May 26, 201114 yr A short piano piece. It is my first attempt at writing something in a romantic style. The rendition is done with a vst, I didn't play it.Any feedback is welcome, I'd really appreciate if you tell me what you think of it. Piano piece
May 26, 201114 yr Hi Nic! I just started composing and am rather shaky on music theory so feel free to ignore my comments. I'm going by ear alone: 1) What I love about this piece is the melody and the texture! Great melody - it just flows so naturally! And despite the repeats, it doesn't feel 'repetitive'. The fact that it can sustain interest for about 40 measures (most of which are repeats) says a lot about the strength of the melody, I think. I also think the texture - how the melody and the accompaniment sit together - works well. 2) What I'm not sure about is the harmony. It might be because I am not used to dissonances and chromaticism, but it sounds a little off in places. Instead of dissonances either building up or melting into consonance, in a few places all I hear is one dissonant chord/melody combination followed by another. I guess because I am not familiar with 'modern' pieces, I have a very low tolerance for dissonance. Whenever I hear dissonance, my ear expects tension followed by resolution. Take for instance m1: a) It might be just me, but because the piece opens on the dominant (mi-sol-si) rather than the tonic (la-do-mi), I almost get the feeling that I started listening halfway through. As if I've just turned on the radio and caught an excerpt from the middle section of a work. b) I'm also not sure that V is the right harmony for that phrase. Maybe if the tone was established earlier, it would be easier on the ear to tolerate the chromatic dissonance until the end of the phrase. But since it's the very first thing you hear, it came across as a little jarring to me. 3) Do you intend to continue or is the piece finished? Why are there 5 empty measures at the end? What would be really cool is if you could come up with a "B" section to really contrast with what you have. (So that the piece as it stands would be Part-A (composed of a smaller aba pattern). Then a contrasting B section to 'clean the palate' a little - and round off with a variation of A perhaps? All in all, I think this is a VERY promising start. The only recommendation I have is to run it past someone well versed in harmony. They might be able to smooth a few bits and bobs here and there (or perhaps confirm that there is nothing that requires fixing). I don't know if any of that helped - just my two cents! :) Take care Alp
May 27, 201114 yr Author Thanks for your comment Yes, maybe there's some harmonic problem at the beginning... I'll try some different solutions. 3) Do you intend to continue or is the piece finished? Why are there 5 empty measures at the end? They're there just because I didn't delete them :) I don't know, I did this just to try to write something I'm not familiar with, maybe if I get to refine the theme I could expand it...
