Suspended Beauty

Second piece from Book 1 of Collectively Unhinged for solo piano.Please note that the recording is only a practice run and does contain errors but is included here to give you an idea of how the piece sounds.

Suspended Beauty

At the start in your score I can see that quavers are beamed across the bars; I did that once and my composition teacher has just threw the score in the bin as she said that something like that is not acceptable. So it might be just me but I do believe that the should not be beamed across the bars. I like your repeated patterns at the start although I could do with a bit more of accents to mark the important noted which carry the theme. When you start your actual theme why did you let it go away so quickly and started the repeated patterns (this may be just my opinion but I think that it would be great if you made more out of it You can do so many things to it; you could augment it, invert it, retrograde it or maybe diminish it. Great piece but as for me it needs more of the theme.

At the start in your score I can see that quavers are beamed across the bars; I did that once and my composition teacher has just threw the score in the bin as she said that something like that is not acceptable. So it might be just me but I do believe that the should not be beamed across the bars. I like your repeated patterns at the start although I could do with a bit more of accents to mark the important noted which carry the theme. When you start your actual theme why did you let it go away so quickly and started the repeated patterns (this may be just my opinion but I think that it would be great if you made more out of it<img src="http://network.youngcomposers.com/elgg/ipb/public/style_emoticons/default/smile.gif" alt=":)" /> You can do so many things to it; you could augment it, invert it, retrograde it or maybe diminish it. Great piece but as for me it needs more of the theme. <img src="http://network.youngcomposers.com/elgg/ipb/public/style_emoticons/default/smile.gif" alt=":)" />

Thanks for your reply. I beamed across the bar to show how the pattern had extended by one quaver. It also shows where the accented note is. If it were not beamed accross the bar then it would be much more difficult to see the intent. I know a lot of contemporary music is notated this way, so maybe your composition teacher is rooted in more conventional notation?

She is indeed a very conservative and strict teacher but also one of the best teachers available in Northern Ireland. I looked over the score again and I can see your point. How do you feel about the length of the actual theme? (I would love a bit more out of it)

I think its perfectly reasonable to beam across the bar line - like you said, it shows where the accent should fall. However, I do disagree with putting a beam across the repeat (into bar 8), because then repeated section begins in the middle of a pattern. Also, instead of putting lots of pauses at the end, you could just tell the performer to play slower :P

I think perfectly reasonable to beam across the bar line - like you said, it shows where the accent should fall. However, I do disagree with putting a beam across the repeat (into bar 8), because then repeated section begins in the middle of a pattern. Also, instead of putting lots of pauses at the end, you could just tell the performer to play slower :P

Good point, I will look into revising that.