Alora Fane

Another unproductive week! Bleh!! This week it was because I was distracted by composing some non-game music which I'm really excited about, and would love to release in some form along with a bunch of other music I've composed... but - like with everything these days - I wonder if there's any way to monetise them, since I'm hardly rolling in cash here. I've also been concerned about Flash's impending End of Life...

I thought I was off to a good start this week! Sort of. I was still creatively constipated about the script-writing, so I focused my attention on some of the technical aspects of the game for a bit. I fixed some bugs, and also updated the battle UI to include space for status effects, and an additional mental defence stat, which are things I've wanted to do for ages:

I only stuck with that for a few hours before getting distracted, though. There's a self-made tool I use that I've talked about before, which I use to track my moods and tasks, and I've been wanting to revise that for a while. "I'll be finished in a few hours so I'll do it this afternoon", I thought... then, of course, in typical hilariously-inaccurate-prediction fashion, I ended up spending like three days on it. WHOOPS. It was nice to have something I could just focus on and get lost in, though?

Then I got distracted by another thing...

My Music

I occasionally compose music just for its own sake, which I either play on my piano or add to a playlist I listen to when working to focus. I don't compose things as often as I'd like because time and inspiration are elusive, but I came up with another this week and spent a couple of days on it because I was so enthralled and excited by it! I find it deeply appealing and so satisfying both to play and to just know I created it. I feel I'm getting a lot better when it comes to understanding and making use of music theory concepts, and on a purely technical level, what I'm capable of now is many levels above what I made for my old games over a decade ago.

I looked through all the music I've composed in the last couple of years, and there are 11 non-game pieces I feel happy enough about that I could conceivable compile them into a 45-minute-long album (maybe called something like Melody Paintings), which I'd love to release somewhere... though I always feel I have to worry about monetising my creations these days, and I'm well aware that few - if any - people would be interested in paying real money for music that they have no particular emotional connection to.

Because that is why people like music, isn't it? Is it? I'm assuming people listen to popular music genres either because of sociocultural factors like the connotations of the genre or the image of the creator(s), and to instrumental soundtracks - if they do at all - because listening to them reminds them of the feelings they had while they first heard that music in its proper context (eg the adrenaline rush and/or compelling drama from a particular boss battle).

I say this though while listening to a random album on YouTube that I found purely through algorithm suggestion, and which I have zero emotional connection to. I don't even know anything about the connotations of the genre, creator, or whatever else. I'm listening to it because it's tough for me to find instrumental stuff I really like, so I experiment with stuff I randomly find on YouTube... because they're free, there's no barrier to entry to just searching for some soundtrack and listening to the entire thing to decide whether I like it or not.

So I could release my music on there... but then I don't get anything for it. I wish I didn't have to worry about monetising everything, but it's difficult knowing I've spent hours on this music only for it to be given out entirely for free.

I already have ∞ a Bandcamp page ∞, which I've had since 2009 (surprising). There are six soundtracks on there: MARDEK 1, 2, and 3, MARDEK Piano Collections, Clarence's Big Chance, and a game my ex made that I composed for (Vulpin Adventure). None of the soundtracks ever got many sales even when I was much more popular, though a few dollars have trickled in now and again over the years. The sales stats for 11 years look like this:

So that's about $520 per year. I bet you're deeply envious of this fortune and are frantically reassessing your own lives and wondering whether you could also walk this path to achieve similar staggering success.

It's frustrating to me that there are so many very technically skilled and creatively brilliant creators out there, but so many of them never receive wide recognition because the music they compose isn't even what most people think of when they speak of 'music'. Most people who'd say they 'like music' or ask what 'music' you like are probably thinking of lyrical songs made by bands or singer-songwriters. But there's so much absolutely beautiful stuff out there like this -

- which just gets relegated to the backgrounds of youtube videos or adverts, despite having much more interesting, clever colour to their composition than the majority of... ∞ 'accessible' popular stuff that's in the charts ∞. Instead, hordes of people openly bop their heads to crass millionaires aggressively boasting about their moist genitals. It's a shame.

The stuff I write is more similar to that (the video, not the damp cat/donkey hybrid song) than it is to the stuff in the charts... or even to more obscure stuff people might choose to listen to, maybe? I recently listened to ∞ music from the Homestuck Bandcamp page ∞, which I used to listen to a lot back when Homestuck was big and ongoing (I remember working on Alora Fane Regression at the time... some vivid memories). Only a few of the tracks stand out/appeal to me - I suppose this is always the way though? - while most are forgettable, or in some cases really unpleasant to me. Different tastes and all that. There are quite a few pieces by Toby Fox on there, and they're some of the better ones that I quite like.

Mostly, though, they have a very electronic, percussion-heavy, thickly timbral, energetic quality which I've also noticed characterises the compositions by composers I've seen on youtube (the sorts who do gimmick videos like "CAN I COMPOSE AN EPIC BOSS BATTLE THEME IN 3 SECONDS"). That's probably the sort of stuff that appeals to the young(ish) male/gamer/internet-denizen crowd, whereas my stuff's more gentle, softer, more inspired by classical music. More idiosyncratic?

I don't know. I like it, and I'm really proud of it! I just wonder a lot whether it'd appeal to any minds that aren't mine, since they don't have the "I made this" connection to it. Or even if they liked it, would they like it enough to help me financially in exchange?

I have a lot of music that I've been meaning to compile into an archive of some sort, and which people occasionally ask me about, but it'd take a lot of time to convert the files to the correct formats (I have lots of midis with no mp3 versions). Time I can't really afford to spend if it wouldn't get me any closer to earning enough money to live (I say even though I waste most of my time due to depression).

I'm wondering though whether to set up some kind of page where I could upload albums, both soundtracks and non-game stuff. I could stick with Bandcamp, or I could do some research into what alternatives there are which might actually give appreciative listeners an easy way to give a little back if they want. Ideally I want somewhere where there's a convenient list of all available albums, like Bandcamp has.

I feel like this came up recently since I'm getting severe deja vu here, but if you've ever bought music online, where have you bought it from? Would you be remotely interested in any soundtracks I'd put out, even if they're not from games you've played?

Making money from music is surely a huge field, just like making money from indie games, and it's unlikely that I'll ever excel at the marketing side of either. I probably face similar issues of not appealing to the masses in both domains, though...

Flash EOL

When I turned on my computer today, I was shown a notification from Flash Player telling me - not for the first time - that Flash's End Of Life is at the end of the year. Last week I talked about doing something about porting my old games from Flash to... something, though I got distracted by music composition so I never got around to deciding what to do with them.

On an info page regarding Flash's EOL, though, it says this:

To help secure users’ systems, Adobe will block Flash content from running in Flash Player beginning January 12, 2021.

What does this mean exactly? Would it mean that Adobe will actively stop the execution of Flash Player content, even old stuff? Would that interfere with the MARDEK version I put out? With anything I might do with my other games? I'm using a packaged Flash Player, after all, and it sounds like it'd actively suppress all versions of it? I hope not!

Since I've been struggling so much to focus on Atonal Dreams, I'm thinking maybe I could just stop working on it for the rest of this month/year. I could spend this time looking into porting those old Flash games, and converting my old and current music into albums that I'll put into some kind of online store. I'll have to try to push aside the mental fog for a while to try and focus on those things...

