Little first piece

Alrighty, here goes....

My first (one of about 4 :P ) piece! It goes unseamlessly from section to section, the transitions are crappy. The glisses at the end are totally out of place, I think that's due to excessive Ravel listening lately. And playing. Now that I think of it, they sound like the beginning of the 3rd movement of his sonatine... oh well!

Any harsh, ugly criticisms are more than welcome! Because it more than desrves them.

I'd be happy to take a listen to a piece of yours and give you some input if you show me where it is.

9_6.MUS

I'll have a listen to your piece when I go home tonight (my work computer doesnt have headphones).

Feel free to have a listen to my pieces at

Richard Davis Live

feedback would be great.

Richard

Hm.

It was a little too dissonant for my tastes, and the MIDI/Finale interpretation didn't do it justice.

It sounded much better sightreading it on the piano.

Of course, I'm not helping much, seeing as I provided you no useful feedback.

I had a bit of trouble following any sort of harmonic direction. 9 kind of resolved the tension, but it felt as if you resolved it too quickly and didn't stay resolved for long enough. The call and response around 14 was kind of neat.

There's a few parts, specifically the accompaniment to the arpeggios where it sounds like you've tried to be dissonant for the sake of being dissonant. And I'm not sure the polyrhythms in there really add any musical value, seeing as they only last for a measure here or there.

As an example of "interesting" polyrhythmic usage, take a look at Scriabin's Op8 No2 Etude: Scriabin, Alexander - Etude, Op.8, No.2 (Piano solo)

Mainly though, I feel like the piece lacked any coherency, despite the near (complete?) absence of transition. The beginning felt the most "together" in terms of building tension with the harmony through the left hand, but as I mentioned, it resolved itself too quickly, and didn't stay resolved long enough, before jumping into some fairly uncomfortable harmony.

As far as pianistically, some parts were technically interesting, others were very bland and, frankly, I wouldn't have any fun playing them.

What I would suggest is fleshing out some of your melodic lines... there are good ideas, but they seem too short. The left hand throughout the beginning section is rhythmically uninteresting, and longer lyrical melodies could take the focus off of that, assuming that the 4/4 beat in the bass is what you want to maintain.

Obviously transitions need to... well... exist. The ending seems abrupt.

Overall, you seem to present too much new material without fleshing out the existing material. There are too many surprises, that it becomes jarring to the listener.

I'd suggest taking a look specifically at this chapter: 2)Basic Notions- of Alan Belkin's A Practical Guide to Music Composition. He addresses within it several of the issues I'd mentioned.

Anyway, good work. Don't take anything I said negatively... the piece seems unfinished, and I hope I've given you some direction toward making it feel more finished.

Thanks for the response! I think I'm going to scrap this piece, I feel like I'm not writing in a style that I... want to write in. NOt my voice. Just because I found it difficult to get through, and I just wanted to end it by the time the end 2 bars come. Maybe in a month I'll write it out and rework it for woodwind quintet, which is how I imagined it when I wrote it.

Now you made me feel bad. :)

I didn't want for you to scrap the piece at all. I was just trying to offer suggestions.

Although, it'd be cool to hear how this would work as a woodwind quintent.

I'm only temporarily scrapping it! I started something a lot cooler today, that I actually want to sit down and work out. I'll unscrap it in a few weeks.