Jacktheawesome's Fuckin' Awesome Classical Music

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Jacktheawesome
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Jacktheawesome's Fuckin' Awesome Classical Music

Post by Jacktheawesome » Fri Jun 29, 2012 1:16 am

Can I post some here, for critique? I've had no formal training, so any comments from more seasoned peeps would be nice. Oh, and also, they're going to be Finale sounds, so, not excellent. I'll see what I can dig up.

EDIT: moved all to OP
EDITEDIT: updated/consolidated

Compositions/Recordings
Classical Compositions
School
Non-Classical Work

Arrangements
Nutcracker Arrangements
Christmas Carol Arrangements
Last edited by Jacktheawesome on Sun Jul 07, 2013 3:16 am, edited 2 times in total.

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Glabbit
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Re: Jacktheawesome's Fuckin' Awesome Classical Music

Post by Glabbit » Fri Jun 29, 2012 4:59 am

Couldn't you post them in another thread, so as to not hijack Zhukov's thing should he want to add to it?
In cases of creativity that would be common courtesy, I'd say, though admittedly less common than it could be.

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Korban3
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Re: Jacktheawesome's Fuckin' Awesome Classical Music

Post by Korban3 » Fri Jun 29, 2012 1:14 pm

Yes, something like a "Jacktheawesome's Fuckin' Awesome Classical Music" thread.
That woodwind quartet was good. I am nowhere near that good at music. Like holy shit dude, how long have you been hiding this from us?
I'd make one myself but my track isn't nearly as cool as your stuff and only halfway done.
Oh, and FUCK YOU adwuga. It's already halfway done, which is further than any of my mods got. That's what I'll name it now, immortalizing adwuga: "Fuck you, adwuga".

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Re: Jacktheawesome's Fuckin' Awesome Classical Music

Post by Freshbite » Fri Jun 29, 2012 2:56 pm

GENTLEMEN. BEHOLD!

Rewjeo
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Re: Jacktheawesome's Fuckin' Awesome Classical Music

Post by Rewjeo » Fri Jun 29, 2012 3:29 pm

Oh, how I don't miss the Finale string orchestra sounds. The woodwind ones sounded fine to me, though.

Anyways, quite a bit of the Quartet was too cheery-classical-type music for me, personally, but I really liked that section at ~2:00 and the faster sections. My issues here were more personal taste things than anything, though

The Symphony started to slow for me, and I didn't like how the first big part then just got repeated with a key switch (or whatever exactly happened there) instead of the melody being built on there. But I thought the last two thirds were really good other than the Finale string orchestra sounds.

On the harp thing, a lot of it felt quite bland, honestly. I think it's very good, but not alone. It feels like a melody of some kind needs to be laid on top of it. Also, some of the chords were slightly dissonant and that felt out of place to me.

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Glabbit
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Re: Jacktheawesome's Fuckin' Awesome Classical Music

Post by Glabbit » Fri Jun 29, 2012 3:34 pm

Nice job, Fresh.
Smooooth.

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Re: Jacktheawesome's Fuckin' Awesome Classical Music

Post by MrOtton » Fri Jun 29, 2012 4:07 pm

I justlistened to the woodwind quartet! It sounds awesome! But I think sometimes the sounds sound a bit...hmmm...synthetic? But anyways excellent work! :)

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Re: Jacktheawesome's Fuckin' Awesome Classical Music

Post by Jacktheawesome » Fri Jun 29, 2012 5:56 pm

Hey, thanks guys! My very own thread! That was some impressive thread ninja-ing there, Fresh. Didn't know you could do that.
Korban3 wrote:Yes, something like a "Jacktheawesome's Fuckin' Awesome Classical Music" thread.
That woodwind quartet was good. I am nowhere near that good at music. Like holy shit dude, how long have you been hiding this from us?
I'd make one myself but my track isn't nearly as cool as your stuff and only halfway done.
Oh, and FUCK YOU adwuga. It's already halfway done, which is further than any of my mods got. That's what I'll name it now, immortalizing adwuga: "Fuck you, adwuga".
Nyaw, thanks. I've been working on it on my own for about two years now I suppose. And yeah, fuck you adwuga.
Rewjeo wrote:Oh, how I don't miss the Finale string orchestra sounds. The woodwind ones sounded fine to me, though.

Anyways, quite a bit of the Quartet was too cheery-classical-type music for me, personally, but I really liked that section at ~2:00 and the faster sections. My issues here were more personal taste things than anything, though

The Symphony started to slow for me, and I didn't like how the first big part then just got repeated with a key switch (or whatever exactly happened there) instead of the melody being built on there. But I thought the last two thirds were really good other than the Finale string orchestra sounds.

On the harp thing, a lot of it felt quite bland, honestly. I think it's very good, but not alone. It feels like a melody of some kind needs to be laid on top of it. Also, some of the chords were slightly dissonant and that felt out of place to me.
Yeah, those are the only ones I like. I guess the horns are decent as well. What is it with music programs and terrible string sounds? We have Logic at school, which has pretty awesome sounds for just about everything but, it seems, bowed strings. They're worse than Finale's even.

