For the Christmas contest: "Valse de Noël"

Contests for Composers Christmas Music Contest (2020)
#1

Hi,

My name is Frank and the composition I made is the second I ever made!

I am an amateur musician and I like to compose Light Classic.
The piece I put here I made after an Idea of a small piano exercise part. The melody line is from Antoine Gili, he is an musician who lived in the 18e century.

Initially it was not the intention to make a Christmas song but as I was working on it and Christmas is only a few days away I decided to give it a Christmas touch!

So I started with two lines of piano music an here is my arrangement!

[]()

Valse de Noël

Here you can see the score: https://youtu.be/vo7d-CWTbcM

5 Likes
#2

Very nicely done. Have you made this in a notation program?

#3

Very nice piece Frank. It definitely has a Christmas-like feel to it, with a bit of a classical influence. Did you write this with sample libraries or notation software?

#4

I created this with Notion 6 and its own Soundbank. I exported the WAVE file and did some mastering on the wave track.

2 Likes
#5

Interesting. I’ve just started using notion 6 to try to learn scores.

1 Like
#6

Do you own Studio One? Since Notion is by Presonus, it integrates with Studio One and you can send the MIDI score from Notion directly to Studio One and then add your preferred sample libraries to the tracks which is nice. I started on Notion as well, but found that it’s sound set wasn’t realistic enough for me and it didn’t read/play dynamic markings properly. It’s a great place to start, but if you can afford it, I highly recommend Steinberg’s Dorico.

The HALion symphony orchestra sound set that’s built into Dorico is a bit nicer in quality than Notion and you can map other higher quality sample libraries like Spitfire’s BBCSO to it, making it even more realistic. I chose to use NotePerformer, which is pretty good for the price, $100 or $10/month if you want.

1 Like
#7

Yes I have Studio one 5 and Notion. I also have Cubase 11 but not Dorico pro.

#8

Hi Matt,
I have a licence for studio one 4 and 5 but I never use it! it’s weir but I always keep going back to Cakewalk.
I use within Cakewalk the Libraries from Chris Hein, to me they are awesome.

I made this is a piece in Cakewalk with Chris Hein Library https://www.bandlab.com/frank_db/talisman-8c580c61?revId=3e3ce7b3-8827-eb11-9fb4-501ac5b31de6

Greets.

2 Likes
#9

Wow your work is stunning.

1 Like
#10

Lovely piece. The CH libraries are very good. Yeah, whatever works best for you and are most comfortable with. Just letting you know you have those options with Notion/Studio One.

Keep up the good work!

1 Like
#11

Very beautiful! It certainly has a shimmering magical Christmas sound to it!

1 Like
#12

Nice piece, Frank. You start at a high level. Welcome and have good Christmas days.

1 Like
#13

Beautiful arrangement on this piece! Really nice and great instrumentation. The only thing I think could help it a bit more is to vary the note velocities, if the notation software allows you to edit them beyond the written dynamic values. For example, if the music says to play the sleigh bells at mezzo forte, the sleigh bell player is going to keep it at mf overall, but he’ll probably hit every downbeat or every two downbeats a little stronger and hit the eighth notes in between a little lighter. But nice work on this piece, I really like it.

1 Like