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This exercise is awesome, so I could not longer resist to break my silence! By the way, all your exercises from Persichetti's "20th Century Harmony" are very interesting and inspiring – and I have already looked on many of them, while not yet thoughtfully. I think I will study them all in the next time and try to give a review whenever I can. Whereas composing a canon is complicated enough (not to mean the funny children’s chants but a perpetual one), having three different scales and tonics is a real challenge. Usually, one would expect that the harmonies of that different keys would constantly clash each other, but the usage of different modes, or – as here - different synthetic scales interestingly mitigates that problem, so that in the end a common harmony is achieved which, however, sounds a bit weird in classical sense, reminding me on Klezmer music. But that probably expresses the mood of the F Ukrainian Dorian Scale. When I attempted to create a fivefold stretto in one of my fugues, I discovered that it is required to alter the subject for harmonic reasons at some notes. But as I studied the result, it was not an „adjustment“ of the subject but rather a transformation to a different mode (for example B minor, G lydian, C sharp locrian, A mixolydian and D major), so that I had finally well crafted and not „twisted“ subject entries. Very enjoyed!

Another Persichetti prompted piano piece. This time the prompt was "24. Extend the following chromatically ornamented piano passage." Thanks for listening and I hope you enjoy and let me know what you think!

Here's my beginner's non-academic point of view (for what it is worth): @Fermata's Fugue in D minor sounds flawless and tasteful. The given motive is very interesting. It is rich in complexity, and intriguing because it feels 'incomplete'. It calls for contrasting complements. Also, is it suitable for a fugue where it has to be frequently repeated? It would be nice as a theme for a long development with less imitation. That's my personnal impression.

My most recent Muzoracle casting has constant accel.'s and rit.'s throughout:

Well! That quite possibly might be the most interesting thing I've heard in a long time. A very tricky thing to put together. Myself, I've always found canons far more difficult to write effectively than fugues, so therefore I must commend you. This is a very effective little piece. I must say, I don't much care for the sopranino clarinet up top, far too shrill, and I find myself wondering if the whole top part mightn't sound better on a regular B-flat clarinet an octave down. I suppose the texture is more modern for it though as is, and therefore part of your plan. Great work!

I hadn't even noticed that! But you're right. I guess it just worked out that way by accident. I'm glad you liked the changes of time signature, as I wasn't sure about some of them. I did think of using more ottavas; but found I could read the ledger lines quite easily when playing it through myself. Will add them if the pianist requests it. N.B. The composer who inspired me to write this piece was Julian Scriabin, as I recently discovered his preludes on You Tube. Think my piece maybe sounds more like Rachmaninoff though? Many thanks for your interesting review! Alex

Many thanks Peter, for taking the time to listen and review. Yes please do! I'll be getting a real performance from a pianist in May: so I'll probably just wait for that, rather than trying to massage the midi rendition. Will bear your points in mind for the future though. That 9/8 bar originally had a short fermata on the middle note; but I decided to use a time signature change instead. Then I reproduced the same 4/4 to 9/8 in the recapitulation: so it is reflected later in the piece.

Thanks for your detailed thoughts! When I mentioned monotony, I was referring more to the process of working with a long, slow subject - after a while the contrapuntal development itself felt a bit repetitive to write. The fugue was an exercise I worked out on paper with pen, mainly as a kind of contrapuntal puzzle, which I've always enjoyed doing as a hobby. That said, you're absolutely right that the playback could be improved. I didn't add any articulation or dynamics, so the notation software makes everything sound much flatter than it would in a real performance. I'll try revising it along the lines you suggest to make it sound more natural. Thanks again for taking the time to comment!

Hallo @Fermata! Your asking about the issue of „monotony“ in your fugue. Sometimes it is not an issue with the composition itself, but rather a question of the interpretation or recording. Since you are using four string instruments „played“ by your notation software, you „naturally“ encounter the problem that the entire piece sounds somewhat monotonous. Even real string instruments blend the sound very well, in my opinion, but are not as expressive for individual voices. I can imagine, when played on a piano, the impression would be totally different. As currently discussed in another thread @PeterthePapercomPoser suggested to improve the recording by “fine-tuning” the articulation, dynamics, and tempo for each individual hand or even voice. I also had a fugue which I considered to be „boring“ and I was nearly to get around and throw it away. But then I applied such tiny adjustments in the tempo, for example to make the first bar of the subject a little bit „swinging“, which dramatically changed the perception. Since I do so now with all of my piano works, I know that it is a lot of work to literally maintain two scores, one for the printout and one for the recording. But it's really worth the effort to achieve a sound that is much closer to a live performance. Concerning the composition „as is“, I think there are no issues. With a short overview on the score I see that you already applied the necessary counterpuntual techniques (such as tonal answer, a recurring countersubject, inversion, augmentation, stretto). As in 6/2 meter with mostly half and quarternotes (perhaps in an older, more Palestrinian style), it would be not appropriate to add passages (in episodes) or countersubjects with a faster rhythm. Perhaps one could introduce a kind of diminution which doesn’t increase the rhythmic pulse by doubling the speed but is merely a rhythmic variant of the original subject preserving the quarternotes as the fastest ones, finally resulting in a 1.5x diminution (such as in Bach’s D# minor fugue from the WTC1 BWV 853).