I also look forward to doing end-of-year reviews of my creative progress, so I'll be doing that for Atonal Dreams in the not-too-distant future. Hopefully it'll show that I've actually done quite a lot, even if on the day-to-day basis it feels like such a crawl.

22 COMMENTS

mount201046~4Y

I think you shouldn't be embarrassed about doing *any* kind of work... I know how trite it sounds, but you really have to take it one step at a time, and I think you're doing well on that regard.
I also struggle with focusing on one thing for a long time and I understand how frustrating it must feel to not be able to work on what would potentially change your life situation for the better. But I think life doesn't work that way and it's really the collection of things that you've done along the way that matters... rather than hoping for a single point of relief where you release a game and it becomes a hit and you get a million dollars in a day or something. So... Try not to worry too much about getting distracted because we all need a break. I feel like perhaps you should take the Christmas week off or something and just take your mind off creation for a while... maybe try something new that isn't creation, perhaps even go outside if that isn't too hard... I mean, you probably feel like you've been distracted enough, but punching yourself over it probably won't help, and trying to improve your mental health would probably be more beneficial in the future. I wonder if you've cleaned your room or, or exercised, or something? Perhaps cook something using ingredients you have at home? I don't know, what I'm suggesting is that you take your mind off so that you have a relief from the worry.

Tobias 1115~4Y

It's really tough making money from creative work - alone, at least - so I suppose my biggest hope is that I can just put out a lot of stuff - not just games - and the number of people interested in supporting me as a general creator via Patreon might grow over time... I suppose that's the best way to see it? It's still going to be peanuts compared to what a 'real' job pays, but I'll be okay if it can at least pay the basic bills.

I think I'm just going to take it fairly easy until the end of the year. I was going out for almost-daily walks while listening to audio books a couple of weeks ago, but there's nowhere to go and nobody to go there with, so it just gets incredibly, off-puttingly dull and I stopped bothering. Playing other games is something I could or should do though, so that's a possibility. I tend to feel way better though when I make things - I loved making music last week! - so as long as those things aren't the main project I'm pinning hopes to, I'll feel distracted enough, probably.

It's really tough making money from creative work - alone, at least - so I suppose my biggest hope is that I can just put out a lot of /stuff/ - not just games - and the number of people interested in supporting me as a general creator via Patreon might grow over time... I suppose that's the best way to see it? It's still going to be peanuts compared to what a 'real' job pays, but I'll be okay if it can at least pay the basic bills.

I think I'm just going to take it fairly easy until the end of the year. I was going out for almost-daily walks while listening to audio books a couple of weeks ago, but there's nowhere to go and nobody to go there with, so it just gets incredibly, off-puttingly dull and I stopped bothering. Playing other games is something I could or should do though, so that's a possibility. I tend to feel way better though when I make things - I loved making music last week! - so as long as those things aren't the main project I'm pinning hopes to, I'll feel distracted enough, probably.

MontyCallay101~4Y

In recent years, the standard in music listening has shifted so massively towards streaming (Spotify, Apple Music) that it seems to be where most (younger) people listen to music these days, myself included! But you'd need a distributor to get onto there, and you'd only get a tiny amount of money per song played, so not ideal in your case. Really, putting an album on Bandcamp seems to be the best option for you! It's still where a lot of indie music gets put up, it seems!

And for what it's worth, I'd be interested in buying your music! I'm usually not that much of a fan of the slower, more repetetive pieces like the one you've posted, since to me they often end up sounding like background music, at least out of context - one of the things I like about your music is that you usually end up writing about what was on your mind while composing it, which on its own makes it far more interesting to listen to.

Regarding EOL for Flash Player - as far as I know, "Flash Player" only refers to the browser plugin, not packaged versions. It would be a bit crass to block all flash content from running everywhere!

And for what it's worth, I'd be interested in buying your music! I'm usually not that much of a fan of the slower, more repetetive pieces like the one you've posted, since to me they often end up sounding like background music, at least out of context - one of the things I like about your music is that you usually end up writing about what was on your mind while composing it, which on its own makes it far more interesting to listen to.

Regarding EOL for Flash Player - as far as I know, "Flash Player" only refers to the browser plugin, not packaged versions. It would be a bit crass to block all flash content from running everywhere!

Tobias 1115~4Y

I've never actually used those services like Spotify because I was under the assumption that they were for popular, trendy, charting, lyrical music, but do people ever listen to more niche/instrumental stuff on there? I do remember reading they pay a fraction of a penny per 1000 plays or something like that, though, and I suppose going that route would feel like dipping my toe into 'the music scene', which isn't something I really see my stuff as being part of even though it's technically the same medium.

I showed the piano piece I composed last week to the closest thing I have to a friend these days, and she said something along the lines of "I like piano music because it's relaxing", as if in her not-particularly-musical mind it'd just fallen into the category of 'background (piano) music'. And it seems like a lot of people assume anything instrumental = background music? It's a shame for me since I try to paint pictures with music, tell stories, and they're supposed to be paid attention to, they go places... but without lyrics, they'd likely lack a hook in most minds. They're only 'about' something in a purely abstract, nonverbal sense which I find fascinating, but which I know is elusive. I'd be interested to see if you'd still be interested in buying it after hearing it, since if I go the Bandcamp route that allows you to listen to stuff before (or without) paying.

I showed the piano piece I composed last week to the closest thing I have to a friend these days, and she said something along the lines of "I like piano music because it's relaxing", as if in her not-particularly-musical mind it'd just fallen into the category of 'background (piano) music'. And it seems like a lot of people assume anything instrumental = background music? It's a shame for me since I try to paint pictures with music, tell stories, and they're supposed to be paid attention to, they go places... but without lyrics, they'd likely lack a hook in most minds. They're only 'about' something in a purely abstract, nonverbal sense which I find fascinating, but which I know is elusive. I'd be interested to see if you'd still be interested in buying it after hearing it, since if I go the Bandcamp route that allows you to listen to stuff before (or without) paying.

spritebob10~4Y

I very rarely pay any attention to the meaning of the words used in songs. I think perhaps the main reason for this is because the music I really enjoyed most when I grew up didn't have lyrics, as they were from computer games :D

Speaking of which (that is, music from computer games), that music collection you mentioned, consisting of midis and stuff, um, does it by any good fortune happen to include some groundbreaking news of interest to enthusiasts of themes such as: GABC - E - G - C-Bb...?

appledoo2~4Y

I think when it comes to uploading albums/soundtracks, Bandcamp is probably your best option... although that mostly comes from me not being aware of any other options and only having used Bandcamp to upload one thing, so take that with a grain of salt.

"Would it mean that Adobe will actively stop the execution of Flash Player content, even old stuff?" As someone who did Flash stuff and is somewhat knowledgable in this; Adobe put a hard killswitch in versions of the Flash player after a certain patch in version 36, so people who use versions of Flash earlier than that version should be fine.

"Would that interfere with the MARDEK version I put out? With anything I might do with my other games?" Judging from how the version of MARDEK you used on Steam appears to be built on version 11, it should be fine? Time will have to tell, though, it's been a while since I picked up information on this and my mind is at a blank.

Tobias 1115~4Y

I likely will go with Bandcamp since I'm used to it; my only real concern was that since it's been around for eons, it might be outdated and there might be better options, but I suppose it wouldn't matter too much anyway if the only way people are likely to find the music is through links on this site!

