Prelude

My first attempt at mixing my predilection for Romantic sounds with 20th century harmonic techniques and treatment.

Many thanks to Johnbucket for the help at the beginning stages of development.

[edit]Updated version. Quite a few things changed, namely the notation and some integrity things. Unfortunately the rendering of the beginning and ending suffered a little bit, but I'll take readability over the rendering.

Prelude

I love the rhythms and the natural ambience of this prelude. I wish the 'slightly faster' section lasted longer though. :(

You did a good job of adding more contemporary harmonies. Is this you playing? It sounds very organic.

I really liked the prevalence of arpeggiated chords-- in this kind of piece they're very, very fitting.

Speaking of the piece, it's very dreamlike. What inspired you?

10/10 and favorited!

Thank you! Props to Finale's Garritan sounds, that's the second time someone has asked if the piano was a recording.

What inspired me? Well, to be frank, it was the first three-note lick; the notes themselves as well as the dissonant quality when the pedal is depressed. I had that in mind the entire piece. E.g. the main theme of the Allegro is the three-note lick in the right hand which itself is a variant of the first three notes of the piece. Now that I listen to it closely, even the secondary theme (m.22) has that motive within it, completely unplanned. The piece grew from there as an interplay between outside melodies and inside melodies. The ending, though, was kinda stolen. :santa: I think it works, though, so there you have it.

Question for you. How would I make the "slightly faster section" longer? Its purpose is completely transitory. :hmmm: I have trouble thinking outside of two and four-measure phrases to get a purpose carried out, I think.

Um...ok, this is a weird one :blink: :lol:

I appreciate all the meticulous detail you put into the piece, and the unusual progressions. This is quite unique to my ears -- it's heavy on the contemporary style, but there's still that unmistakable Romantic feel to it as well. It makes for a bizarre atmosphere, one which I like more than dislike.

Some things didn't quite sit well with me: while the overall air of the piece is nice, I wouldn't say it's melodically strong, especially in the middle of the piece...where you have the repeats, which are generally used to familiarize a listener with a melody you have for them. There's nothing overtly bad about these repeats, since they don't last too long, but the first one seemed unnecessary to me (not the second one, since it led off to another phrase).

But what I did like in particularly was your dreamy chords (like the one at measure 2, i.e., or 9) leading into the turbulent middle part, and then leading back out into the dreamy chords again. It's like falling asleep, having a strange, not-exactly-terrifying-but-unsettling nightmare, and then waking back up just to find it wasn't real, and then falling asleep again.

Sadly, I can very much tell this is just midi, and I think that an actual performance would make this even better -- your articulations do it much justice, but that "fullness" of a real piano is missing. The midi sounds... "twinkly" to me.

Thank you for sharing this :phones: This was a fun, unique piece! 9/10

JB's neoclassical meets Peter's neoromantic.

Serge:

You certainly have a way with putting conceptualizations to what you hear. *laugh*

The first repeat was mostly about extending the first part of the form in the Allegro section. As it was I felt it was too short before the slow-down at m.34, yet I didn't want to pound even more new ideas into the listener. It's meant to be a mix of melody and ... motion I guess, particularly of the "modern harmony" type (whole tones, whole-halfs, etc). I suppose I also wanted the motion to be familiar in a way, so repeats help with that. Meh, perhaps not that grand of a reason to use a repeat. That's probably a good call on your part.

:santa: Thank ya.

JB:

m.72 cadence. To be honest, I don't have a good reason for writing that. I wrote the proceeding passage at 73 first and then wrote up to it with a cadence leading to the wrong key. But I liked it. I kinda like the slight surprise of it going down a fourth rather than a fifth, and the passage didn't produce the right colors when I tried changing either one to another way. To be fair, nothing says that the D chord at 72 is a dominant. Except, of course, that that's how it was used before, which is pretty strong.

I know it's not exactly "classical" harmony, but think of that section as an "X/V" interrupting the cadance. :P Truth be told, though, I'll probably try to plan something like that better next time.

Oh, and can I get some help? I can't figure out how to make that slightly faster transition right.

Redirect thoughts on that here:

http://forum.youngcomposers.com/t26356/should-i-build-on-this/

Thanks. I'd rather attach snippits than reupload three hundred times.

JB

m.69: how do you suggest I address that? I don't get that feeling from it.

m.72 cadence: I hate to be a hardhead, but modulations are defined by a V-I in a new key. The entire recap at m.60 is in D. I don't hear the transition from the Dmaj to Amaj to be that striking, because harmonically speaking it's a I to V in the key of D. Seeing as how there never was a full modulation out of D, I feel I'm justified in maintaining that the chord progression is legitimate, though the ear may hint otherwise. There were plenty of times in my Music Theory courses at uni that my ears would swear that I was hearing an imperfect authentic cadence when it was a half cadence.

This is one of the pieces I will present as my introductory composition to my private comp lesson instructor in several weeks, so I'll have him let me know whether or not that progression works. Thanks for pointing it out.

Repeats: As I mentioned to Serge, the first repeat is a cop-out. The first part of the allegro needed more length, so I repeated the section. The more I consider it, the more I am convinced I will simply have to rewrite it, bite the bullet and add more music. The second repeat is for the reiteration of the overlapped themes, I'm pretty satisfied with that one.

Any chord progression is legitimate in music, but there are certain inclinations of each and every chord to go to another. You are trying to reason with me that the A major is a dominant for the D major, but you have not even established D major as the tonic yet! Its alright if you want to keep it that way. It is merely my opinion.

