Second Home

Here's another piano composition! This one was based on an improvisation and is lyrical but has a simple accompaniment. Feel free to let me know if I should make a more complicated version/change up the left hand more, and if so, how so. When it comes to aesthetic tastes in terms of how simple/complex something should be, I find it can be a hard issue; sometimes, things are made too complex for the sake of it, but complexity potentially can add another layer of musical meaning and depth.

I wanted to attach the mp3 to this post but I can't, so here's a youtube link to it!

Piano Improv 1st - Second Home.pdf

I was struck by the very close similarity of your opening theme to the subject of the D# minor fugue from book 1 of the Well-Tempered Clavier. Had you been playing Bach and them written this melody down without realising where it came from? Happens to me too sometimes! Actually, it sounded more like French piano music than Bach and you created a good melancholy feeling at the start. I think the Bb in bars 6-7 would sound better transposed up an octave to make a better transition to the next phrase in a higher register. After the start, you go on to present the theme in several different keys and with different harmonies, which work quite well. However, after bar 25 I was tired of hearing it and I think this is where you should introduce a new idea, as simply raising the tempo isn't enough to maintain interest. You could possibly present the theme one more time with imitation in the left hand and then make it modulate and develop to lead into another subject; or introduce an idea based on a retrograde or inversion; or a contrasting idea. But the music needs some small change in mood. The left-hand accompaniment pattern is ok to start but again wears itself out through lack of contrast, and it isn't appropriate to more delicate passages. If you have a look through the piano repertoire, particularly the French music I mentioned, there are numerous ways to present harmonies which give the piece motion, heaviness or delicacy or whatever else the music requires. In addition, at no time in the entire piece does the left hand carry any melody, and the bass line is rather monotonous with the chords changing only on the barline. You could create interest and tension by having the harmonies move more frequently and to less predictable chords at times. I think your piece needs some kind of rise and fall in tension; it is rather like a flat plane dwelling on the same thought all the way through, whereas music should be more like a story and go on a journey, however small. Nevertheless, you've written an effective opening; you just need to to work at what follows and develop it.

Hey, I want to emphasise your need to introduce some new material. The idea is good, but after a while it gets boring. Which is a shame because its a nice piece.

Besides that. You dont always play the notes you write (on youtube). And your piano is in desperate need of tuning.

Wow, I hadn't gotten notification that there were responses to this thread but these are incredibly useful comments! I don't know if you see my response but thank you. Yes, this is a transcribed improvisation based on the Bb minor fugue. One trouble I often have with building pieces off of a full improvisation recording is that I have too much reluctance to change the improvisation when really, to build it further, often a radical change is needed which subsequently changes so much of the dialectic that comes afterward, which means changing a whole lot more notes to accomodate the new change or else the inevitability in the music is lost. I would love to study the French keyboard music you are talking about to get better ideas of completely different changes I could give the left hand that wouldn't interfere too much with the original mood. There's definitely a need for a new theme fairly early as well, though I'm not sure exactly what as of yet unless I change the chord progressions underneath as well.