Hopefully that is the case re Flash, since I can imagine a whole lot of people would be annoyed if they stopped ALL Flash content, even old stuff (which probably isn't possible anyway)! It's just the way they worded it on their info page that seemed weird.

Ptyrell37~4Y

Wow that Christopher Slaski piece is really good. I immediately went to Amazon Music to see if it was on there. They only have some of his random film score stuff it seems. I then checked Spotify which I used to use, but it's not there either. All of this is to say that most of the people I know don't purchase music anymore; they listen to music via a streaming service. So I imagine it might be more difficult to monetize music now days. Even that Slaski piece I could only find available for purchase on a website that sold it along with a license so that it could be used as part of a score for a video or something. His soundcloud has several similar pieces, but again it is difficult to find other ways to listen to them.

That video about pop music and the Supertonic was also really interesting! It's easy to make and listen to something with minimal amounts of dissonance that always resolves and relies on a lot of common chords. Definitely different than the music you usually make!

Tobias 1115~4Y

Glad I'm not the only one who saw the beauty in that music! I remember looking him up when I first found his stuff too, and struggling.

I saw a site which said that there are essentially two paths to make money from music: either you can try to make it in 'the music scene', which is all about streaming and which isn't really suitable for what I compose anyway (it's all bands), or you can sell instrumental royalty-free music to be used as background music by whoever buys it. It seems that's what he's done, and that's an option for me too... though I don't know if my music is really 'backgroundy' enough for that, plus I'd need to look into how to actually go about it. I remember loving the music in the game Braid, which was apparently bought from one of these sites.

I wouldn't expect to distribute my music in such a way that I could gain new listeners or sales from strangers; I don't think there's any hope there since as you said, nobody buys music anymore! And even if they did, there's too much competition. Instead, I imagine that people who've found me through other means (primarily games) and are also curious about other music that I've made could find it via links (probably to Bandcamp) from this site. I get the feeling that most of the Bandcamp sales I've got over the years (which have been rare but consistent over time, as the graph shows) were done less to acquire the music and more to support me as a creator, kind of like Patreon but without the commitment. Soundtrack sales on Steam were driven by similar motivations, I've been told.

Glad I'm not the only one who saw the beauty in that music! I remember looking him up when I first found his stuff too, and struggling.

I saw a site which said that there are essentially two paths to make money from music: either you can try to make it in 'the music scene', which is all about streaming and which isn't really suitable for what I compose anyway (it's all bands), or you can sell instrumental royalty-free music to be used as background music by whoever buys it. It seems that's what he's done, and that's an option for me too... though I don't know if my music is really 'backgroundy' enough for that, plus I'd need to look into how to actually go about it. I remember loving the music in the game Braid, which was apparently bought from one of these sites.

I wouldn't expect to distribute my music in such a way that I could gain new listeners or sales from strangers; I don't think there's any hope there since as you said, nobody buys music anymore! And even if they did, there's too much competition. Instead, I imagine that people who've found me through other means (primarily games) and are also curious about other music that I've made could find it via links (probably to Bandcamp) from this site. I get the feeling that most of the Bandcamp sales I've got over the years (which have been rare but consistent over time, as the graph shows) were done less to acquire the music and more to support me as a creator, kind of like Patreon but without the commitment. Soundtrack sales on Steam were driven by similar motivations, I've been told.

Martyr3~4Y

Hey, why I cant download Taming dreams in the Play store?
I paid 3 euros long ago for chapter 3, and I wanna replay it...

Maniafig222~4Y

There's a lot of UI stuff going on in that image you've not really explained!

What does the blue shield above the character portrait mean? Mental defense? What about the light and dark stars? Light/Dark resistance'?

There's also the leaf, sword and yin-yang icons inside of the different actions, as well as the seed and skull/tree icons next to the level indicators, what do those mean?

I think I've mentioned it before, but I almost exclusively listen to music from games I've played, or seen playthroughs of. There's a rare few exceptions, but that's mostly it for me.

The world would be a better place if we listened less to songs about bopping moist genitals and actually bopped moist genitals more. Well, my moist genitals anyway.

Atmospheric music or however you'd call it definitely has its place. A lot of music in horror games is very atmospheric, usually to build up for the moments where things go wrong and the music suddenly gets very intense.

In fact, horror game OSTs in general are just really interesting since they tend to be very evocative and sometimes intentionally unpleasant. Like using what sounds like a dentist's drill as the leading instrument for a theme, really bizarre but it works very well in context. [LINK]

I've seen talk about the flashpocalypse here and there. I'm pretty sure it just means that it'll be impossible to play flash games embedded into websites, but it won't affect games played using the shockwave flash .exe file, which is why I assume a lot of people have been uploading their flash games or compilations of their flash games to steam, they'll still be playable through there.

I look forward to the end-of-year roundup! I'll have to write one of those too, I'm pretty sure my last year's roundup was like 12,000 words.

There's a lot of UI stuff going on in that image you've not really explained!

What does the blue shield above the character portrait mean? Mental defense? What about the light and dark stars? Light/Dark resistance'?

There's also the leaf, sword and yin-yang icons inside of the different actions, as well as the seed and skull/tree icons next to the level indicators, what do those mean?

I think I've mentioned it before, but I almost exclusively listen to music from games I've played, or seen playthroughs of. There's a rare few exceptions, but that's mostly it for me.

The world would be a better place if we listened less to songs about bopping moist genitals and actually bopped moist genitals more. Well, my moist genitals anyway.

Atmospheric music or however you'd call it definitely has its place. A lot of music in horror games is very atmospheric, usually to build up for the moments where things go wrong and the music suddenly gets very intense.

In fact, horror game OSTs in general are just really interesting since they tend to be very evocative and sometimes intentionally unpleasant. Like using what sounds like a dentist's drill as the leading instrument for a theme, really bizarre but it works very well in context. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tY92NAdGaR4

I've seen talk about the flashpocalypse here and there. I'm pretty sure it just means that it'll be impossible to play flash games embedded into websites, but it won't affect games played using the shockwave flash .exe file, which is why I assume a lot of people have been uploading their flash games or compilations of their flash games to steam, they'll still be playable through there.

I look forward to the end-of-year roundup! I'll have to write one of those too, I'm pretty sure my last year's roundup was like 12,000 words.

Tobias 1115~4Y

I probably explained the UI stuff somewhere, but who knows! Maybe it ended up in one of the posts I half-wrote and never published.

The blue shield is mental defence, which felt necessary since the light/dark stats are used offensively but also for conversion, so if a boss had, say, 100 dark so it was hard to convert, then that'd mean its dark attacks would be absolutely monstrous. It'd make sense to give it a more reasonable dark stat but high mental defence. Some enemies could have enormous mental defence if they weren't meant to be tamed at all.

If by light/dark stars you mean the yellow and purple circles with stars in them, they're status effects! Something I've been wondering about the placement of since moving the 'statues' from the top and bottom to the sides. These are just placeholders to show the layout though; actual status effects would have icons that show what they actually are.