I can understand that. One thing to keep in mind is that I write things over a long period of time, and I'm still improving. Part of that was written at a completely different skill level than other parts. I am partial to the second movement, still.

Really? I sort of like the pace of the beginning. It is undoubtedly slow, but it gets there. I'm with you on that. That whole section is still in progress, and I'm almost certain I'm going to end up deleting it. I'm trying to modulate to D Major, which is supposed to be the home key, though I've been drudging around through D and A Minor. The first progression is i-iiº-III-iv in Dm, and I was trying to then modulate there to DM with I-IV-vº, in D, but it sounds bad I know. That passage in general is a bit stilted, really, so who knows. I do like the part before it, though. That's more recent.

Yeah, I get it here too. I just thought of that progression one day, thought it would sound good on harp, and copied and pasted it over and over with some simple melody. I might expand in the future, because I do like that progression, but for now I just kind of like the sound of it. Yeah, some dissonant chords. The melody really only follows the chords in that it's in the same key, there's not much else holding it to the progression.
MrOtton wrote:I justlistened to the woodwind quartet! It sounds awesome! But I think sometimes the sounds sound a bit...hmmm...synthetic? But anyways excellent work! :)
Thanks! By synthetic, do you mean the sounds, or the composition? It's written in a program meant for the production of scores, not for actual, presentable playback like some other programs, so the sounds are largely bad and synthetic sounding.

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Re: Jacktheawesome's Fuckin' Awesome Classical Music

Post by Rewjeo » Fri Jun 29, 2012 6:34 pm

I think the Garritan string sounds are good, but also really expensive right now.

Fair enough. My early stuff is, um :roll:

I feel like it just takes too long to get places. Maybe if you added new instruments in so that they changed the melody slightly instead of just continuing or didn't have them in parallel motion or something? Maybe even tweak the melody some. The way it is now we have this same "Low. High. Low. High." going on for a long time. It's not an interesting enough melody to hold on its own for over a minute, in my opinion.
What bugs me about that part modulating is that you're messing with a melody before I've had time to really listen to it. It's not bad in and of itself, I just feel it's misplaced.
Oh, and props to you for writing a full symphony. I haven't written anything with more than seven parts in it, and that's if you count the two solo violins as separate parts. I'm also really bad with percussion.

It does sound good on harp, it just feels incomplete to me. I think, with a strong melody going over it, it could be a really good piece.

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Re: Jacktheawesome's Fuckin' Awesome Classical Music

Post by adwuga » Fri Jun 29, 2012 8:21 pm

Good music, Jacksontheawesome.

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Re: Jacktheawesome's Fuckin' Awesome Classical Music

Post by Jacktheawesome » Fri Jun 29, 2012 10:34 pm

Rewjeo wrote:I think the Garritan string sounds are good, but also really expensive right now.

Fair enough. My early stuff is, um :roll:

I feel like it just takes too long to get places. Maybe if you added new instruments in so that they changed the melody slightly instead of just continuing or didn't have them in parallel motion or something? Maybe even tweak the melody some. The way it is now we have this same "Low. High. Low. High." going on for a long time. It's not an interesting enough melody to hold on its own for over a minute, in my opinion.
What bugs me about that part modulating is that you're messing with a melody before I've had time to really listen to it. It's not bad in and of itself, I just feel it's misplaced.
Oh, and props to you for writing a full symphony. I haven't written anything with more than seven parts in it, and that's if you count the two solo violins as separate parts. I'm also really bad with percussion.


It does sound good on harp, it just feels incomplete to me. I think, with a strong melody going over it, it could be a really good piece.
The Garritans are better than Finale, and much better than Logic, but they still suffer from the main flaw of bowed string sounds. They can't handle fast melodies; they get all sloppy. Good for slow stuff, terrible for fast stuff. Finale's are so bare-bones that they have great precision. What really bugs me is the completely fantastic brass and choir sounds offered by these companies. Have you heard Eastwest's choir patches? Ear candy.

That could be. Another thing though, is that I haven't presented a clear theme yet, really. I'm trying to get to the home key so I can get on with the damn movement: Exposition, development, recapitulation (perhaps some more D minor here) and all that sonata form stuff. But I think one problem in this little intro bit is that it has no clear theme, except for the bass bit at the beginning (you hear me bringing that back right before the bad part), so it ends up, as you say, low, high, low high. Going back and forth very quickly between soft points and climaxes. I'm going to use this for an independent study project for school, and I'm going to start working with the comp teacher in August. Hopefully he can help me a bit with this. As for percussion, I'm not sure how good I am. My parts seem to work, but they're not genius. One thing I've been trying that I picked up from Beethoven is using the trumpets and timpani as one unit for emphasis. Seems to work.
Well, all you really have to do is name it "symphony" :D Not like I've finished one yet. That's probably good anyways; those are much easier to finish. I've only completed two pieces of this size. I'll put them up later, as well as a string quartet I'm working on.

