whrogers3

This is a very fine piece that reminds me of Schubert. The MIDI probably does not do justice to what could have been heard, since there was no variation in the intensity. Even so, the melody comes nicely through the intense metrical pattern. Have you published it?

You have a valuable talent, which is the ability to sit at the piano and come up with melodies and harmonic support on a small scale. If I try to do this, I get about 10 seconds into it and then I can't figure out what to do next in real time. The fact that you can come up with 1:20 and that it has some transition and ending is impressive. This talent can be overwhelmed with too much theory too soon. Ultimately you will need to be able to capture your starting composition and then improve it by editing. I think the first step should be capturing your composition in a notation format or MIDI. The next step is to learn some music theory. There are a lot of books out there, and you can also take courses. If you are good at self study I would start by going to the bookstore and finding a book on harmony that feels good. You have to start with what makes a major chord major and a minor chord minor, what makes a cadence work or not work, and then get into modulation and how to do it. It would be at least 6 months of work to really get it. As you work through this, I would suggest that you keep making recordings the way you are now used to, and that you take melodies or harmonies from some of the recordings and try to work out a harmonization or a supporting melody according to what you are reading. I have not seen basic material like that on this site, but maybe I don't know where to look. After that, if it helps, you can try a similar study of counterpoint. The key in all of this is to do it in a way that does not make you self-conscious when you are sitting at the piano making things up, or else you will lose the fundamental talent that is your strength.

Thanks for the new links. It is a very good piece and I liked it. You handled the remote key well. Just one suggestion--it is not really a march. No army, old or new, could march to it, and it doesn't have the internal structure of a march in terms of repitition and such--only the time signature of a march. Perhaps a title like "The Funeral Procession" would work?

This is a really wonderful piece from a lot of perspectives--the rhythm, the integration, the use of modern harmonies and chromatic pitches. It is a well-deserved win!

I would swear that the recording of this piece has more to it than appears in the score, some other instruments as if it were part of a concerto and you were playing music minus one or something of that ilk. The background is muddy which takes away from the potential charm of the piece. With the dominating sixteenth notes the piece is very square. I agree with the other comment that some rhythmic variation is needed, also some metric variation such as what shows up at the end. You say it is for pianoforte, but the instrumentation is cembalo (harpsichord?). The harpsichord is a wonderful instrument, and the first time I could play one for myself I nearly fell in love with the sound. Over time, I have come not to like it so much for composing. The harpsichord has some drawbacks that are critical--for example, there are no dynamics to speak of, its impossible to impose a slower-moving melody into your arpeggios by emphasis of certain notes. I think the only viable answer (short of reinvesting the EEEEE cost of a harpsichord) is a slower-moving piece that brings out the wonderful tone of the instrument.

I agree with nirvana69. The piece gets more interesting as it progresses. The modulations are natural and convincing. The part I liked best was between measures 48 and 51. In the beginning it sounds like arpeggios for the sake of arpeggios and establishing the key of C. When pieces of melody poke through the arpeggios it feels much better. These pieces can come from the bass or from emphasized notes in the arpeggios. Other than that, I would suggest you shorten the introduction, lengthen the development, and redo the ending.

Your piece feels more musical as I listen to it, I think due to the rhythmic constency. However, I am still having trouble relating to the tonal patterns. What tonal principals are you composing from (or is it just that your ear is better trained than mine)?

The sarabande started as a fast Central American dance. It later evolved into a slower dance in triple meter with a distinctive rhythm involving a quarter-none, half-note alternation. At first it was banned for obscenity in Spain (1583). Here is my attempt at one. Once again, I am looking for something playable by an older child with a few years of piano with modest ability. Sarabande#2.mid Sarabande#2.pdf

Does your Casio have MIDI? I think it is difficult to improve without a notation verion so you can make detailed changes. That said, I appreciate the comment that many people compose quite well just sitting at the piano. If you are one of those who taps out the beats with your foot then you have some good options for entering music, but I wonder what others are using who do not have good foot-hand coordination (or use their feet to pedal).

Much better in MIDI with less reverb. You may also be overusing the pedal. I like it a lot for the first 55 seconds or so. Once you start the fast part, the sense of structure seems to disappear and it feels like you are just pounding on the piano. I think there is a lot of potential with the matierial in the first 55 seconds, you could keep the set of tempos you have in there (it is already a good range) and elaborate in terms of keys and harmonies, pull apart your motives, tease your rhythms, etc. After the gap is clearly something else, less polished with some wrong notes even, and you should just remove it. I don't hear anything in there that sounds good.

