'Song Without Words'

So. Basically. This is one of my first ever proper attempts at writing for solo piano. It's something I have always struggled with, which I'm fairly certain will show.

It's in ternary form, and for the majority of the piece is in C minor. And yeah. Not sure what else to say really.

Enjoy? Haha.

Oh, and the score is rather messy. Sorry!

AND ALSO. I would upload an mp3. But our internet is currently capped, so no can do sorry.

Song Without Words.pdf

Song Without Words.mid

Song Without Words.sib

Hi Matt,

your music is nice. especially I like "intro" - it is so dynamic... But think, hear you "live" will be much better.

thanks.

I find this is quite quite quite nice. There are a couple things that don't sit right with me though. The bar at 81, and the ones before it don't seem to make sense. Also, sometimes in the 6/8, the left hand accents certain notes, but the right hand doesn't. I don't know if it's intentional, but if not it's probably a symptom of a score that needs revising. My music is full of it.

The good things outweight the bad though:

- Bar 22. That left hand thing is so cool.

- Bar 39. The section there gives a little change, which is sort of needed.

- The beginning of the slower section. The first bar is so wonderfully foreboding and mysterious and I hoped that it would continue that way, but even though it didn't, I loved the middle nevertheless.

- Bar 69. I love that part. I can imagine that 32nd note triplet rhythm being a scallop, but that's only speculation since I can't play the piano.

When you bring back the 6/8 melody, a few bars of more irregular times (5/8, 7/8, 11/16 :P) where you could play with the melody a few more times before you end it off would have been great.

Thanks you guys, much appreciated. :)

Yeah Mitch, I actually agree about the whole bar 81 section. It was a struggle haha. I'll have a look and see what else I can do. And I'll try and mess with the time signature too :P. See what happens haha.

I haven't listened to it, but looking at the score it seems a little un-idiomatic. With all due respect, the piano is capable of much more than the parallel rhythms and chords that dominate the fast sections of this work. It just comes off as two-dimensional and pop-ish. I like the slower sections much better, but it would probably work better if notated in 6/8. You have the melodic material mostly in a pretty high register. I think it would serve you well to have some of the melodic material in the tenor/alto range of the piano and mix up the accompaniment textures a little.

Keep it up though. :) Writing for piano is harder than you might think.

Thanks for your comment. Yeah, I'm aware the piano can do much more than what I have written for it, but that's the way I wanted it be to, really. In the fast sections, anyway. I'll have a go at moving the melody down in the slow section, and see what I can come up with it terms of differing accompaniment.

Again, thats for commenting. =]

Love it.

Haha thanks :)

Very interesting idea for a solo. But take my advice. If you want this good idea to smash the listener, take good care of the sound of your piano. Try installing Reason 4.0, for example. You can use pianos from their incorporated package (because they still sound way better than the midi you showed here), or you may download Piano Refills from the net. You will see the difference of the dynamics, and you will enjoy your song even more.

Yeah, I have a good quality sound library, EWQL Gold, which has a pretty decent piano. Not the best, but still. I just can't currently upload it because our net is capped. It sounds a ton better than the MIDI, so it does it's job haha.

Thanks for listening all the same :)

hm, i really love it, both the intro and the slow parts are great. i'll probably be learning it in a while. if so, i'll have more comments :)

Nice work. Hard to comment as this is not my style.

You could use some more practice with harmony. The slow section suffers squareness in returning to your melody. Also varying the harmony when the melody is heard again with short chromatic stepwise figures seems unnecessarily active and intrusive - the augmented fractured portion of it heard later makes much more sense. You have a good harmonic imagination just needs more cultivation. A good example is the pivot chord (or lack of one) at the end of the slow section - I like the idea of it drifting off and almost forgetting itself but a little more harmonic restlessness and ambiquity would have been nice. Another example is the ending cadence - again i realize you want this to stop in its track but it sounds unprepared - as if you were a little tired and just grabbed a chord to end it.

Also, I advise writing works exploring more frequent changes of meter and/or metric accent - your piece reaches for this but seems underexplored. Don't do it in this piece but the next ones you do.

Last, you may want to listen to the Op 25 F sharp minor octave Etude by Chopin. Your piece has a similar structure but Chopin's form. motivic unity and harmonic language are more assured and tightly organized then your. I strongly advise you study it - it is one of the great compositions in piano literature.