German Dance

I've been busy these last two weeks and I have a few short pieces I'm working on. This piece I've called a German dance although I did set out to compose a minuet. I took a risk with the B section cadence of the first section because I used a pedal point in the low register which sounds a little muddy. I composed an alternative but I wondered what others might think.

The trio is a bit generic I think, I really struggle with ideas for the trio sections. I will do a bit of research to better understand the balance between variety and unity of the minuet and its trio. 

Charming ............ 🙂

Very nice!  I see you're continuing with your goal of playing all of your pieces yourself!  As for the supposedly muddy pedal point - I don't hear it.  I'm assuming you're talking about measure 21 where you continue the G tonic pedal despite going into a D7 chord?  Another thing I didn't really hear although I think it should bother me is in measure 19 beat 3 where the right hand has an F# while the left hand has an F natural.  I guess the F# is going up to G and the F natural is going down to E which is what makes it sound OK.  Thanks for sharing!

1 hour ago, PeterthePapercomPoser said:

Very nice!  I see you're continuing with your goal of playing all of your pieces yourself!  As for the supposedly muddy pedal point - I don't hear it.  I'm assuming you're talking about measure 21 where you continue the G tonic pedal despite going into a D7 chord?  Another thing I didn't really hear although I think it should bother me is in measure 19 beat 3 where the right hand has an F# while the left hand has an F natural.  I guess the F# is going up to G and the F natural is going down to E which is what makes it sound OK.  Thanks for sharing!

 

Thank you for listening and for your comments. I dont know if the augmented octave is a voice leading error but perhaps the quick notes and the resolution of the dissonance hides it. I decided to sit at the piano and find an alternative and discovered no matter how I change the bass notes there are 2 consecutive dissonance intervals or a directs 5th! Finally I played them as chords higher up and it sounds better and avoids any errors. 

Well, it's very classical in harmony and structure (I believe. I'm no expert on these classical structures) but also dance like. A bit Beethoven-esque. It works. I didn't note any pedal markings but there was a slight blur at the beginning of bar 18. 

I usually shudder when I see repeat marks but I thought I'd give it a go and enjoyed it.

28 minutes ago, Quinn said:

Well, it's very classical in harmony and structure (I believe. I'm no expert on these classical structures) but also dance like. A bit Beethoven-esque. It works. I didn't note any pedal markings but there was a slight blur at the beginning of bar 18. 

I usually shudder when I see repeat marks but I thought I'd give it a go and enjoyed it.

 

I appreciate your feedback. I think i will re-record the piece with a few changes I've made to the score. I know what you mean about repeat marks. It was the practice in the 18th century to vary the repeats and its a skill I want to learn to make my performance of my work more authentic to the period and more interesting.

Nice and balanced piece.....

I guess you were insipred by Mozart -https://musescore.com/james_brigham/scores/2374551

1 hour ago, Arciom Nesterovich said:

I guess you were insipred by Mozart -https://musescore.com/james_brigham/scores/2374551

 

Im inspired by all three great classical composers; Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven. They all composed German dances in their own styles. I particularly like Beethoven's dances. Schubert is king of the short form in my opinion though but im resisting his influence at the moment because my harmony knowledge is still growing and I want to assimilate the classical language first. 

I don’t have an awful lot to say, but I think it’s absolutely adorable. I especially like the charming sound of ms. 15.