Well, I recently submitted a new song ("Invention No.1"). 90 characters isn't nearly enough space for a proper comment, so perhaps I should just make a news post every time I release one. This one was a class assignment and I made some notes for it:

My intention, from the very beginning, was to write a piece that sounded like it had been written by Bach (or written in his style by somebody not very good at it, anyway) in the Baroque era. I told myself to forget about any personal preferences, listened to a number of Bach's sinfonias (freely available for listening on wikipedia over here) and tried to write something that sounded very much like them stylistically. This meant several things: first of all, there had to be very few if any breaks. Any pause or long note in one line would be instantly filled up with notes in another line. A musical phrase would not end at its exact appointed time; it would either continue on for a little longer or would end a little earlier, giving way to the next phrase. There would be a lot of syncopation. The time signature would not change, but the feel of time would (it would all come together in the end). And besides that, there would be things like short motifs, sequences (also transposed and inversed), and a few passing key changes. The piece would be made up of a lot of little sections, rather than any long melodic lines.

ON ANOTHER NOTE...

I have a couple of other songs that I want to submit, but they're getting held up because of various technical difficulties with Finale (particularly with the Garittan Personal Orchestra playback) that I've been unable to fix so far. I even asked for help at the Finale Forum, but no luck. Maybe someone here can help? Here are the questions:

1) How do I make GPO string instruments (such as the bass) have a sharper, rather than lyrical, sound? I need them to play something exactly on the beat, rather than easing into every note.

2) I'm getting a weird metallic static in certain places with one of my pieces which has a lot of brass instruments. It appears when they're all playing forte.

I use Finale 2007c to write all of my music, which has the (partial) GPO attachment. Simon-F seems to be the resident GPO master around here, so I've asked him too. I hope that he can help.

http://www.mistercoo.com/

Brilliant stuff. It's fun to watch, and I think there are even some themes hidden away in there. Perhaps the best thing about it is that everyone interprets it in their own way (and depending on their mood when they watch it).

If he keeps up this level of brilliance, I could watch a whole feature film with Mr. Coo and not get bored.

Well, the redesign here has quite a few good things about it, though I hope that the ability to read my own reviews is fixed soon.

My newer flash reviews are quite a bit harsher in their ratings than they used to be; this is because I've actually taken the time to watch some real animated classics. There are a lot of people here who overrate, so I figure one person giving a more balanced range of ratings won't hurt. I do try to be constructive, but I'll no longer give someone a boosted mark for effort if I don't actually like their film.

For anyone interested, I have a blog about Russian/Eastern European animation over here:
http://niffiwan.livejournal.com/

I think it is the best in the world. And here are some examples:

The Tree and the Cat (1983, USSR)
Welcome (1986, USSR. Based on Dr. Seuss)
Sherlock Holmes & Dr. Watson (2005, Russia)
Forest Tales (1996, Belarus)
The Stolen Sun (1944, USSR)

Feature films:
The Cat Who Walked by Herself (1988, USSR)
Laughter and Grief by the White Sea (1987, USSR)

All of the subtitles were added by myself, so many of these films are being seen and understood by English-speakers for the first time.

Of course, this is not to slight the many talented works by Newgrounds artists which I've had the pleasure of seeing. There aren't many masters here, but they're out there. And there are a lot of fimmakers who are moving in the right direction.