Interesting that you perceived that icon as a leaf! It's actually an extremely stylised brain viewed from the front/back, though I suppose that's hardly clear. Those icons are the skill's type: physical, mental, or status. Like Pokemon. The seed and skull are... something I forget the name of, I talked about them in a post a while back. They're bonuses that the skills get from levelling up. Oh, life, death, spirit! I think that was it. Death skills add their level to damage/healing, life ones add it to HP, spirit ones add level% speed bar fill on use.

I'm not interested in horror as a genre of anything, but I do find it interesting how something that barely even qualifies as music in a technical sense is used as such to great effect in that genre!

I probably explained the UI stuff /somewhere/, but who knows! Maybe it ended up in one of the posts I half-wrote and never published.

The blue shield is mental defence, which felt necessary since the light/dark stats are used offensively but also for conversion, so if a boss had, say, 100 dark so it was hard to convert, then that'd mean its dark attacks would be absolutely monstrous. It'd make sense to give it a more reasonable dark stat but high mental defence. Some enemies could have enormous mental defence if they weren't meant to be tamed at all.

If by light/dark stars you mean the yellow and purple circles with stars in them, they're status effects! Something I've been wondering about the placement of since moving the 'statues' from the top and bottom to the sides. These are just placeholders to show the layout though; actual status effects would have icons that show what they actually are.

Interesting that you perceived that icon as a leaf! It's actually an extremely stylised brain viewed from the front/back, though I suppose that's hardly clear. Those icons are the skill's type: physical, mental, or status. Like Pokemon. The seed and skull are... something I forget the name of, I talked about them in a post a while back. They're bonuses that the skills get from levelling up. Oh, life, death, spirit! I think that was it. Death skills add their level to damage/healing, life ones add it to HP, spirit ones add level% speed bar fill on use.

I'm not interested in horror as a genre of anything, but I do find it interesting how something that barely even qualifies as music in a technical sense is used as such to great effect in that genre!

phsc57~4Y

Well, I don't think Adobe can really stop flash from working for real if you do not update it? and even then, just download an older version? in this case, cannot you install or include an older version of flash player for people to install and such so they can play your games? I play a ton of old games and such and that is how I do it, but I think that launchers like you made for MARDEK would still work? the reason I think this is because there is a person I know (a flash game developer called Eric Gurt who made games vastly different from yours like Plazma Burst and Plazma Burst 2), and he did make a launcher for Plazma Burst 2 (which is multiplayer and still has a decent community, which is pretty interesting), and according to him it should still work after Flash's death, that is the reason he made it really!

And about music, I myself am a composer, I compose some quite boring stuff I think, very different from your stuff, I found your soundcloud and I liked some stuff from there, however you only have 50 followers, soundcloud is not the place for this kind of music, and even less for mine (I mean I do not have fans like you so I guess this does not help).
Well, I don't really use my music for anything or try to make money out of it, I just do it because I like it, it helps my soul, it helps me be happier and generally helps me deal with general feelings someone might feel, making money out of music is very, very hard and I think it is easier for you to create a Patreon or something or a Bandicamp like you have so people can give you some money for your stuff, but how are they going to know if they like it? put some of it on Youtube (maybe some of your best work) to get them interested and the rest under a paid wall? but then a ton of people use Spotify and such, add it there and make it free? I don't know, I like your music, like a lot, I actually like your older music not only because of nostalgia (probably makes me really like the MARDEK soundtrack) but also because of it's quality, some of your games I never really played that have music were pretty great, your style seems to go a bit further from what I enjoy but I respect that and can see the quality in it, I think you should give a try? I know some people that would enjoy your works, I might as well recommend.
Also, about the MIDIs to MP3 thing, shouldn't it be quite easy? if I know right, you use Sibelius (I know you made the MARDEK soundtrack with Sibelius), you can just export it as a MP3 right? well, if you can't, Musescore which is free has that feature, I am unsure about soundfonts and such, shouldn't really take long unless you have an absurd amount of files, right?
Also, about music being simple and how talented people get ignored, this is a thing that happens with everything, accessibility is the key to making money and being popular, not some form of quality, you know that, but I don't think new music is that much of an issue, in the past so much amazing stuff has been made and there is so much to explore, at least towards what I like the most, which is a bit different from what you like, but know that this has always happened, I just ignore it, I mean in that video you sent, I literally did not know a single artist other than Justin Timberlake, and then I stopped to think about it, and I don't know him, the dude did mention Taylor Swift as well, not my kind of thing, but let me tell you something, the stuff in that video is extremely high quality when compared to some popular music from other parts of the world, ever heard of Brazilian funk? it is kind of like... a joke really, taking it seriously is hard, it often does not even have melody or harmony with extremely boring and repetitive percussion, with people who have no skill for anything with some of the worst lyrics I've ever seen, but it works because it's gross and like, teens like that or something? going agaisn't the norms? also because it is quite funny, for me it is not so funny, more like, depressing.

And about music, I myself am a composer, I compose some quite boring stuff I think, very different from your stuff, I found your soundcloud and I liked some stuff from there, however you only have 50 followers, soundcloud is not the place for this kind of music, and even less for mine (I mean I do not have fans like you so I guess this does not help).
Well, I don't really use my music for anything or try to make money out of it, I just do it because I like it, it helps my soul, it helps me be happier and generally helps me deal with general feelings someone might feel, making money out of music is very, very hard and I think it is easier for you to create a Patreon or something or a Bandicamp like you have so people can give you some money for your stuff, but how are they going to know if they like it? put some of it on Youtube (maybe some of your best work) to get them interested and the rest under a paid wall? but then a ton of people use Spotify and such, add it there and make it free? I don't know, I like your music, like a lot, I actually like your older music not only because of nostalgia (probably makes me really like the MARDEK soundtrack) but also because of it's quality, some of your games I never really played that have music were pretty great, your style seems to go a bit further from what I enjoy but I respect that and can see the quality in it, I think you should give a try? I know some people that would enjoy your works, I might as well recommend.
Also, about the MIDIs to MP3 thing, shouldn't it be quite easy? if I know right, you use Sibelius (I know you made the MARDEK soundtrack with Sibelius), you can just export it as a MP3 right? well, if you can't, Musescore which is free has that feature, I am unsure about soundfonts and such, shouldn't really take long unless you have an absurd amount of files, right?
Also, about music being simple and how talented people get ignored, this is a thing that happens with everything, accessibility is the key to making money and being popular, not some form of quality, you know that, but I don't think new music is that much of an issue, in the past so much amazing stuff has been made and there is so much to explore, at least towards what I like the most, which is a bit different from what you like, but know that this has always happened, I just ignore it, I mean in that video you sent, I literally did not know a single artist other than Justin Timberlake, and then I stopped to think about it, and I don't know him, the dude did mention Taylor Swift as well, not my kind of thing, but let me tell you something, the stuff in that video is extremely high quality when compared to some popular music from other parts of the world, ever heard of Brazilian funk? it is kind of like... a joke really, taking it seriously is hard, it often does not even have melody or harmony with extremely boring and repetitive percussion, with people who have no skill for anything with some of the worst lyrics I've ever seen, but it works because it's gross and like, teens like that or something? going agaisn't the norms? also because it is quite funny, for me it is not so funny, more like, depressing.

Tobias 1115~4Y

Interesting that you're a composer too! I always wonder how many people decide to compose their own music. What kind of music do you make?

