Silences and Solitude

A short piano work from my solo piano album Means of Escape. The sheet music fro the full album will be available soon!

Silences and Solitude, created by Ryan Yard and presented through ACIDplanet.com

Silences and Solitude.pdf

Im am socked no one has commented!!
This piece is absolutely beautiful!!!! It was so beautifully sad, if that makes any sense. The beginning was very nice, how you presented the quarter pulse, that I'm stayed for the remainder of the piece, and the harmony was great. The theme was so sad, haunting, yet beautiful. Ahh I just loved it.
People, YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU ARE MISSING!!!

Great work, and keep it up!

Scott.

Hi Ryan,

Yes this is beautiful. Well done! And different from your usual output. Harmonies, the changes, the "bizzare" towards Ab7, all wonderful. And since we know each other time for some heavy nit picking I think:

Score

* There are a few clashing elements. The Ped sign, at first, touches the note lines.
* Allignement. The sim. pedal should be at the same height of the ped. signs.
* Sim ped, would probably need to either be sim. ped., or simile. in Italics
* bar 26. The arpeggio sign is missing.
* The word Serene above the tempo marking appears to be about the tempo, in which case it should be next to the quarter=60 and not underlined.
* Sotto voce from the very beginning and no tenuti. Or at least, keep them for one bar and quit them. All notes tenuti

Recording

Recording is midi right?

Sound is ok, although not 100% realistic. Here it depends on what you aim for. If you aim for something more towards... new age, then ok. But if you strive for more realism then.

* the tempo is too steady. Don't know if you did change it, but sounds very exact, with little or no feeling
* all notes play at the same time, except bar 26. Move them, jig them, loose them, dequnatitise them.
* some notes are not heard. Melody in bars 23-24. The F gets lost in the process of F, Eb and then Db.
* some other issues with notes as well

I hope it helps and sorry for the nit picking. The "sheet album to be released soon..." gave me a commercial impression, so I had to be thorough about this

The intro to this song actually reminded me of the band Coldplay, and I was thinking "Oh no, not another pop song with only 4 chords played over and over". But when the melody starts the piece does get more complex, and like the other guys have said it is quite beautiful at times. I wish I could come up with such great melody and harmony using a simplistic song structure like this. Is this for a commercial album? Do you make money from these tunes?

The beginning has two or three identical chords as Coldplay's "The Scientist." What made me refer to the piece, as finrod did (I think we mean the same piece) is firstly the tempo and the straight forward rhythm and of course the chord progression.

It was a pleasant listen, nothing too complex nor too simple. Just a piece to create a feeling, in this case something melancholic.

As Nikolas stated, I think, the beat never changes; the left hand on the piano hammers the piece with the same beat through-out the piece. It can be pretty tiring - but luckily you salvage it with the beautiful melody

Nice work.

Originally Posted by nikolas

Hi Ryan,

Yes this is beautiful. Well done! And different from your usual output. Harmonies, the changes, the "bizzare" towards Ab7, all wonderful. And since we know each other time for some heavy nit picking I think:

Score

* There are a few clashing elements. The Ped sign, at first, touches the note lines.
* Allignement. The sim. pedal should be at the same height of the ped. signs.
* Sim ped, would probably need to either be sim. ped., or simile. in Italics
* bar 26. The arpeggio sign is missing.
* The word Serene above the tempo marking appears to be about the tempo, in which case it should be next to the quarter=60 and not underlined.
* Sotto voce from the very beginning and no tenuti. Or at least, keep them for one bar and quit them. All notes tenuti

Recording

Recording is midi right?

Sound is ok, although not 100% realistic. Here it depends on what you aim for. If you aim for something more towards... new age, then ok. But if you strive for more realism then.

* the tempo is too steady. Don't know if you did change it, but sounds very exact, with little or no feeling
* all notes play at the same time, except bar 26. Move them, jig them, loose them, dequnatitise them.
* some notes are not heard. Melody in bars 23-24. The F gets lost in the process of F, Eb and then Db.
* some other issues with notes as well

I hope it helps and sorry for the nit picking. The "sheet album to be released soon..." gave me a commercial impression, so I had to be thorough about this

Hey Nik thanks for the comments. I must stress that the score etc is an early score and not a final draft as it were but thanks for the points you raised. I think the most interesting point you raise is with regards to the recording which is, in actual fact, a live recording on a grand piano played by yours truly lol No midi!! Ha ha.

The Coldplay link is a good one, and in fact was a deliberate one. I actually conceived the song like the Scientist, a very short brief song without words if you like with melody and chords, that is why the crotchet pulse very rarely changes!

Cheers all!

It actually sounded not realistic at all then! and I'm stunned at your accuracy... :S

Did you EQ the sound, or did something to it?

Honestly...

And sorry for the assumption...

Originally Posted by nikolas

It actually sounded not realistic at all then! and I'm stunned at your accuracy... :S

Did you EQ the sound, or did something to it?

Honestly...

And sorry for the assumption...

Well my sound engineer did add a fair amount of reverb and general polishing to the sound. I get get very tense and nervous when I record so maybe that is why it sounds a bit mechanical? I find it hard to relax when I play, especially something that is relatively simple like this piece.

A very pretty piece. Not too simple and not too complex. I didn't feel about it as strongly as Tenor10 did but I still did like it. I heard the connection to Coldplay as well. Surely, there must be better pop bands to steal from than Coldplay. :p A nice piece none the less.

Just out of interest, I was curious as to what grade (ABRSM) this piece is approximately?

I would hazzard a guess of around grade 5 or 6 but could be way off?