Nightscape's Music

This is my piece "Childhood Diary". It's a collection of very short piano pieces about being a kid - kind of like Schumann's Album for the Young. I used a variety of styles and they range from very hard to very easy. These are the first nine pieces, and I plan to write around forty or so.

Dance Panel

String_Quintet_in_A_minor.mid

Musings

piano_sonata_c_major2.mid

Rhyming Game

Waltz.MID

Nightmare

ChildsDream.mid

Bicycling

Goblin_Dreams.mid

Enigma

CAROL3.MID

Teasing Song

Waltz_harmonisee.mid

Forgotten Hymn

cave1.mid

Afternoon Walk

cave2.mid

Well... I listened to three of them...

Dance Panel - Well.... i don't really understand thats a dance panel or anything... well... it was enjoyable enough

Nightmare - This sounds really good. I like it a lot.

Afternoon Walk - This is slow and nice... And its very relaxating. Good job :)

I'm sorry if I seem to commenting as opposed to critiquing... but I'm not that good at analysiing and stuff... so that will have to do...

I liked the use of dynamics.

i think you did a good job capturing the moods and feelings, even with simple sounding pieces.

I enjoyed the dance panel thing. am I right to think that the dancer(s) was/were stumbling?

I liked nightmare. I felt that one had good ideas, although part of me wanted to hear some parts expand more, but that might have detracted from the nightmarish feel.

Teasing song was interesting. I thought it was going to be light and peppy and just fun and funny, but I really felt like it was a song that would make a person feel teased--haha, that sentence sounds kind of dumb.

all in all, good ideas, but i kind of want to hear more in a song.

i guess i'm not the best to actually critique a song considering i couldn't compose if my life depended on it, but i liked your compositions. they sound very abstract and nice. they are just short. i like really long songs, i get kinda lost in them, you know?

The dance panel - really good and fun to listen, but im not sure what kind of a dance panel do you have in mind...

Rhyming Game - Interesting really, especially the tempo. Makes it sound really childish. Maybe just a little monotone.

Nightmare - A really good one! Relly spooky in a can't-run-away style.

Bicycling - I don't know what i sohuld say about this exept that it does remind me of bicucling and it's still chidish.

Enigma - im not sure what kind of an enigma is this but I really liked the song, it does sound very mysterious.

Teasing Song - OK - I expected something really childish, and i heard the popular mocking song, but the way you approched to it, psychologicly speaking, is AMAZING!!!

Forgotten hymn - I don't know what's this got to do with beeing a child, sounds nice all the way, but i didn't impress me much. Colud you tell me whats it about, cause i REALLY want to know...

Afternoon walk - Relaxing and slow... but i sence there is something more to this walk then just an "Afternoon walk". Again im confused could you explain what was in your head when you wrote this...?

Thanks for your comments.

Dance Panel, I'm not exactly sure what a dance panel is, mabye I should have looked into that a bit better. But I named it after one of my favorite pieces by Copland, a ballet called "Dance Panels".

Teasing song is sort of a dark piece yes. It's also very easy to play (and believe me sounds much creepier on a real piano with a pianist playing!)

Forgotten Hymn - I put this on a synth patch because the midi piano sounds awful on this, so mechanical and rigid. Actually, this piece pays homage to the Schumann piece "Choral", number 4 from his Album for the Young, op.68. In fact, Forgotten Hymn is just a reharmonization of Schumann's piece. I harmonized the piece using 'interval theory' which is a technique where you create chords based on the intervals between each note. This allowed me to create a series of moderately dissonant chords, while still contain good voice leading. Anyways, I thought it could be about a child's impression of church....

Afternoon walk - My stab at a bitonal piece. In the first part, for instance, the left hand plays in C major (its notes are C, G, A) and the right plays the E major scale as a melody. I used syncopation to avoid having dissonant notes clash together too much (like C and C# or G and G#). But overall it does have a sort of creepy, yet relaxed atmosphere. I'm not exactly sure what the creepy part could be really... mabye something from "The Good Son".

Enigma - This is a serial piece! *Gasp* But its not 12-tone. I used an 8-note row, so it isn't totally atonal. I was afraid no one would like this one, as it is the oddest sounding of the bunch. It's probably vies with Nightmare for the hardest, since the rhythms are so hard to decipher. Could be some sort of childhood thing, like another strange dream or perhaps a glare from an uncaring parent or sibling.

