especially by people who don't know you - who just want what you created. That is the ultimate goal of any artist...

Also- that is funny about your having trepidations about playing your own piece -- I have had similar feelings and definitely would never play my piano pieces live even though they are not that hard and you would probably have no trouble. However a march I wrote for band I did play the horn part live on and it was a killer with multiple high Cs and fast notes - all very fun to write into a score but but not so fun to try and play in front of an audience.