Caprice No.2 For Piano

A Gavotte that I wrote in about a week, tell me what you think! *EDIT* Title has been changed from "Gavotte" to "Caprice"

Caprice No.2 For Piano

It wasn't a Gavotte and you only really used I and V. It wasn't pleasent enougn but not a masterpiece!

Ok. I'll do this section by section first:

5 - parallel triads - be back with this later.

Theme A - Polyrythms are nice, but they obscure the rythmic feel and drive present in the first section here. The constant 3-against-2 sounds loaded and gets a bit annoying. The theme also jumps all over the place. For an exposed theme, it should have a kind of phrasé. The fist melodic segment, with its constant large leaps and absence of resting points, leaves me out of breath (figuratively speaking). Some rests and more conjunct movement would be better in my opinion. The Fermata in the transition could have been replaced by a large decrescendo, and would have been less brutal.

Waltz/B section - The harmony here is much too static. Most of it is comprised of tonic-dominant-tonic patterns. Harmoniv variety and modulation would be very useful and welcome here, especially since this is the longest part of the piece. More parallel fifths/triads at 58-60. Pedal markings could be useful throughout this section.

C - Vivace - Not much to say about the transition.

D (recap) - I have the same thing to say here as I did with A. Why not replace the Adagio marking with an "alla cadenza", or write it out using the current tempo and a few measures?

Coda - Brutal ending.

All in all, there are many strong points. Nothing is too crowded, or too exposed. Some memorable moments are present, and nothing strays out of what is accepable for a classical-romantic piano idiom. The main problems with the piece are static harmony, a jittery A section, and a too brutal ending. Also, if you're trying to reproduce what would have been called a Gavotte "back in the day", you need to cut down on the polyrythms and parallels. However, it doesn't detract everything from the experience, and the piece is far from unpleasant. I'm in the region of 5-6 / 10 for this one. Cheers! :phones:

(Apparently the public opinion is against me on this one :santa: )

I'm not exactly sure what to make of this piece. You have nice ideas. Some of your rhythmic variances are quite interesting as well - and really cool, I feel.

Now for the criticisms:

1.You present basic alberti style arpeggios in the bass... waltzlike patterns in the bass that aren't constant and interesting. For example, throughout your waltzlike usage.. you have clear harmony for each bar. For example, in your waltz pattern... you have 1 bar of harmony. You deviate from that in a way that isn't pleasing at all - at least not to me, it really made no sense for the waltz beats to double the melody - particularly when you set them up as a ground overall.

2.Thematically, you beat one idea over and over and over again - with minute changes throughout. I agree with what Paranoid Freak said... a little harmonic variance would certainly help this piece greatly. And definitely a nice homophonic texture would greatly assist this.

3. Your transitions also are quite problematic. I would recommend reconstructing/constructing transitional passages to better connect your piece. As is, this seems to be one idea that stops... and then another idea that follows and then stops... etc.

Thanks for sharing this and I look forward to seeing a much better polished version of this.

a gavotte is a piece in 4/4 with a 2/4 upbeat

you are 15 years old and made over 100 works... thats impressive...or have you just put in som random opus number? be honest.

I wasn't really sure what to name this piece, I didn't want to name it "Caprice" again because I do alot of those, but that might be what this piece is. Tidemand, thanks for letting me now what an opus is, because I was just using random numbers. I haven't made 100 works (yet). Thank you all for your critique!

Ok. I agree with much is said earlier, especially regarding the repeating alberti bass lines. I think you are using them as a crutch- expand your style a bit! Try using different chords as well, which is something that the others have talked about. Triplet over sixteenths should be used to emphasize something, but can get hard to listen to after a while. I've noticed in alot of your music that you have a tendancy to start one section and suddenly STOP. As a developing composer, you should try to start to smooth the breaks between sections so that eventually they are seemless, and the audience is left thinking, "Holy CRAP....How'd we get HERE? I didn't even notice!!" It's like creeping up on an unknowning suspect, then scaring the daylights out of them . Maybe as a way to transition between your loud A section and your quieter waltz section, you could have a rallentando (sp?) to dramatize your transition. Again, in the B section, try to branch away from using the same rhythmic accompaniment over and over. In your Vivace section, it wouldn't hurt to put some fingerings in as an editation help for the pianist. I think your dynamics in measure 109 are a bit much. I don't know why notation softwares allow dynamics such as those, but as a general rule one shouldn't go higher than a triple forte or lower than a triple piano, and even those should be use with extreme caution. Remember, you want your music to be MUSICAL, not just banging notes, which is what this could sound like with the current dynamics. I do like the different ideas you put into the piece- it just needs some editation to take it to the next level.

I think the main vivace section was very well done, definitely the highlight of the piece. I enjoyed it and wished it was longer. ;)

I won't repeat any of the other comments, but I'd tend to agree with most of the guys (and gal) here.

Here's what I will say. I think you might be going through a phase of "drama through surprise." A lot of your ends of phrases and sections jump out of nowhere, romp around for a split second and then disappear (e.g. the ending). Big evident example of this is your occasional use of dropping octaves in the base "5432-1" in m.5 into m.6. The bass is going down "5432" and then jumps up a minor 7th to the C3 at a mezzoforte. Talk about anticlimactic! Be more aware of what you are doing to the overlying line when you make decisions that cause something to change abruptly. Play it alone and ask yourself if it really makes aesthetic sense to YOU.

I don't mind the polyrhythms, but it doesn't fit the title, IMO. To me, gavottes are very stately and upright, not rowdy and full of forward motion.

...okay, I have to repeat one comment. Me, when I write something in free form, my writing hand wants SO badly to modulate every two measures because of how easily it can cause drama and forward motion when nothing has happened except a change of key. You don't have to modulate, but you do need to vary the harmonies (and voicings) in the whole piece, especially in the waltz. Waltzes and minuets are not waltzes and minuets without moving harmonies and particularly secondary dominants (for example, a D major chord instead of a D minor chord before the dominant G(V) chord, etc). At least pretend. I'd actually like to hear what you could do with some flirtation with the parallel major (C major) a time or two through that section would do for its interest.

m.21 - no reason for the fermata, a simple ritardando would work famously.

m.24 - bass is doubling the melody. Major partwriting rule broken. Simple reason it's a rule: it's aesthetically boring.

m.38 - you didn't fulfill the second inversion tonic with a dominant chord. Kind of a headscratcher there.

m.46 - When repeating a section, do it differently. Moving up an octave isn't enough for me. Add a voice or ornaments or something.

m.103 - why am I hearing a suspended 2nd on that G chord?

Keep on truckin'! Want to hear more. :cool:

It sounds to me like you have potential, but you have to gain more knowledge and experience to meet it. We all start out this way. Good job!

Just echoing what jrcramer said: a gavotte is a baroque dance form in either 4/4 or 2/2 metre, with a very specific rhythmic feature: a half-measure pickup.

This is a gavotte - one of the greatest ever written, so it's a good example to follow:

I'm not sure what Peter means about the gavotte not having any forward motion. I suppose it depends upon how it's played. This example has plenty of forward motion...the pickup fires it forward like a slingshot.

We have to be careful as composers to name our pieces correctly. To do otherwise not only misleads the listener, but it gives the impression we don't know what we're doing, and none of us wants that. I suggest that if you don't know what to name something, give it a generic name (such as caprice, as you've done before) - something that doesn't imply a very specific form.