Anyways, thanks again!

Here are three more I've recently finished. I also will be composing some longer ones (like Grandfather's Stories). In fact, they will probably get longer as I go along.

Imaginary March

Les_R_ves_du_Pass_2.MID

Quiet Reflection

1st_Movement.MID

Grandfather's Stories

Brass.mid

Imaginary March - An odd march indeed, but very well composed and i enjoyd it very much.

Quiet Reflection - This one is way cool! I'm starting to get interested in your psyche because the specific way you compose. :cool: :D :D

Grandfather's Stories - Good thing you started writing some longer ones. This one is nice, and i especially like the mood changes.in the 1st half.

It seems to me you have a bright future in writting like this!

Dance Panel - I love how you have combined chromatics with major and minor triads. This piece has a jazzy feel at times. You have also succeeded at writing harmonic sequences in a nontraditional idiom. I like the style you're using in this piece, and the only complaint I have is that any melody seemed kind of elusive.

Musings - This would be a great piece in a children's piano book such as the early volumes of Bartok's Mikrokosmos. As a piece in and of itself there is not a lot to it; the syncopated note continues throughout the piece and there are two main harmonic devices. However, in a set of 40, it's right at home.

Rhyming Game - I guess I have to remember that the goal of most of these pieces is simplicity. I like the harmonies and arpeggiations (though they seem to wander a but around 00:40) but I was expecting some overarching melody to come in at any moment over the arpeggios, a la Chopin. But the point of this little miniature is not to construct an intricate musical statement, so it is fine as it is.

Nightmare - This sounds like it would be a lot of fun to play! I like the way you shoot up into the sky with fourths. The repeated note is a good device. I really like your harmonic style in all your pieces so far. How do you go about choosing chords?

Bicycling - The left hand melody in the opening and closing sections just isn't settling with me on this one. It wanders without actually going anywhere to my ear. I like the section when the hands play in unison and then split up.

Enigma - I don't understand 12-tone music (well, I do understand it academically but not musically) and 8-tone music doesn't make a ton more sense either! =\ So I can't comment on the harmonies and melodies you used. I don't think I like the form of this piece. You have it set up as an ABA where A is a slower more mysterious section and B is louder and more relentless. In a piece that is this short, the changes between sections are not smooth and seem arbitrary to me.

Teasing Song - This is actually really, really creepy to me. I imagine a scene where a child is getting teased but starts to go crazy in his head during the taunting. I'm not sure if you wanted to deal with such a heavy theme in a tiny piece such as this one but that's the way it comes across to me.

Forgotten Hymn - I am not familiar with "interval theory" but I would like to learn about it after hearing this piece. Even though the harmonies are not traditional, there is still progress, and tension and resolution.

Afternoon Walk - I think the bitonality is a little too glaringly evident in this piece. Bitonality, remember, is just one tool in your kit, and cannot be the end goal of a piece. In fact, you can listen to many good bitonal pieces and not hear that they are bitonal until you actually look at the score. Bitonality creates one unified piece, and here I feel like the two parts still are quite disparate.

That's all for now. I'll come back and do the others once I've made the cycle to everyone's threads (this will take a while!)

Thanks for your helpful comments. Now to answer some of your questions...

Although, I'm not sure I understand why the bitonality being obvious is a bad thing. You seem to imply that bitonality should "be seen, and not heard", however I think that is but one use of it. There are a lot of good bitonal pieces that are very obvious about it, some piano music of Milhaud comes to mind. Since bitonality is merely two tonalities your argument could be extrapolated to "monotonality" or pieces using only one key. But it doesn't make much sense to say that a piece written in G major should do it without the listener knowing its only in one key. But I do see your point, and personally find the subtle kind of bitonality more palatable - if I use bitonality again in this collection, I'll try to use it in a different way, perhaps in a more subtle way as you suggest.

You asked what Interval Theory is. Well, it isn't anything fancy, and you may already know the principles behind it, but I can give a brief example of writing four part harmony with it. We'll use the first phrase of my hymn as a guide.

Here is the full phrase:

First, let's start with the melody. You don't have to start with the soprano line, but I did (since it is the same as Schumann's melody):

Next I created the alto line.

Here, really I chose arbitrary notes, but kept three basic rules in mind:

1. Use a variety of different intervals (between the two lines)

2. Use a fair amount of contrary motion, and also smooth voice leading

3. Make the alto line "singable" not too awkard, could be a melody in its own right

Next I created the tenor line.