I only used Soundcloud very briefly ages ago and never really bothered engaging with it, so I wouldn't expect to have many followers there! My main issue was with the severe limitations on how much you can upload there for free. My main hope for any music I release wouldn't be to attract new fans or anything, it'd just be something that people who've already found me through other means could find via a link on this site if they already like my other works. Any new listeners would be a nice bonus, but I wouldn't expect that. I'll likely put it on Bandcamp, which lets you listen to the music for free and allows you to pay in support but doesn't force you to. I could put it on youtube too eventually, but I don't see that amounting to anything other than a few hundred views maybe.

I use Sibelius to export my newer music directly to mp3, but my old stuff was composed using the standard midi 'soundfont' (or it's more like the default when no soundfont is provided), and Sibelius won't export mp3s with that because it counts as there being no soundfont in use. If I exported using the soundfont I use for my new stuff, it'd sound entirely wrong! So it's important that I get it to sound as it did to me when I composed it, which is the tricky bit.

Interesting that you're a composer too! I always wonder how many people decide to compose their own music. What kind of music do you make?

I only used Soundcloud very briefly ages ago and never really bothered engaging with it, so I wouldn't expect to have many followers there! My main issue was with the severe limitations on how much you can upload there for free. My main hope for any music I release wouldn't be to attract new fans or anything, it'd just be something that people who've already found me through other means could find via a link on this site if they already like my other works. Any new listeners would be a nice bonus, but I wouldn't expect that. I'll likely put it on Bandcamp, which lets you listen to the music for free and allows you to pay in support but doesn't force you to. I could put it on youtube too eventually, but I don't see that amounting to anything other than a few hundred views maybe.

I use Sibelius to export my newer music directly to mp3, but my old stuff was composed using the standard midi 'soundfont' (or it's more like the default when no soundfont is provided), and Sibelius won't export mp3s with that because it counts as there being no soundfont in use. If I exported using the soundfont I use for my new stuff, it'd sound entirely wrong! So it's important that I get it to sound as it did to me when I composed it, which is the tricky bit.

phsc57~4Y

Well, I made a quite interesting variety of music, I am a big fan of classical music in general (actually what I like the most is late baroque and then my second favorite genre is like neoclassical shred metal and the third one is synthwave?), but not limited to that, but I have made a ton of stuff (most unfinished/things I don't want to share), music is purely a hobby to me and I don't really think anyone would be interested in the stuff I make so I keep it to myself sharing it with those who might be interested and find me in their paths.
[LINK] this is my soundcloud, pretty dead.
Most of the stuff I composed was from when I was still learning music theory (I got quite deep into it! if you want to learn more about music theory I recommend reading the enormous and quite confusing book called Harmony by Arnold Schoenberg, and also maybe check out his music? this is more classical focused but still very interesting and helped me a lot).
[LINK] this is some of my first... things, it's quite bizarre really, I don't know, I don't like it much, but I wouldn't say it is bad.
[LINK] this was me trying to play with the sonata form but actually I kind of failed so I turned it into a super weird... thing? I kinda like it, it's interesting I think.
[LINK] there is also this, which I think is the favorite piece I've made! I really like it, a lot really, it starts in G minor and ends in Bb major, that was my goal, my idea was to make it as interesting as possible in the way, to my standards, I think it also shows my interest in counterpoint and the inspirations from the fugue form (my favorite more formal form, often having some of my favorite music ever in such form).
[LINK] then there is this, quite a bizarre combination, pipe organ and electric guitar, my two favorite instruments, I really like it, I think it is the only piece of music I truly expressed what I was feeling at the time, I don't know really.

Well, I have been composing less and less because I think that there are so many great talented people out there with so much great content I'd rather consume than create, I do still create but much less, making something for yourself only is great, but often more frustrating than joyful, making something great is great, but sometimes things just don't go well, I think my standards are too high for myself, but so are my inspiration and my ambition, quite pointless I think, but it helps (mostly helped) my soul, so I guess it was all and still is worth it?

Well, what do you think?

Also, about your issue with music, you probably can automate a script to play the music and just keep recording it with Audacity, right?
Also, quite far and probably too much work, but you probably should make a more formal website for you, with links to your games, methods of payment, something that is easier for someone who never heard of you to see and be interested in, with very useful resources such as the ones I mentioned, what do you think about this also?

Well, I made a quite interesting variety of music, I am a big fan of classical music in general (actually what I like the most is late baroque and then my second favorite genre is like neoclassical shred metal and the third one is synthwave?), but not limited to that, but I have made a ton of stuff (most unfinished/things I don't want to share), music is purely a hobby to me and I don't really think anyone would be interested in the stuff I make so I keep it to myself sharing it with those who might be interested and find me in their paths.
https://soundcloud.com/phsc7 this is my soundcloud, pretty dead.
Most of the stuff I composed was from when I was still learning music theory (I got quite deep into it! if you want to learn more about music theory I recommend reading the enormous and quite confusing book called Harmony by Arnold Schoenberg, and also maybe check out his music? this is more classical focused but still very interesting and helped me a lot).
https://soundcloud.com/phsc7/bipolar-etude-op-1 this is some of my first... things, it's quite bizarre really, I don't know, I don't like it much, but I wouldn't say it is bad.
https://soundcloud.com/phsc7/etude-no2 this was me trying to play with the sonata form but actually I kind of failed so I turned it into a super weird... thing? I kinda like it, it's interesting I think.
https://soundcloud.com/phsc7/string-quarter-bb-major there is also this, which I think is the favorite piece I've made! I really like it, a lot really, it starts in G minor and ends in Bb major, that was my goal, my idea was to make it as interesting as possible in the way, to my standards, I think it also shows my interest in counterpoint and the inspirations from the fugue form (my favorite more formal form, often having some of my favorite music ever in such form).
https://soundcloud.com/phsc7/desire then there is this, quite a bizarre combination, pipe organ and electric guitar, my two favorite instruments, I really like it, I think it is the only piece of music I truly expressed what I was feeling at the time, I don't know really.

Well, I have been composing less and less because I think that there are so many great talented people out there with so much great content I'd rather consume than create, I do still create but much less, making something for yourself only is great, but often more frustrating than joyful, making something great is great, but sometimes things just don't go well, I think my standards are too high for myself, but so are my inspiration and my ambition, quite pointless I think, but it helps (mostly helped) my soul, so I guess it was all and still is worth it?

Well, what do you think?

Also, about your issue with music, you probably can automate a script to play the music and just keep recording it with Audacity, right?
Also, quite far and probably too much work, but you probably should make a more formal website for you, with links to your games, methods of payment, something that is easier for someone who never heard of you to see and be interested in, with very useful resources such as the ones I mentioned, what do you think about this also?

Tobias 1115~4Y

I meant to reply to you days ago, but got caught up with stuff like putting my old album on Bandcamp so it's taken a while, sorry!

I've listened to all of your music that you linked to! Twice, even, since I feel that it's hard to fully absorb any music during the first listening.

One superficial thing I noticed is the quality of the instrument sounds. What software did you use?