Do you mean this to be an etude in the style of Hanon? It seems like a series of relatively unconnected exercises in technique. If that is what you intended, with the thought of making it more interesting than simple repeated arpeggios, then you succeeded I think. However, I also think you could retain the good exercise aspect and make it a bit more interesting by adding a second line of counterpoint and holding off on the sustain pedal in most places. There is a good part about 3 minutes into it to the end that is much better than the first 3 minutes.

The recording is very muddy so its hard to hear what you really have. Do you have a MIDI version or a notated version, such as Finale Notepad? From what I could hear, it seemed to end in the middle and there wasn't a clear sense of organization, especially organization that I could recognize as a sonata form. If you need this much reverb and ambience for it to sound good, that isn't a good sign.

I appreciate the comments on playability from sonatinainfsharp. It was the feedback I needed. This is probably the closest I have come to something playable in more than 2 voices. Most of the stuff they give kids is really boring and it would be nice to see that change. chodelkovzart makes an astute comment. After I wrote this, and knowing that rhythm is one of the weakest parts of my composing, I decided to make a study of rhythms used by master composers in the last 300 years and how they have changed. Guess what! Everything else has changed a lot, but rhythms are still largely the same. There was a shift from rigid repitition to elaboration when the Classical era arrived, but that's it. Actually, the modern era has tended to go back to rigid repitition because the harmonies are too complicated to support the raw rhythms. There are excpetions like computer music, but they have tended to die out. Maybe that says that John Adams and Philip Glass are just passing fads? So now I need to work these thoughts into my music. Anyway, thanks! And to Raphael, I promise I will try something longer and with more instruments. I also don't know much about orchestration at this point. I know there is classic by Rimsky-Korsakoff. Anything else you all would recommend? I am a scholar at heart so I don't mind hard.

Finale 2008 Notepad--which he used--is free, and judging from another work I saw is the most capable yet. MakeMusic has seen it grow and now 2009 Notepad will cost $10, but I think that's a bargain. You will be able to export Music XML and all versions of Finale and Sibelius for the last 5 years will be able to view your scores. In terms of the minuet itself, I think that starting with structured dance works is great because it settles a lot of decisions that are otherwise free-floating and lets the new composer concentrate on issues of melodic pitch progression and harmony. This minuet sounds pretty good to me. With respect to the melody, I would say that the three repeated quarter notes are quite square and space filling, which I think puts more pressure on the harmony. When the dotted quarter finally shows up it is a welcome relief from squareness. I have more comments on the harmony. You say the piece is in C major. It starts off with a straight C which is ambiguous, goes to F, and then A minor. So it sounds like the piece is in A minor. Substituting an E for the rest in the middle voice of the first measure would help a lot. There are other places where the tonal intention is unclear because you have the root and the 5th, but no third. One of these is in the cadence near the first repeat, and that weakens the cadence.

The piece definitely has form and it's an excellent first effort. I have found in beginning composing that following an established form (e.g. a march or dance) is very helpful. You have two melodic figures that are, in themselves, good. The first one is repeated quite lot (as in too much) in the beginning and end, the other one in the middle section. If you wanted to keep working with this material, I would suggest working both figures into the beginning and follow Classical/Romantic period practice of elaborating a little and then more extensively. The middle could go into a different key, for example.

It was enjoyable to listen to as a short piece, and it has excellent meter, but there isn't as much rhythm or rhythmic variation as I would have liked. Trains have a distinct rhythm you could have capitalized on. Other than about 30 seconds in, I did not hear much tonal variation. There was some chromatic variation, but no obvious logic to it. The ending was OK but not decisive. The title is good because of the double meaning and perhaps the work could answer which meaning you intended, but I didn't get the answer.