Very nice dreamy, yet mysterious and passionate prelude! I like the frequent changes of the time signature. While initially looking complicated, the rhythm of the piece has an intuitive pulse and a continuous flow. I noticed, that your score is without a key signature. But since you often change harmony from keys with sharps to keys with flats, this decision avoids that the score is cluttered with natural signs. And when listening and reading the score I like that the more serene passages correspond with the flats, while the more passionate passages feature more sharps! In some bars, I would like to see more octave brackets to make it easier to read when playing. Personally, I refuse to read more than three or four ledger lines. However, I agree, that too many octave brackets disrupt the visual impression of the runs in the score. I completely agree with @PeterthePapercomPoser's suggestions for improving the recording by “fine-tuning” the articulation, dynamics, and tempo for each individual hand or even voice. Since I do this with my piano works, I know that it is a lot of work to literally maintain two scores, one for the printout and one for the recording. But it's really worth the effort to achieve a sound that is much closer to a live performance. Thank you for sharing!

you can't delete the whole post and other people's comments, you can just delete your part of the convo by leaving just a dot/period in place of the things you wrote. I think the system requires there to be something there so just leave a dot/period

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you can edit out what you don't want to be in the post by clicking the three dots in the right corner of the window

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I'm on a trip lol

This book was intended as a supplement to harmony studies; on its own I don't find it very useful. For self‑teaching it's unsuitable — it tries to cover too many topics in too little space. Could you post a few of the exercises you solved from the book? I'm curious to see how you approached them. By the way, have you studied harmony in a formal setting, for example at school?

What about 'better than Peter'? @PeterthePapercomPoser

Thank you very much

It's been too long! I thought I would share this piece written for my theory and composition class at Berklee. We were asked to work with a couple of "exotic scales" from a selection including the whole-tone scale, the octatonic scale, and modes other than those derived from the major scale. I felt drawn to the Lydian Augmented and Spanish Phrygian modes. I ended up with a contrapuntal rock instrumental in rough ABCA' form. The A section is in B♭ Lydian Augmented, the B section is in G Spanish Phrygian, and the C section an unbroken transition into D Spanish Phrygian. Finally, I modulate with the common tones D and A back to B♭ Lydian Augmented, for the A' recapitulation. The title (Iridescence) was inspired by my understanding of modes as a concept. With many modes sharing the same collection of notes, the tonic note that each mode centers on is what makes it unique -- gives it a unique color. And, iridescence is when something appears in different colors depending on the angle of viewing. I see that as a fitting metaphor. The artwork is my own, made with ProCreate. I didn't paint it for this track, but as a birthday present for my mother, inspired by Kate Bush's song "Kite". She is a massive fan of Kate's and introduced me to her when I was a little girl. I rediscovered her recently and I've been spending a lot of time with her early work. My current favorite album is Never for Ever...whose influence I thought was bleeding into this track. So, in the end there is some relation. 🙂 I hope you enjoy! Any feedback on both the mix and composition is more than welcome. ~ GP P.S. I was required to include a detailed score for the assignment. It might be too precise for a rock track in general, but if enough people are interested I will upload that, too.

I think I got the idea for n.2!

Hello @Alex Weidmann! Nice mysterious Prelude! I'm surprised that @Henry Ng Tsz Kiu hasn't reviewed it yet since it's in his favorite key! 🤣 I have a few technical nit-picks: I've recently changed the way I write for piano through Musescore Studio 4 which I think might benefit you to hear about. If you favor the Musesounds Piano as I now have come to prefer, then in order to have more control over balance between the most important melody notes and less important background chords/figurations, you could actually load up two (or more) separate pianos and change the way they're displayed in the Layout section of the program (by deleting the bass clef portion of the right hand piano and deleting the treble clef portion of the left hand one). Then, not only will you be able to change the balance between the hands in the mixer, but you'll be able to give separate dynamics to each hand - an amount of control which you would lack with just one grand-staff track. Although you'd have to put in pedal marks for both tracks, and hide them in the top track. As well as hiding dynamics that are redundant. But I think bringing out the most important notes in each chord and passage will greatly improve at least my impression of the work. Another thing is the tempo. I noticed that you're trying to create a sense of novelty through the use of unusual rhythms and meters. I think it could be even more effective if you included an ebb and flow to the tempo by simulating a sort of constant rubato with choice accel.'s and rit.'s here and there. I can refer you to examples in my own catalog if you'd like, where such rubato gives a very satisfying result (at least in my opinion) and cases where the piece would suffer greatly from the mechanicality of the rendition if not for the rubato. Some places to consider including an accel. and rit.: bar 30 accel. into 31 I think would be a nice paired with that crescendo you already have. Other than that, nice job! I also question the interruption of the expected 4/4 flow of the beginning melody with the 9/8 measure - I think that's unnecessary. Thanks for sharing!

On playing this through myself tonight, I noticed a few further corrections and cautionaries that were required. So here is my latest version of the score.