But more than that, being interested in psychology as I am, I was particularly curious about perception, and how we hear our own music compared to how others hear it! I often felt that my earlier stuff was hard to follow, but when I listen to it now, it sounds fine... though that could be because I'm used to it? Maybe it feels hard to follow to others' ears too. I got a similar feel from yours, since it went in such interesting directions; I felt like I couldn't predict where it was going, every turn was a surprise. But maybe to your ears it flows really fluidly because you're intimately familiar with it! This isn't a bad thing, by the way; something I dislike about popular music is how incredibly simple it is so as to not lose its listeners... and I get lost the first few listens of most music that I end up loving a lot. Maybe that's unique to me though!

I can definitely see the classical - and especially baroque - influences! Actually I find those genres difficult to follow in general, so maybe that explains the other stuff I said? I've always found it hard to listen to Bach for that reason. I do like classical, though, or I suppose it's more accurate to say I like the romantic period? (Which seems to be clumped together with 'Classical' despite massive differences...) That's been much, much more of an inspiration to me than the modern stuff that fills the charts!

The string quartet sounds very dark to me! The comment someone left about it belonging in Castlevania irritates me a bit, but I also see where they're coming from because it does create that kind of mood, like an ornate, sophisticated, dark castle or something, I feel.

Desire feels very intensely evocative to me! I can definitely feel something there, and I find the combination of sounds of instruments from usually separate domains so intriguing!

I have mixed feelings about commenting on music... On the one hand I wish I could give really detailed feedback, but on the other I worry that other opinions can spoil what it means to us... This is why I've kept most of mine - especially modern stuff - to myself for so long. So hopefully nothing I've said here has been bad! Thanks for sharing!

I meant to reply to you days ago, but got caught up with stuff like putting my old album on Bandcamp so it's taken a while, sorry!

I've listened to all of your music that you linked to! Twice, even, since I feel that it's hard to fully absorb any music during the first listening.

One superficial thing I noticed is the quality of the instrument sounds. What software did you use?

But more than that, being interested in psychology as I am, I was particularly curious about perception, and how we hear our own music compared to how others hear it! I often felt that my earlier stuff was hard to follow, but when I listen to it now, it sounds fine... though that could be because I'm used to it? Maybe it feels hard to follow to others' ears too. I got a similar feel from yours, since it went in such interesting directions; I felt like I couldn't predict where it was going, every turn was a surprise. But maybe to your ears it flows really fluidly because you're intimately familiar with it! This isn't a bad thing, by the way; something I dislike about popular music is how incredibly simple it is so as to not lose its listeners... and I get lost the first few listens of most music that I end up loving a lot. Maybe that's unique to me though!

I can definitely see the classical - and especially baroque - influences! Actually I find those genres difficult to follow in general, so maybe that explains the other stuff I said? I've always found it hard to listen to Bach for that reason. I do like classical, though, or I suppose it's more accurate to say I like the romantic period? (Which seems to be clumped together with 'Classical' despite massive differences...) That's been much, much more of an inspiration to me than the modern stuff that fills the charts!

The string quartet sounds very dark to me! The comment someone left about it belonging in Castlevania irritates me a bit, but I also see where they're coming from because it does create that kind of mood, like an ornate, sophisticated, dark castle or something, I feel.

/Desire/ feels very intensely evocative to me! I can definitely feel something there, and I find the combination of sounds of instruments from usually separate domains so intriguing!

I have mixed feelings about commenting on music... On the one hand I wish I could give really detailed feedback, but on the other I worry that other opinions can spoil what it means to us... This is why I've kept most of mine - especially modern stuff - to myself for so long. So hopefully nothing I've said here has been bad! Thanks for sharing!

phsc57~4Y

I am getting an error trying to comment! the javascript alert simply says "Failed" and I was thinking it was because of some special characters, but even removing them it still fails, the comment is quite long (12k characters) and I was thinking maybe it was above the limit? but I added it all to pastebin, [LINK] (there are some typos btw)

Here it goes, divided into some parts, it was really the size I think:

I use Musescore, I am not really very experient with instrument quality when working with music with a computer so I don't really know much about soundfonts and such! I would like higher quality stuff but I don't really know where to find it!

This thing you said is very true, the way people perceive music as far as I know (this goes a bit deeper than music theory itself! to an extent I did do more academical work that involves music!) is very, very based on their own experience with music! if you play indian classical music to someone who only listens to mainstream pop, they probably wouldn't even be able to understand some of the intervals used in indian classical music, and they will very likely think it is very boring! this also gets to why people say classical music is boring! because in modern pop music you constantly have the resolution of dissonance/lack of harmony, which gives pleasure to people (GENERALLY SPEAKING), and that does not happen in classical music that often, there is a very good TED talk on that (not exactly what I am saying but it talks about the beauty of classical music and why people think it is boring), it uses Chopin as the example, [LINK]
About your earlier stuff, it always felt very natural to me! kind of predictable but also not (I think your themes and the way you develop them are quite creative and I really like your older stuff! also how they fit extremely well with when and where they are played), but then maybe generally I've always been exposed to similar styled music? there was an Adam Neely video related to this topic (I recommend the channel, it is very great for music content creation! but he is more into jazz) but I don't remember the name, I remember the source was a neuroscience book by a woman and I did read a part of it but I also cannot remember the name of the book and couldn't find the PDF or it's name reading my lists and this is very frustrating! but in general, your "musical taste" is mostly defined when you are like 10-15, GENERALLY, it is the average, after that it gets quite complicated to get into vastly different styles, but it is possible, just less likely, it is quite a fascinating topic!

Here it goes, divided into some parts, it was really the size I think:

I use Musescore, I am not really very experient with instrument quality when working with music with a computer so I don't really know much about soundfonts and such! I would like higher quality stuff but I don't really know where to find it!
 
This thing you said is very true, the way people perceive music as far as I know (this goes a bit deeper than music theory itself! to an extent I did do more academical work that involves music!) is very, very based on their own experience with music! if you play indian classical music to someone who only listens to mainstream pop, they probably wouldn't even be able to understand some of the intervals used in indian classical music, and they will very likely think it is very boring! this also gets to why people say classical music is boring! because in modern pop music you constantly have the resolution of dissonance/lack of harmony, which gives pleasure to people (GENERALLY SPEAKING), and that does not happen in classical music that often, there is a very good TED talk on that (not exactly what I am saying but it talks about the beauty of classical music and why people think it is boring), it uses Chopin as the example, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9LCwI5iErE
About your earlier stuff, it always felt very natural to me! kind of predictable but also not (I think your themes and the way you develop them are quite creative and I really like your older stuff! also how they fit extremely well with when and where they are played), but then maybe generally I've always been exposed to similar styled music? there was an Adam Neely video related to this topic (I recommend the channel, it is very great for music content creation! but he is more into jazz) but I don't remember the name, I remember the source was a neuroscience book by a woman and I did read a part of it but I also cannot remember the name of the book and couldn't find the PDF or it's name reading my lists and this is very frustrating! but in general, your "musical taste" is mostly defined when you are like 10-15, GENERALLY, it is the average, after that it gets quite complicated to get into vastly different styles, but it is possible, just less likely, it is quite a fascinating topic!

