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This is a piece I wrote for composition class, solo piano. I went for a bit of a jazzy, rhythmic vibe on this one. Also there is some minimalist and impressionist influence I think, but let me know what you think. What main influences are in there that you hear, and of course, what do you think of the piece in general, what improvements would you make etc. Thanks. Peace Within the Machine

I dug out an old sketch from last year and cleaned it up. It fits almost perfectly with the ideas in my new Symphony in E-flat. This little excerpt will be the intro to the 4th mov. as of now. Thoughts welcome. Messy score is messy. [EDIT!] This is an old sketch and is not going to be included with the Symphony in E-flat! The Symphony in E-flat can be found here: http://forum.youngcomposers.com/t29021/symphony-in-e-flat/ Sketches.mp3 Mov. 4 sketch.pdf

Good to see a new face :) I think there's some interesting ideas in this piece, I'm especially fond of the part in the middle with the repeated chords and a simple melody, that is frankly the only thing that sounds "machine-like" to me. The small jazzy part seems out of place to me, although it's quite funky :P I think you should settle on either the "jazz" feeling or the "machine" feeling, and try a different approach from there, they both work fine individually, you just need to work more with them and expand them, as black orpheus said. Thanks for sharing :)

Thanks, yeah one of the main criticisms I and others gave was that it could be better had it perhaps more voices and development. I think the ideas are good though, I would have fleshed them out had I more time to write the piece, but I think I'll leave it as it is because this is how it naturally turned out at the time. Thanks again.

I can definitely see the minimalist and impressionistic influences in this: very little actual development (which isn't necessarily a bad thing), and very harsh, cold, almost mechanical feeling to it (which is made particularly evident at about 36 seconds through: very hard sounding, deliberately unpleasant chords, being banged again and again: it just sounds very robotic). I could see this working as a soundtrack... Thanks for sharing! ;)

Thanks for the tip, I'll try the pdf. tip next time, maybe I'll reupload this one like that. Yeah I actually agree a bit about it not being filled out enough, I think it might have benefited from more voices or just more rich harmony in the piano, but this is the way I turned it in so I kept it. I like the repeated 7ths though (kind of machine-like), but yeah I see what you're saying. Anyway I'll see if any other reviewers come by, thanks for your comments.

Hi Michael, thanks for posting. In the future you might have better luck with reviewers if you post a copy of your score as a .pdf instead of as a Finale file (there are many free programs that allow you to create a .pdf). As far as your piece goes, it was frankly too short for me. You don't really have enough time with the current length to flesh out ideas. I also didn't find it harmonically or melodically engaging (although I think there's some potential with what you have between measures 36 and 41). Please don't be discouraged by this, it's something most composers face in their early works. The repeated 7th intervals in the middle of the piece sound hollow and repetitive. You might try to make it less predictable and fill in your harmonies (I know you're probably going for a hollow sound, and that might not be so bad if you had more variation and didn't use block chords).

I'm planning on returning the Blue Microphone. The tone of the microphone is too blunt, compared to my built-in microphone in my laptop. Here's the last test I did: http://www.box.net/shared/na989qq2a4 Is this the type of sound I should be expecting from a Snowball? I recorded it outside of the piano, about a quarter meter away. I'm sure I can optimize the capability of the microphone if I use some editing programs, but I think I've given up on that. I'll need to do a course on that sometime. Anyhow. I might just get a regular mic. Do those work with computers, through the Line-in, or do I require something else? Thanks again for all the help. Really insightful information.