The Waterfall (Two Pianos, Four Hands)

The other topic was bloated with all my other pieces and I recently read the rules about one-piece-per-topic, so here it is, with a few edits and added expression! A bit of background on this piece:

I began it about a year ago, just doodling with 16th notes and melody in Finale at the music lab at school. It quickly blossomed into a lot more, but it died about halfway and I didn't dig it up again until just a week, maybe two, before today. It used to be a piano solo work that was just beyond the grasp of any pianist with the normal number of hands... so I just changed it to a piano duet and it's still pretty challenging at that rate. If any crazy person wants to tackle the recording of this, or team up with someone, I'd be overjoyed and you'd be my friend(s) forever! Preferably someone who can at least download Finale 2006, as I like my markings to be followed and they don't come across in a MIDI. The Finale file attached is 2006.

As you might expect, it's a tone poem on a waterfall. A nice little trickle, then the pool below starts to fill up and the narrow top is holding it up. Then, in the triplets-in-the-left-hand section, the rocks at the top are giving way, and then the full glory of the rushing fall really comes crashing down, and we might even see a rainbow in there! Nature really astounds me, especially the parts that are powerful, wild, untamable. The blue skies and pretty butterflies are fine and dandy, but give me a waterfall, a lion, a downpour, or an avalanche any day. I hope that comes across in this piece.

I like your rythm and the melody!! and the tempo change give to the music a very nice mood!!! i Like it!
and the music descripes the waterfall perfectly!!!

Good Job!!!

Is that base line possible? It seems ridiculously fast. Oh, four hands... Nevermind.

Otherwise, very nice piece. Fun to listen to. Good waterfall action. The quick sixteenths around the 100 area (give or take 20) really portray the gushing...ness...of the waterfall. Very well interpreted.

I feel that I am not really helping though...it is hard to comment on pieces that are meant to represent something, because they are most always either good or bad.

Regardless, good day,

Evan

(oh, and can a piano go that low? I thought it only went to A)

Mr. Howie, your piece is wonderful, I really enjoyed listening to it.

You handle the two pianos rather well and work with some intriguing harmonies. My only comment is that you need to watch out in the lower registers of the piano where you sometimes grouped 4ths and 3rds and such together below the bottom G, it sounds dissonant so unless that was your intention, try to avoid it. An example would be somewhere around measure 63 I think.

I could expand some more but I think that it's sufficient since you are writing a tone poem. I can't comment on its efficacy as such because it is a matter of opinion, if you see a waterfall this way then I cannot tell you it's wrong (not that I would, I'm just mentioning).

Keep up the good work.

Wonderful. Around 3:00, when the waterfall gushed over the rocks. I liked the transition into dissonant minor keys around 1:00. It sounded like some sort of conflict was happening. The you transition back into the major around 2:26 when the waterfall overcame the pool's barrier. My favorite part though was the gushy ending around measure 95 (up until before then I though the piece was possible to easily modify for a virtuoso pianist.)

Just a note: The left hand part for both pianos looks like it moves up an down in the motion of a waterfall. Is that just a coincidence, or did you intend for that?

I'm downloading Finale Notepad 2006 today. I'm missing too much good music with my plain run-of-the-mill MIDI editor. I'm probably to take a look at the finale format after it has finished downloading.

]\/[4, I'm not seeing those low intervals. Where, exactly?

tweak187, I did intend that left hand part. Thanks, the measure 95 section is my favorite too! I think it could also work for a train theme; at one point I was going to split this piece up into its characteristic sections and use each for its own theme in a separate piece, because I thought the piece as a whole wasn't unified enough. Here's what happens partwise in that section:

Primo plays octave melody (RH) and jumping octaves (LH);
Secondo has the eighth-note ostinato (RH) and the other low 16th-note arpeggio stuff, the notes in between the Primo jumping octaves. This was the hardest section to split for four hands.

very nice =)

cool!!!!!! very descriptive and musically effective!