Well, glad you like it. Maybe I'll open it up again, see where I can take it. I could add a violin.

adwuga wrote:Good music, Jacksontheawesome.
What, you didn't know?

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Re: Jacktheawesome's Fuckin' Awesome Classical Music

Post by Korban3 » Fri Jun 29, 2012 11:12 pm

I've been using Synthfont mostly. I love it's interface mostly. And I have a couple of really nice soundfonts I found. My favorites list is a bit long, but they all do great:
A freakin' beatuiful strings one. The cello and double bass are the best sounding, while it has ok-ish viola and violin.
An epic Organ one. It has like 10 different pipe organs, and I love that one.
A higher quality GM soundfont as well.
A decent acoustic drumset.
A decent timpani as well.
And a great, big analog one. Dat 8-bit. So good.
Then there's some miscellaneous synth ones that only come in handy every now and then, but are perfect when I need them :lol:

The general midi one has some good strings. Not great, but better that those ones. Ew.

Even in progress, that's still awesome that you made those. I wish I'd had more than just two years with my school's new band teacher. He's freakin' godly at teaching, but I only got two years with him and now I'm graduated.
At least he was able to teach me blues scales before I left high school. The other stuff I just pick up as I go, mostly. I don't write often anyways.

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Re: Jacktheawesome's Fuckin' Awesome Classical Music

Post by adwuga » Sat Jun 30, 2012 12:12 am

Jacktheawesome wrote:
adwuga wrote:Good music, Jacksontheawesome.
What, you didn't know?
Nope.

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Re: Jacktheawesome's Fuckin' Awesome Classical Music

Post by Jacktheawesome » Sat Jun 30, 2012 1:29 am

Hm. Looks to be Windows only. I just downloaded this free symphonic sound library called "Sonatina Symphonic Orchestra." I've heard of it being used with Finale, but I can't figure out how, or find a tutorial. Oh well.

Yeah. I jumped in pretty early. I started off in Comp 2, and Theory 1 last year, which, unfortunately, didn't teach me much. Theory was mostly stuff I already knew from playing violin, and Comp 2 was very basic, and mostly a Logic class anyways. Next year I should get some real instruction. Ah yes, blues scales. What style did you write in? Was it more classically oriented, or jazzy?
adwuga wrote:
Jacktheawesome wrote:
adwuga wrote:Good music, Jacksontheawesome.
What, you didn't know?
Nope.
Oh. Well yes. I shortened it to Jack because it worked better with the username, and I wasn't thinking. You can all call me Jackson if you want, in fact, I'd probably prefer it, seeing as no one but you guys calls me Jack :)

EDIT:

The string quartet.
It actually is the second one, but the first one...ahem. I won't post it here.

The first big ensemble piece I wrote
I meant it to sort of emulate In the Hall of the Mountain King, by Grieg. In fact, it's way too similar to that piece for it to ever be a serious part of my portfolio. Still kinda like it though.

Rhapsody on a Theme in C
This was my second big orchestral attempt. Largely outdated, but there are still some things in here I like, so I thought I'd put it up.
Last edited by Jacktheawesome on Sun Jul 22, 2012 9:00 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Jacktheawesome's Fuckin' Awesome Classical Music

Post by Rewjeo » Sat Jun 30, 2012 10:53 pm

I don't have problems writing fast bowed stuff with the Garritan sounds, myself. Of course, if I take something I wrote with the Finale MIDIs and then switch it to Garritan, it definitely has that problem. Oh, the big thing for me is that the solo sounds are way way way way better than the Finale solo sounds.

I've done a tiny bit with synth (like four years ago) and other than that I've only done stuff with strings because I struggle to get brass/woodwinds/percussion to really work. I suppose I could call something a symphony with just two violin parts, viola, cello, and bass technically... But I was under the impression that you needed more than that for something to be a symphony. Truth be told, I don't understand naming conventions for music at all. I haven't had any real composition training other than sitting down going over my pieces with my violin teacher. Thus all my pieces are named "String 7" or "Quartet 4" and I just kinda do stuff as I do it.

Always add violin. Always. Speaking of which, you play violin, too? Cool.

You could see if you can apply directions for using a different sound system with Finale to that one. IIRC from setting up Garritan, there's just one or two files you need to put in the right place and then in the Finale MIDI menu choose "Play from VST" and then do stuff with the "Instrument Setup"->"VST instruments" to pick the sounds. I would guess it's basically the same process as with Garritan. Oh, which version of Finale are you using, out of curiosity?


I've listened through the new ones. I'll listen to them again later, but for now:
Mountain King thing: So much In the Hall going on here.
Rhapsody: The only thing that really sticks out as weird to me right now is the ending. I think you should just hold that last chord until it fades out rather than building up again there. There were a few other places where you definitely went a different direction than I was expecting (i.e. 5:30 was building up to a way less cheery section in my brain than in yours) but I thought it worked with the exception of the end.
Quartet: I really liked it once the pizzicato started going, but something felt a little weird for a lot of what was before that. I'm trying to put my finger on what it was. It feels kinda like there wasn't enough bass going on, but I'm not very confident that that's what was really bugging me there.

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