Prelude for Guitar

I don't really know much about composing. This is my first serious try at writing anything, basically trying to get my feet wet and learn something.

I should probably add fingerings to the score. I'm not really sure how necessary they are. Obviously, since I wrote it, the fingerings are obvious to me, but maybe they aren't to others. Let me know.

Since I'm new to this, I would love some constructive criticism!

prelude.pdf

prelude.mid

i like that bit at measure 41, and the whole piece is pretty cool. I think you should work on voice leading though, not saying that i'm good at it either, but, you can learn a thing or two from learning counterpoint, because, if you played some of the chords without the arpeggiation, you would've found that some of the voices distinctness disappears. Like in measure 7-8, there's a series of parallels. See if you know your doing it and you're doing it for a certain effect, then thats cool. But, if you're doing it unknowingly then it's something that should be worked upon.

Thanks for listening :)

I'll read some stuff on voice leading.

...

But, if you're doing it unknowingly then it's something that should be worked upon.

I really don't know what I'm doing at this point, so yeah, I have a ton to work on :laugh:

I really liked those arpeggios from bars 35 and 38. Maybe cause I like long arpeggios :P

Overall, I liked it but I was expecting to hear the theme from the beginning again (mm. 9-10). It had that something that sticks in your memory and you want to hear it again later.

Keep writing! ;)

Well I like your melodic contours and the neobaroque feel of the passages (also a tiny bit of early led Zep too but tiny). you have an excellent ear for harmony.

Now some critiques - need to learn more about varying your material.. A good example of your varying the material is the return of the A theme in sextuplets and having it suggest a sequence. You could have taken it much farther I think. Less successful examples is how you vary the interesting alternating eighths and what you do once you switch to a new key. it would have benefited from much more subtlety - eg changing the arpeggios more or having the running sixteenths alternate with a sixteenth + eight tied to another sixteenth.

If you want to see some well written guitar music look for Ken Hatfield's Etudes for Guitar - some good stuff there. Abd you'll learn good voice leading.

I really enjoyed measures 21-22. Each passing beat seemed to build on the last. Measure 6 for me, did not seem to fit with the whole ONE (e and a) TWO (e and a) feel. (I hope you understand what I mean by this... I dont know any other way to explain it :P ) The melodies throughout, especially the main one presented in the beginning, were marvelous. As hellatropicana said, however, you do need to look at the parts where the melody is lost (GGBE). I think with a weeeeee bit of tweaking, the melody can be brought back quite easily. Overall awesome. Much better than my first attempt :D

This is your first thing? Better than mine ;)

I like it, especially those chromatic lines downwards. I think your modulations were also quite clever, especially for a first thing..

Keep going!

Thanks for all the comments and suggestions! I've been pretty busy lately, but hopefully I'll get a chance to really look over everything you all have said and see if I can improve it a bit soon.

Yes, this is my first piece, but I've been performing for awhile and listening forever, and my guitar teacher has started working on composition and theory with me, and I must say, he is amazing. With everything I've learned since I wrote this, I have a feeling the next piece will be much better (when I get the time...meh...)

Composerorganist, the Zeppelin thing confuses me, because I really never listen to them...at all...haha. :P I'll definitely check out some Hatfield. Maybe some early Zeppelin too, see if I can spot what you're talking about, just out of curiosity.