I think the first repeat is alright. The delay of the new theme makes it all the more effective.

About bar 69 ... I gave it another listen ... I think its another performance problem. As we all know, midi rendition simply do not bring out the life in some passages. It did come a bit abrupt to me, the first time I heard it, but now that I know what comes next, I did not find it so abrupt anymore ...

Write the left hand in tenor or treble clef it dosenot make much sence in parts. Is this more of an 'etude". Those rolls from octives to 7ths to 6thsect. This pice could icolate the ideas more and have more quintuplets or stuff instead of the dotted 16th notes. I really like your use of the scale. You need to reuse some of your ideas only in a diffrent context like that original melody you can call back the notes onley in revese or upsidown.

Write the left hand in tenor or treble clef it dosenot make much sence in parts. Is this more of an 'etude". Those rolls from octives to 7ths to 6thsect.

Could you give me some measure numbers, please? :)

This pice could icolate the ideas more and have more quintuplets or stuff instead of the dotted 16th notes. You need to reuse some of your ideas only in a diffrent context like that original melody you can call back the notes onley in revese or upsidown.

Could you elaborate on this? I don't know what you're talking about.

Thanks!

Hello :)

Well, this is not romantic at all, and I think you may have unwittingly written this in sonata form.

You have a good ear for harmony and dissonance, as this piece shows. You also aren't afraid to move quickly between chords. However, this is also one of the weaknesses of the piece. At least from a romantic viewpoint, the harmony stems from the melody that you are highlighting. From an impressionist viewpoint, the harmony stems from a color or idea that you want to highlight. Through many sections, there is a franticness to the music, but the effect of the franticness is reduced by the fact that there is no direction. A tighter control of harmony would allow that franticness to build and put increased tension on the listener.

As far as form goes, I have already said this is not a prelude and there are hints of it being sonata form. There are 2 distinct characters in the music and they are recombined and reviewed in the ending. It is very effective in this piece because I thought this was going to be in keeping with your piano sonata and I would never get to hear your ideas again... so it was very pleasantly surprising. However there wasn't much development of ideas. Everything was either presented or reviewed, which took away from the sense of direction.

I'm not going to talk about the notation, since I believe it won't help you much at this point.

Finally, I must say that your ideas really show in this piece and there's a lot that can be done with them. With further study of form and a better control of harmony, these ideas can develop into a strong piece.

Happy writing :)

Thanks for the review. And listening twice, apparently.

A couple questions for clarification.

"Through many sections, there is a franticness to the music, but the effect of the franticness is reduced by the fact that there is no direction."

Could you elaborate? Are you talking about development of one of the motives? I felt like I developed the primary fast motive (the three sixteenth note figure) completely to death. The others not so much, and could very well be the source of the issue you discovered.

"A tighter control of harmony would allow that franticness to build and put increased tension on the listener."

What do you mean by a tighter control of harmony?

Thanks again.

-Peter

This is toooooooo cool!!

The harmonies are so perfect. It's amazing how well you mixed the 2 styles!

The "orchestration" I guess you could call it, is great. The way the two hands meander through the piece, is what I'm trying to say...

And who cares if the end is somewhat stolen? Everyone uses that phrase. And it works!

Really, really good work! Keep composing!

Heklaphone

Not a bad piece. Some very nice ideas (notice ideas is plural.) For me, I can see a few problems right off the bat. As a prelude this has a TON of different thematic material. I see a little bit of development - but not enough really. Also, I was quite awed at your choice to have the 16th note run come in so suddenly - it really seemed out of place in your more 'modern' texture you had prior to it. In keeping with that last comment, also, I felt at times that you were holding back from going all out there harmonically. I noticed a few instances where you would start with a really good 'modern' sound and then return back to more traditional sounding terrain - almost so, that I felt this to be intentional. I really agree with what Ananth said above, I think a better knowledge of form and development would really suit you. In particular, you should look at the more modern forms being used by composers since 1950. Sonata-allegro, which this hints at, isn't exactly a common form to use anymore - which is a shame really, cause it would be easily molded to fit today's more open ears.

I have missed this lovely piece. But it deserves an healthy bump. I loved it!

I am not so fond of the repeats of a whole section. To me that always signifies you missed a change to develop. At least vary something, swap LH and RH, add a new harmony, change the texture, anything ;)

So, I would remove the repeats, not only the first, but also the second (which is not so functional since it only repeats 3 measures)...

The part from ms 44 was really nice, a slow build up of tension.

Ms 64 also stands out for its interesting rhythm, quite suddenly, but really works for me. I did however not see you use that little something elsewhere...

About the pedal markings. I prefer them below the lower staff. In fact, I really hate it when people put them below the Right hand staff :) I know finale (judging by the score you use that, just like me) cannot add the markings to a non existing entry. Which is rather clumsy, but ok. I would move them all manually, which is a terrible job to do. (I think this is the only advantage I know of Sib, to align dynamics etc.)

Updated!

Oh dear...

Your link takes me back to the YC Home Page :blink: See if you can get a tech admin or someone to fix it. Sorry about that :(

Fixed, it's working now. Man, so many bugs...

I loved the modernist touch in your work. Is romantic, but you don't forget you are in 21th century.

I felt the final a bit unconvencing, but it's fine.

The piece is interesting, maybe there are some points as empty sounds.

The harmonies are interesting, perhaps a little too hard in places.

I believe that the piece is very good in total.

We recommend reading the book "Harmony of the twentieth century" by Vincent Persichetti, to learn how to concatenate the chord in the modern style