Nocturne in C# minor

Hi! This is the first piano piece I've completed recently that I feel is ok to share. Please tell me what you think so I can improve my composition! Thanks!

Nocturne_in_C#_minor.pdf

I feel like using this much parallelism in a composition is kind of formulaic.  It's also very similar to some Debussy pieces like "Engulfed Cathedral".  The thickness of the chords and overly rich voicings end up being the most salient feature of the composition.  For me personally it's something that I would use sparingly because of the aforementioned associations.  Debussy innovated this kind of parallelism so unless you have a novel approach or unique way of using it you're going to sound like you're copying him.  That's my 2¢.  Thanks for sharing!

2 hours ago, PeterthePapercomPoser said:

Debussy innovated this kind of parallelism so unless you have a novel approach or unique way of using it you're going to sound like you're copying him.  That's my 2¢.  Thanks for sharing!

But if you constantly try to reinvent the wheel while you are starting out as a composer, how do you actually learn to use the basic tools in the composer's toolkit?  Everything in life is a process of slow evolution, with each new discovery standing on the shoulders of the ones that came before.  You have to sound like a Debussy for a while, (and what an accomplishment that would be), before you can be the heir to Debussy's writing, with something new and individual to say.  

I really like this.  It's a solid foundation to build on.  I think adding some grace notes to the left hand might add something interesting.  This piece has a really strong "system" to it: everything feels like it belongs to the piece.  Which means finding a way to add a surprise or two, that still fits into the sound world, could add some richness if that was something you were interested in playing with.  

Nice one!

Mimicking other composers or model writing as it's called is okay for someone who is trying to learn to add more techniques to their toolkit as you said.  But if one posts such pieces as their own one should be prepared to be perceived as derivative of the composer in question being mimicked.  And you might as well be copying and pasting if you don't innovate and I frankly don't see much innovation in this piece.  As I said, the most salient feature of the composition is the parallelism which to my ear can get pretty tiresome fast.  There's a lot places where all I hear is "figure at a certain pitch level" followed by "exact repetition of the figure at another higher or lower pitch level" which is also kind of formulaic.  Anyways, I usually try to find something positive to say about a composition so I'll just add that using triplets in a triple meter is pretty cool rhythmically.