To choose the notes of the tenor line, I used the soprano line as a guide. I wanted to pick notes that would be midly dissonant, but not clash too much. Picking a note one whole step away usually does the trick. For example, the first soprano note is G, so I picked F. I also could have picked A. I chose F because it sounds more ambiguous (you also need to use your ear to help pick). This line also has a "shape", you can see the sequence of fourths, and also the inversion at the end. Also notice how the shape of the the first four notes of the tenor line are related to the last four of the alto line. You don't always have to use the soprano as a guide either, for example in measure 2, for the first pitch I used the alto as a guide, picking D to compliment the alto's C.

Now for the fourth and final line.

Here the main concern was motion with the melody. If you'll notice, the bass moves in contrary motion to the soprano at the beginning of the phrase, to create a sense of momentum, then uses parallel motion at the end to create a sense of rest. This is most important in four part harmony. To pick the exact notes, I used the same rules for picking the alto line. I also tried to pick notes that were mildly dissonant, like with the tenor line. The main difference is that you want the tenor and bass to be spaced apart further than the soprano and alto.

So that sums up interval theory. All it really is is being aware of the intervals you are using to construct chords. It allows you to become free of the reign of common chords like the triad, sevenths, ninths and use totally different constructions that are distantly related, but often sound quite different. You don't have to use it to make this type of music either. If you want more consonant music, use more consonent intervals, and vice versa for more dissonant music. It really is most useful in music that uses "lines" or "voices" , like hymns and chorals (also fugues).

As far as my choosing chords in Nightmare, I really relied a lot on improvisation to create some interesting sonorities, then used techniques like sequencing to drag those sonorities out into full phrases and transitions.

Dance Panel - definite Jazz influence to the piece, but it seems to wander aimlessly through a bunch of jazz influenced melodic lines without actually accomplishing much of anything except give a jazz feel.

Musings - I like the repeated single note around which snippets of melody seem to hang. I'm not sure what the variations in volume are meant to acocmplish, whether a heightening of tension or what, because they don't do that. Still, an interesting little snippet.

Rhyming Game - The constant motion around has a very interesting flavour. Some interesting harmonic modulations you make. The ending is atually satisfying for this piece. A nice reaching upwards along the keyboard to die.

Nightmare - ooh, I like this. Kind of reminds me of Prokofiev's Suggestion Diabolique. Nice use of the repeated note here to provide a sense of menace. Excellent piece! The best of the lot so far.

Bicycling - This has a very similar feel to Rhyming Game in the generally unchanging tempo. Good harmonic transitions as well. A good little miniature. Not sure what it has to do with bicycling though.

Enigma - a nice quiet mysterious opening. Good use of dissonance I think to create a sense of otherworldliness.

Teasing Song - Very sombre piece, there is definite moodiness to this. I think this one is definitely of high caliber. Excellently crafted.

Forgotten Hymn - After all those piano works, to hear the synth voices was a bit of a surprise, but a welcome one. I feel as if I'm playing a Legend of Zelda game almost as I listen to this. Not a lot here other than some evocative chant though.

Afternoon Walk - Uh, apart from the use of bitonaility, there doesn't seem to be alot here.

Imaginary March - Oooh, nice upbeat tempo on this one. That's a nice change of pace form all the slow shuffling stuff that we usually get. You seem to love the lack of clear tonality and reliance on stacked fourths. The piece's ending just fades away, and that's not the way this piece should end. It feels very wrong. This one should go out with some heavy chords.

Quiet Reflection - Another moody piece. It seems to be effective at what it seeks to accomplish. The bit aroud 1:05 is really good. I love the intense descending octaves. Very well done there. There is an almost Scriabin-like distance in the last part of the piece. Nice.

Grandfather's Stories - Interesting selection, with a few moments of more conventional harmony. Not to impugn your style, but those few moments where more conventional harmony shone clearly were some of my favourites. I rather like it when in the midst of all this atonal clangour we can have a bright clear moment where clear tonality can be heard. Still, a pleasant selection to listen to.

Thanks, Matuleso. Don't worry about inpugning my style - I haven't been composing for long and I'm trying all sorts of things, so I'm not sure I even have a definate style yet. But there are sounds that I like that do tend to pop up in my pieces.