Holly and Ivy Fantasy

Hey All,

I'm very new here....waiting for a larger work to be approved....so I figured I'd post some smaller stuff I've done. This particular piece is a fantasy on the famous Christmas melody "The Holly and the Ivy." I wrote it for my mom, because it's her favorite Christmas piece. It starts with a basic theme, then goes into variations of all different styles, and eventually weaves in and out with other Christmas tunes....goes completely into "Santa Clause is Coming to Town" for some reason....who knows, but I liked it. There are a few minor adjustments that wont match up completely with the score.

Note: I apologize if my writing skills for piano are a bit off...I don't play piano, and I don't really know if some of the stuff I've written is possible (though it should). Do let me know if some things should be reworked! All feedback is appreciated!

Mp3 - SoundClick artist: Joseph Fraioli - Classical / Contemporary composer.

~Joe

hey everyone, I'd love some feedback - especially from those pianists out there! I want to know what works and what doesn't for piano!

Hi!

I think I'll comment on what works and what doesn't work for piano .

Well, first of all (first measure) , I'm guessing that you only wanted that E to be held through the measure, in which case a pedal notation would work better. Measure 11: Crescendos and dynamics are normally written between the top and bottom staves, so just take the bottom hairpin out (same in 18, 19). Make sure that you don't have clashing elements like hairpins touching notes. Measure 29 would be nearly impossible to play without a pedal notation. The bass separated by fifths starting at 33 is alright, but it sounds a little weird, imo. Measure 38: stems pointing in wrong directions in the treble. Quick key signature changes are very uncharacterstic in all music. You can't have 8 bars in one key sig and then change to another key sig (and in this case, you have 3 bars) . Measure 56: bass is impossible to play unless you are using an arpeggiation. There is a minor second in 64... which is a little weird. Measure 66: treble clef: the eigth notes at the end of the measure are notated incorrectly. Measure 78: impossible without pedal.

There are many counterpoint errors, though... it seems like you are trying to write in a common practice way, but you have a lot of dissonances. So, you should try to eliminate these errors, for example, measure 81 you have parallel eigths. I also hear many MANY parallel fifths. .. so read up on some counterpoint and eliminate those .

Back to the score

Measure 83: the bass would be very difficult to play considering the speed at which you give the notes. Measure 144 is just a mess.

edit: i got kicked off, but I'll finish this soon.

First - I am going solely by the score but it looks like you interspersed a little of Santa Claus Is Coming To Town. Very good effort but I must say you have more work to do. I am confident though that if you can do this without playing piano, I think you have the perserverance and patience to use some of the ideas I offer --- none of them are short term solutions.

Piano writing - specific to your piece -

Requesting a pianist to play inner voices with octaves in either hands is not easy and either the octaves or the innervoice has to be rather slow.

Also, and I have noticed this with non-pianists, if you write something in one hand which you want sounded together and you cannot do it, the probability is VERY high that the pianist cannot do it either. General rule of thumb is most pianists can comfortably play an octave, some a tenth, and a few a 12th. I have a large hand span and can play tenths, consecutively at about andante.

Variation technique - your mastery-

I'd say you show some promise as the dotted quarter and some of the textures are very good ideas. Nevertheless I see you rely a little heavily on changing the accompaniment texture and key without much change to the melody for variation. Study more techniques of variation such as breaking up the melody into short motives or augmenting the note values of some parts, etc ..

Counterpoint (adding to the comments already given)-

Yes, you could use some more work on it as you write as if you want 3 or more voices but as everything is doubled or the general voice leading implies 2 voices. If this happened as a section in an orchestral piece where you want the melody brought out then this may work --- but it is not. So you have to be clearer about your intention - do you want 2, 3 or 4 independent voices? An example of a clear melody and accompaniment with pedal points is your opening harmonization of the melody.

Lastly, please study the following pieces (preferably with a teacher) -

Group I

Bach Inventions - how to write for multiple voices for keyboard and also hand distribution of voices.

Chopin - Preludes - textures sympathetic to the piano and very "pianistic"

Mendelssohn - Songs Without Words. Somewhat in between the two, but excellent piano writing.

Grieg - Lyric Pieces - more "Romantic" than the Mendelssohn but again some similarities to it.

Set II (more advanced and if you want to go further)

Well Tempered Clavier or even the organ works of Bach to see how to write multiple independent voices for keyboard. Once in awhile he writes something that seems inpossible for one hand to play but you will notice the other hand can take the note or they can be distributed between them.

Chopin Etudes - basic bible on the capabilities of piano playing. Especially helpful on arpeggios, pedaling and textures sympathetic to the piano.

Debussy Preludes - extremely useful as Debussy writes wonderully and imaginatively for the pedals. There are pitches and interval which cannot be held be the hand but through proper use of the pedal the tone (or collections of them) lingers to serve as a pedal point and create interesting overtones with the notes that proceed over it.

There is some excellent 20th and 21st century piano writing but the works from Section II are the wellspring from which many draw.

Also, you could set aside several session with a pianist to show you a few works from Set I and II to give you a better idea and then write a draft of your variation for him or her to play.

Hello!

I listened to your piano piece and I think that at the beginning it sounds simple and fairly interesting, but the transition to the denser section is not very smooth and after that I lost my interest, because it wasn't very cohesive. When you threw that Christmas theme in the score I didn't hear any further (it didn't really fit to the piece and I don't quite understand why you use it in the first place).

There are many interesting ideas, but I think you should organise them better. You should also correct your notation and add phrasing and personally I would even suggest you to simplify the score a bit. There are moments where both hands are written in two voices or more and the writing is pretty dense. I don't see any particular reason in this and it's not very "elegant" either...

I would suggest you as an exercise to try to compose an easy, but interesting piano piece giving attention to your harmony and your counterpoint. Here are some piano pieces you might consider studying for simple and clear, but nonetheless interesting writing:

Ravel - Prelude
Macdowell - To a Wild Rose
Satie - 6 Gnossienes, 3 Gymnopedies
Debussy - The girl with the flaxen hair (a bit more complex)
Prokofiev - I, II, VIII, X, XVII Fugitive Visions
Bartok - Mikrokosmos

Alexandros