Nocturnal Night Nocturne

This is my "Nocturnal Night Nocturne," and I drew a lot from Minimalism when I was writing it. It's not a difficult piece to play, and it's not very complicated--its beauty comes out through the interpretation.

The recording is different from the MUS. I'm not sure which one I like better.

Just kidding. Here it is:

http://media.putfile.com/Nocturnal-Night-Nocturne

Also, points to whoever can name the two "nocturnal" pieces I quoted in this nocturne.

Nocturne_in_C__Minor.MUS

teh harmonic shifts will interesting, but could have used with just a touch of irregularity. It was predictable.

The break from your texture (those octaves) would have been more interesting had you kept up some of the rapid movements in one voice.

Your piano needs tuning, btw.

Don't confuse adding massive amounts of pedal and extreme rubato with adding "expression" to a performance. it doesn't work.

I preferred your MIDI rendering.

Many of the effects you appear to hear in the "live" performance should have been notated, like accents and harmonic cross-fades.

An important part of learning the craft of composition is learning when to break away from one's own performance (which is totally subjective) to creating a score which stands on its own (which is objective).

A good notation program would be a wise investment at this point.

You don't have to go for the full-blown expensive ones, there are "light" versions of most of them.

I'm going to presume you threw in some Moonight there.

And the macabre final rooster crow was more jarring than anything else, and comes across as just a bad joke more than anything else. because it doesn't really match the rest of the piece and is gratuitous. It sounds like you're saying "hey look at me, I know my repertoire!".

Does my review sound harsh?

It is... and it's because this is one of the better examples of an attempt at minimalism I've heard in a long time. I believe you can do a LOT better, you have the ear for it, you have the talent.

This sounds startlingly like a lot of my early material! Tell me Michael, do you like melodic Black Metal? When I got into writing piano music, I didn't really have what I am now doing in mind, all I wanted to do was imitate the accompaniments of Black Metal songs such as what Dimmu Borgir writes, which consist almost entirely of dark minimalist textures with minor key chord progressions and arpeggios, etc.

If you want some even more wicked sounds, try combining keys! perhaps use a C major triad and an F# major triad at the same time. The possibilities are limitless!

GUYS I CAN PLAY ARPEGGIOS IN A COHERANT SEQUENCE

THE BEAUTY COMES THROUGH THE INTERPRETATION

just like twinkle twinkle little star.

sorry, this is mostly in jest. But like all comedy there's an element of truth!

Wow, I didn't know this was going to be such an inflammatory piece.

@Qccowboy

In directly referencing the most over-played piano sonata known to man and one of the most famous symphonic poems ever written, I wasn't really trying to flaunt my knowledge of the repertoire. And yes, that piano hadn't been tuned in probably seven years.

As touching my lack of notation in the sheet music, I wasn't really planning on saving this for posterity--just so that I can remember how to play it later.

@Derek

I've never heard of that band. Sorry. I was listening to some of Glass' organ works before I wrote this.

@Fingernail

In writing this, I never claimed techincal prowess in either performance or composition. I just like the way it sounds.

and I like the way a tennis ball hitting a racquet sounds.

Does that make a recording of a tennis match a composition?

Good question actually.

It's not about technique or prowess. Mussorgsky was self-reportedly technically lacking but he still created some very meaningful and resonant music which has survived in popularity much longer than figures such as Salieri who were techinically adept and taught many greats such as Liszt I believe.

I find a fundemental difference in the sound of a tennis racket and piano music. Nice try though.

Also, why I chose to end it with the "rooster" was because I thought it summed up the song nicely. The whole premise is the tension between the C# minor chord and the A major. The "crow" is an A major chord that ends on C#--so instead of resolving, it leaves the tension in the air, while bringing morning onto the scene and ending the nocturne.

@Derek

I've never heard of that band. Sorry. I was listening to some of Glass' organ works before I wrote this.

Yeah, I could hear the Glass in there. I didn't listen to your live recording, which I should, but just from the MIDI, it sounds like you falll into the Glass-trap of having similar accents all the time. It gets repetitive and monotonous. In several works, Glass fixes this by changing the meter or notes to make irregular accents. The other way of doing this is to mark accents on certain notes. I find that John Adams' rhythmic material is a lot more interesting that Philip Glass', and seems to represent minimalism pretty well at the same time (not as puristically, of course, but even so).

Despite that, all in all a nice piece.