phsc57~4Y

My music is very based on classical music in general (this term really annoys me as well, some people say the right term is "art" music but this is extremely arrogant in my opinion and very few people understand that term anyway, but even within classical music as in the period there is a lot of things that differ a lot! generally it is used to refer to the galant period (CPE Bach and such), but also Roccoco, and if you take Haydn and Mozart and compare the two I'd say the difference is bigger than if you compare Dvořák with Mahler, and if you compare someone less known like Gluck to Mozart and Haydn the difference is absurd!), from all periods to an extent, Generic piano piece no. 2 is based mostly on the classical period and Mozart specifically, but it does go in vastly different ways later on.
Also saying baroque is super strange, people think of JS Bach and such when someone says baroque, but Bach was composing quite old music for his time but in extremely complex ways and extremely innovative at the same time! he literally as far as I know was the first person to tune an instrument like they are tuned these days (440 Hz) and make pieces in some keys that sound very strange in other tunings (holy, tunings and such is also a quite interesting topic! I think Adam Neely has a few videos on that and how it works, it is very interesting!), and he was also using some super different scales and in general methods of developing the music that were quite strange for his time and he did get pretty much ignored to an extent and you can even see he did make some music just to "sell" while making some of his most amazing works mostly for himself, actually I am curious about what you think about some of his pieces! it is very rare for me to find someone who is very open to new music and I think you might be, and Bach is my favorite composer and I really want to see if someone gets a similar feeling to what I feel when I listen to his stuff:
[LINK]
[LINK]
[LINK]

But about simplicity and such, it is effective! it is easy to understand, to dissect, and that is why it is popular, this comes from the fact POPular music comes from generally speaking lower roots where people generally had less knowledge and such and made simpler things, and then with industrialization that also got industrialized! and it will all just get worse I think, but there is still some amazing stuff you can find! some more modern genres and such that while simplistic, they are very interesting, ever heard of synthwave or vaporwave? while simple, the general vibe and feeling are amazing to me, I think it really works because of my detached view towards mainstream music and how in general such genres fit that, it is interesting how "trash" can become beautiful, just like something destroyed can, that is how I interpreted such genres to an extent.

My music is very based on classical music in general (this term really annoys me as well, some people say the right term is "art" music but this is extremely arrogant in my opinion and very few people understand that term anyway, but even within classical music as in the period there is a lot of things that differ a lot! generally it is used to refer to the galant period (CPE Bach and such), but also Roccoco, and if you take Haydn and Mozart and compare the two I'd say the difference is bigger than if you compare Dvořák with Mahler, and if you compare someone less known like Gluck to Mozart and Haydn the difference is absurd!), from all periods to an extent, Generic piano piece no. 2 is based mostly on the classical period and Mozart specifically, but it does go in vastly different ways later on.
Also saying baroque is super strange, people think of JS Bach and such when someone says baroque, but Bach was composing quite old music for his time but in extremely complex ways and extremely innovative at the same time! he literally as far as I know was the first person to tune an instrument like they are tuned these days (440 Hz) and make pieces in some keys that sound very strange in other tunings (holy, tunings and such is also a quite interesting topic! I think Adam Neely has a few videos on that and how it works, it is very interesting!), and he was also using some super different scales and in general methods of developing the music that were quite strange for his time and he did get pretty much ignored to an extent and you can even see he did make some music just to "sell" while making some of his most amazing works mostly for himself, actually I am curious about what you think about some of his pieces! it is very rare for me to find someone who is very open to new music and I think you might be, and Bach is my favorite composer and I really want to see if someone gets a similar feeling to what I feel when I listen to his stuff:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7S2pm1g70DI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pfnkz1cFp8g
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYouXtuk0T8
 
But about simplicity and such, it is effective! it is easy to understand, to dissect, and that is why it is popular, this comes from the fact POPular music comes from generally speaking lower roots where people generally had less knowledge and such and made simpler things, and then with industrialization that also got industrialized! and it will all just get worse I think, but there is still some amazing stuff you can find! some more modern genres and such that while simplistic, they are very interesting, ever heard of synthwave or vaporwave? while simple, the general vibe and feeling are amazing to me, I think it really works because of my detached view towards mainstream music and how in general such genres fit that, it is interesting how "trash" can become beautiful, just like something destroyed can, that is how I interpreted such genres to an extent.

phsc57~4Y

The string quartet is by far the piece I am most inspired by Bach (and Buxtehude who was Bach's biggest inspiration and Bach was a really, really big fan of him! some Buxtehude so you can compare [LINK], from how it develops themes, to the 4 voices, to being a string quartet, to having a general idea that is developed in a quite different way within a pattern ([LINK] this piece in my opinion greatly shows this and it is very, very unique to me! but I am unsure if you will see the patterns and the general idea behind it), also how it ends in a major chord while being pretty much something minor (that part in the middle is hard to describe) and generally very sad and dark but ending in a quite... beautiful way? that is how I see it, and this is how I see most of Bach's pieces, the more I listen to his works the more beautiful they become, I realize something I did not realize the first time, not to mention when it has been a while since I listened to a piece of his and I listen to it again and just realize how amazing they are to me.
Also, the comment was made by a friend of mine kind of as a joke (it is typical of him), so don't get irritated over it! but if it was someone else I would also be annoyed, this happens a lot actually, and it is one of the reasons I don't like talking about music, because people don't understand something or are not open to it so they just say something stupid, Castlevania specifically is not that based out of baroque music! it is mostly based on romantic music if you take a deeper look, or even more modern music depending on the game (like Symphony of the Night), but HAHA VAMPIRE, another interesting channel I must recommend to you that is REALLY, REALLY informative and I remember it had a video very similar to the Adam Neely one I mentioned is Sideways, [LINK], I really like his videos and they really made me see a lot of things I did not see before! I mention him because of his last video "Why Pipe Organs Sound Scary", this also reminds me of a book called "On Repeat: How Music Plays the Mind" by Elizabeth Margulis which I used for some stuff (which I will show later in this comment), which can also explain to an extent why repetition and simplicity are very popular in pop music! also The Song Machine: Inside the Hit Factory by John Seabrook (I got both of these out of a Sideways video and both are very interesting!) and it's title should do a good job to give you an idea of what it talks about, Sideway's video "When Soundtracks Repeat" is mostly about a soundtrack for a movie, but it gets really good and talks about this topic later on, I really recommend you to read both books! and watch the video if you want to build up some "hype" for it, I really, really recommend this! I also recommend Sideway's video on the 4 chords, I think you will find all of these very interesting! and this all affects the two genres I mentioned, vaporwave and synthwave!

But well, back to my music, Desire is a piece I made when I was quite down, and it is quite evocative to me, I simply followed my feelings and what I felt was ideal at the time, I like slow building organ pieces (I really like the Passacaglia and Fugue in C minor BWV 582 I posted a link to before! and the passacaglia form in general) and I really like the electric guitar, and I imagine it is not an instrument you like a lot (other than in Steele's theme for MARDEK, did you ever use it anywhere?), and well, may I recommend you one musician, one which I really, really like, Jason Becker, and may I also tell you his story, Jason Becker is a musician who started out with a ton of classical influences and such, and ended up playing metal, he is super not well known and in my opinion one of the best musicians ever, I will make some recommendations so you get what I am trying to say, in kind of a chronological order:
[LINK] (this is pretty much metal... but classical music? there is another piece with the name of the album in the album???)
[LINK] (I really, really like this piece)
[LINK] (this might give you a similar feeling of it not being that predictable and such I think)
[LINK] (I also really, really, really like this piece)
[LINK] (this is literally classical music but in a very... interesting... way?)
[LINK] (I think you might enjoy this more than the other stuff I sent? it is very... interesting, some of his other stuff from that album is also like this, this is pretty much... classical music?)
And then he had ALS and now is unable to play guitar, but still composes, very tragic, and he is also quite ignored but I think his stuff is amazing and like very few people are open to shred neoclassical metal?
What I wanted to say is that, Jason Becker was an inspiration of mine in this piece.

