Great short narrative! I think we could all use a remind to escape toxic environments when we can. :)
The music turned out great, and surprisingly natural for being done in Musescore. I always found the portomentos and other bends hard to control but they are done well here. I'm kind of a sucker for when the melody repeats a note but the chord changes underneath it.
I'm with you 100% on the melody staying while the chord changes. Sometimes it's like a tether that ironically gives you more freedom to make bold moves with your chord progression, or make a safer/conventional one feel more earned.
re: Musescore, there's a weird bending-related issue in the solo strings where they just slur together adjacent notes of a scale, just by default without any articulation markers. For the most part though, I was happy with the default articulations, and really didn't want to spend time drawing in lots of details.
But I guess a problem with this approach is how much it can influence the composition. I feel like now I'm seeing it in some of my favorite video game scores, that even if they ultimately recorded with actual performers, some creative decisions were made because of the software ergonomics.
The dynamics really cannot be controlled with precision, but you can kinda dress it up by leaving a lot of headroom in the Musescore mix, export audio and then squash it with a compressor.
Thanks for dropping this feedback! I'm really happy you noticed all the portamentos I peppered all over the piece 🥲
Musescore does have a weird playback quirk with melodic lines that I dislike where it doesn't let go of previous notes in a melodic line properly unless it's explicitly staccato. When making sounds for my game in it, I had to separate the same conceptual instrument to two different ones and alternate the notes so they wouldn't bleed/ring. Otherwise, the final result had a weird piano pedal effect.
Having to adhere to the limitations of the program is frustrating for sure. I have yet to find a non-classical notation software that I've been able to stick with though, unfortunately. It's not super high on the priority list right now anyways.
