Sarabande for Guitar

Originally Posted by Majesty

Mark, was this piece an exercise in Baroque harmony and voice-leading/counterpoint?

No, I've done far too many of those sort of exercises to do them for fun now This was more an exercise in form and development - as before this I hadn't written anything longer than an 8 bar sentence that had any musical worth at all. It sounds Baroque-ish, but probably more from the fact that the majority of music I've written has been in that style than because I was consiously imitating it.

Originally Posted by Zetetic

Mark, I suspect my terminology was flawed in relation to the critique of your composition. What's far more important than terminology, rules or stylistic treatment is whether or not the composition sounds right. It's clear to me from the work itself, as well as from your discussions with echurchill, that you are (whether you confess to it or not) attempting to emulate the baroque style. Some parts of this composition succeeded in that aim, others failed. Whilst you express the desire not to copy the idiom entirely, there were moments where it sounded like you simply weren't succeeding in emulating, rather than actively attempting to be modern.


Bars 1-2 sound unusual because it appears that you have two consecutive, unprepared dissonances. The first is a leap to a non-chord tone, the second an unprepared Ic-V-I cadence. Whether or not you consider this legal or not is a moot point; whilst textbooks and guides are indispensible for compositional exercise, when writing pieces like this for fun, you have to let your ear do at least half the work. If it's legal, but sounds wrong, it is wrong. Likewise, if a pleasing effect can be achieved by flouting the 'rules' of counterpoint, so be it.


This was my mistake. I meant bars 17-19, where the pivot back to the tonic sounds rather eyebrow-raising.

I see now what you mean, they sound more like mistakes because in the context they are 'mistakes', they stick out because the piece mainly conforms to Baroque standards?

I don't quite see what you mean about the pivot back to the tonic sounding strange, in my opinion it sounds fairly normal.

Thanks again

Originally Posted by blm22

When you said sarabande i thought you were talking about the ballet sarabande and polka, and I thought you arranged it for guitar

A Sarabande is a type of dance, like Minuet, Bourree, Courante, etc.

Sarabande - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

http://www.carlfischer.com/mp3/2127280.mp3

Here's The Polka From Sarabande and polka

I thought the form was neat and the melodic development nice. The opening sentence i realy liked. A variation of the first repeat would be in place. The performance was a bit lacking in smoothness. Since performance is such an important part of the way a piece is percieved, this piece could contain much which isn't revealed in the mp3.

There is a cd with guitar transcriptions, originaly transcripted for lute from several Bach pieces. I think this is an amazing cd, so rich in mood. The cd is called J.S. Bach Guitar Transcriptions and is published by Naxos in the Guitar Collection. It is very much in line with the mood you try to portray. I think you could realy enjoy this one.

Thank you very much for your comments, Gijs - they are very much appreciated.

I agree that the performance is not smooth, it's quite possibly the worst I've ever played, but unfortunately it seems I am utterly incapable of playing properly when I know I'm being recorded

I am familier with a lot of Bach's lute works, having played quite a few of them on guitar, though I don't know of the CD you mention - I shall check it out

Thanks again for listening and commenting

Originally Posted by Mark

No, I've done far too many of those sort of exercises to do them for fun now This was more an exercise in form and development - as before this I hadn't written anything longer than an 8 bar sentence that had any musical worth at all. It sounds Baroque-ish, but probably more from the fact that the majority of music I've written has been in that style than because I was consiously imitating it.

I figured the piece was more about development having Baroque flavor. I don't think the issues with unprepared dissonances and such is more of a personal matter espeicailly since the piece is not meant to imitate the Baroque idiom. I personally did not find anything eyebrow - raising at all. Gesualdo's music and Bach's BWV 54 is more eyeraising than anything you decided to do in this piece.

I'm not familier with BWV54, but I've found a few videos and a score and shall have a look, see if I can see what's eyesbrow raising about it

Thanks

I think this was pretty good, you definitely achieved a Bach-esque sound, the recording was alright, but like everyone else I couldn't make out the Sul Tasto or changes in the dynamics. But other than that your performance does give a good idea of what it would sound like in performance

I'm not an expert on Baroque composition or pieces, but I liked it, just needs a better recording to do it full justice

Anyways, good job

You know you're clutching at straws if you use "But Gesualdo did it!" as an excuse for an unprepared dissonance. . . . . If it sounds fine to your ear, then that's OK. I was merely under the impression that since this composition was written after several weeks' baroque theory classes, it would attempt to reflect the idiom. It's still perfectly pleasant.

The Art of Fugue's more harmonically interesting than BWV54 in my opinion, but, so unlike Gesualdo, Bach's works demonstrate that the rules are broken most effectively when the composer in question has a detailed knowledge of their deployment.