And well, commenting on music, generally speaking it is very unpleasant because it is very rare for someone to feel what you feel when listening to something, and this is something I'd like to ask to you, when you listen to something, do you see flaws (according to your taste)? things you would change to make it better? and it makes it very hard for you to listen to it with such flaws? this happens a lot to me, and I never had the chance to ask someone who composes this, but music is very subjective and just like everything that is very subjective talking about it is complicated, but I am quite cold when it comes to words, and I understand it is simply your view of such pieces and well, not everything is for everyone, you probably won't like indian classical music if you listen to it, just like someone who only listens to K-Pop won't like listening to the Große Fuge by Beethoven, but I guess it is always useful, because you can see what causes people to like things in clearer ways? but this is also why I keep my stuff mostly private, at last, I did some work with machine learning and music! I have very few, like very few uploaded stuff, I think on my soundcloud there is literally only one thing, [LINK], what do you think? this is rather primitive and I have way more well developed things, also the way I did it was mostly focusing on music theory and not just the patterns that appear in music per se, so one could compose with sheet music (actually MIDI files) using such tool, not to compose for the musician but to give him ideas, and there is a lot of very... wild? stuff.

I guess this was quite long, a lot of recommendations and such but I hope you check them since it is very rare for me to find someone who is interested in more... complicated? music, also check out the books and the youtube channels, I'm going to give a listen to the stuff you've released! and I am also quite happy that you did update your website and make it easier to understand for newcomers! and also more practical I would say, good job!

The string quartet is by far the piece I am most inspired by Bach (and Buxtehude who was Bach's biggest inspiration and Bach was a really, really big fan of him! some Buxtehude so you can compare https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVd14ER_Gt0), from how it develops themes, to the 4 voices, to being a string quartet, to having a general idea that is developed in a quite different way within a pattern (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukx-u-Q6Hes this piece in my opinion greatly shows this and it is very, very unique to me! but I am unsure if you will see the patterns and the general idea behind it), also how it ends in a major chord while being pretty much something minor (that part in the middle is hard to describe) and generally very sad and dark but ending in a quite... beautiful way? that is how I see it, and this is how I see most of Bach's pieces, the more I listen to his works the more beautiful they become, I realize something I did not realize the first time, not to mention when it has been a while since I listened to a piece of his and I listen to it again and just realize how amazing they are to me.
Also, the comment was made by a friend of mine kind of as a joke (it is typical of him), so don't get irritated over it! but if it was someone else I would also be annoyed, this happens a lot actually, and it is one of the reasons I don't like talking about music, because people don't understand something or are not open to it so they just say something stupid, Castlevania specifically is not that based out of baroque music! it is mostly based on romantic music if you take a deeper look, or even more modern music depending on the game (like Symphony of the Night), but HAHA VAMPIRE, another interesting channel I must recommend to you that is REALLY, REALLY informative and I remember it had a video very similar to the Adam Neely one I mentioned is Sideways, https://www.youtube.com/c/Sideways440/videos, I really like his videos and they really made me see a lot of things I did not see before! I mention him because of his last video "Why Pipe Organs Sound Scary", this also reminds me of a book called "On Repeat: How Music Plays the Mind" by Elizabeth Margulis which I used for some stuff (which I will show later in this comment), which can also explain to an extent why repetition and simplicity are very popular in pop music!  also The Song Machine: Inside the Hit Factory by John Seabrook (I got both of these out of a Sideways video and both are very interesting!) and it's title should do a good job to give you an idea of what it talks about, Sideway's video "When Soundtracks Repeat" is mostly about a soundtrack for a movie, but it gets really good and talks about this topic later on, I really recommend you to read both books! and watch the video if you want to build up some "hype" for it, I really, really recommend this! I also recommend Sideway's video on the 4 chords, I think you will find all of these very interesting! and this all affects the two genres I mentioned, vaporwave and synthwave!
 
But well, back to my music, Desire is a piece I made when I was quite down, and it is quite evocative to me, I simply followed my feelings and what I felt was ideal at the time, I like slow building organ pieces (I really like the Passacaglia and Fugue in C minor BWV 582 I posted a link to before! and the passacaglia form in general) and I really like the electric guitar, and I imagine it is not an instrument you like a lot (other than in Steele's theme for MARDEK, did you ever use it anywhere?), and well, may I recommend you one musician, one which I really, really like, Jason Becker, and may I also tell you his story, Jason Becker is a musician who started out with a ton of classical influences and such, and ended up playing metal, he is super not well known and in my opinion one of the best musicians ever, I will make some recommendations so you get what I am trying to say, in kind of a chronological order:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_U-w0NpIYM (this is pretty much metal... but classical music? there is another piece with the name of the album in the album???)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVmWkmg-WZY (I really, really like this piece)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JxoxBNAKtNA (this might give you a similar feeling of it not being that predictable and such I think)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lR1tt24mo4 (I also really, really, really like this piece)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtjOe5e9VFA (this is literally classical music but in a very... interesting... way?)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7MEDrzcPbM (I think you might enjoy this more than the other stuff I sent? it is very... interesting, some of his other stuff from that album is also like this, this is pretty much... classical music?)
And then he had ALS and now is unable to play guitar, but still composes, very tragic, and he is also quite ignored but I think his stuff is amazing and like very few people are open to shred neoclassical metal?
What I wanted to say is that, Jason Becker was an inspiration of mine in this piece.
 
And well, commenting on music, generally speaking it is very unpleasant because it is very rare for someone to feel what you feel when listening to something, and this is something I'd like to ask to you, when you listen to something, do you see flaws (according to your taste)? things you would change to make it better? and it makes it very hard for you to listen to it with such flaws? this happens a lot to me, and I never had the chance to ask someone who composes this, but music is very subjective and just like everything that is very subjective talking about it is complicated, but I am quite cold when it comes to words, and I understand it is simply your view of such pieces and well, not everything is for everyone, you probably won't like indian classical music if you listen to it, just like someone who only listens to K-Pop won't like listening to the Große Fuge by Beethoven, but I guess it is always useful, because you can see what causes people to like things in clearer ways? but this is also why I keep my stuff mostly private, at last, I did some work with machine learning and music! I have very few, like very few uploaded stuff, I think on my soundcloud there is literally only one thing, https://soundcloud.com/phsc7/c-major-9-50, what do you think? this is rather primitive and I have way more well developed things, also the way I did it was mostly focusing on music theory and not just the patterns that appear in music per se, so one could compose with sheet music (actually MIDI files) using such tool, not to compose for the musician but to give him ideas, and there is a lot of very... wild? stuff.
 
I guess this was quite long, a lot of recommendations and such but I hope you check them since it is very rare for me to find someone who is interested in more... complicated? music, also check out the books and the youtube channels, I'm going to give a listen to the stuff you've released! and I am also quite happy that you did update your website and make it easier to understand for newcomers! and also more practical I would say, good job!