Well, now that the air is clear, let me make some comments. I will start by saying that if I could write any fugue I would be quite pleased with myself. But I have been given hope by a wonderful "fugue lesson" elsewhere on this site. The organ is a difficult instrument because of the sustained intensity of the notes. The fugue lesson uses different instruments which really helps a lot, and they are also sustained intensity instruments (for the most part). I have not assimilated all of the fugue lesson yet but I suspect there is a lot in it that would help your piece. I find the piece rather dark and a bit long. All of the voices are in a low register which hurts it. More high-note contrast would help. I downloaded Sibelius Scorch to be able to view it, and many sections are confined to the low end of the bass clef or lower. With only one instrument, I think you should use loudness/velocity controls to help bring out the theme a little.

George Winston sold an awful lot of records that could be described as what you want to accomplish--and I think your submission is comparable to his music--though somewhat shorter and slightly less elaborate. My daughter also "composes" extemporaneously (when she is supposed to be practicing) and so I know exactly what you are talking about. She wouldn't have a clue how to do what I suggested to you. If you have a digital piano and a computer, you can get a program like finale notepad for $10 and record your music in notation format. Then you could learn how to edit it. There are some that are free and good (Noteworthy) but they require more computer knowledge. There are others that are free, but with Finale you have an upgrade path later in life and some protection against having a lot of music in a format that becomes obsolete. I think music composition is like text writing. You can be really good with your first draft, but in the long run you will be happier learning to edit it.

That's great for an unnotated work!! I see now you are fluent in a number of styles. I like the you-tube video. It helps to give context to your works.

I agree that this music has the flavor of easy listening--nothing to tax the mind at all. It is the kind of thing that you would want to be playing in the background while having an interesting dinner conversation with a member of the opposite sex. It would help to set a relaxed mood but would not interfere. In addition to the suggestions above, I would say that the perfect motive imitations are too mechanical and need elaboration. I would suggest the following exercise. Find a simple piece you really like and would want to have composed yourself. Enter the melody into your composing software and put aside the sheet music. Make a copy of the melody. Try to compose an accompaniment. When you see accidentals crop up in the melody, try to figure out what harmony is intended and then write a cadence for it. Do the best you can with it (e.g. if the piece is 20 bars long it might take 2-4 hours). Take notes on how you thought about various decisions. When you are as far along as you can get, go back to the original and enter it into your copy. Then compare the two works.

I enjoyed listening to this piece, though I would have enjoyed some lighter, faster parts (than you have) for more contrast. The harmonies worked very well for me. Is there a particular theory you worked from, or just what sounded good or what the composers you named used? I think that this composition lacks a sense of rhythm and meter. In it's place is an excellent use of delay and timing. The short length keeps it far away from boredom. You probably intended it that way, but I think it is a mistake. Rhythm is the one element of music that is relatively unchanged over the last 300 years. Of course you can get away without it and composers like Philip Glass have their periods of popularity, but the record suggests that composers who ignore it will see interest in their compositions die out over time. All in all I think it is great that you are exploring the multimedia aspect with your painter friend, and I hope we see more from the two of you!

I first composed this very short piece as an exercise, but it has evolved since then. I am trying to develop a chromatic style with buildup and release. Also, I wanted a piece that a child of 12 or so could play. I'm open to criticism at all levels. Insofar as I am self-taught, I could be missing something basic. Thanks in advance. Exercise.mid Exercise.pdf

I think its really quite good. The melodies are terriffic and the movements are short and to the point--in those respects better than the master himself. I think the idea of combining post-Baroque ideas into music that has a structured form is good. If you just stick to the ideas of the Baroque then you are living in the past. I hesitate to criticize a fine work like this, but I think we come to places like this looking for suggestions from others. In general you stick very close to A minor. The movements could vary in nearby keys (e.g. E minor, C major). You just need to begin and end with movements in A minor. Also, I would suggest putting more modulation in the individual movements, yours is more conservative than most Baroque music even. I liked the last movement less than the first four. I do like that it has some modulation in it, but the long stretches of repeated sixteenths in similar patterns lose a sense of rhythm that is a strength in most of the work. I would venture a similar criticism of Bach's longer works. Finally, I would suggest that you let some of the other instruments share in the fun. One of the big strengths of music written in the Baroque (counterpoint) era is that all of the musicians have something interesting to play. All in all it was a great accomplishment for one week--definitely worth putting some more time in to improve it.

What class are you taking? Have you had harmony yet? If you have been in the hospital the school would probably let you drop the class and try again next semester. A good melody to start should have some rhythmic variation but be relatively slow moving. Then you have to harmonize that. Most composers vary the melody by adding rhythmic color to it.