First composition : Consolation for Viola and Piano

Hi,

I'm an amateur musician playing saxophone, piano and recently learning Viola. I wanted to compose for a long time but found it too complicated for me. I've found a good book to start and compose my first piece for the Viola and Piano. It's a bit academic in terms of harmony but I had a lot of fun writing it and hope you'll enjoy it.

I could have recorded it on my piano and my viola but the viola part is a bit tricky and it's easier to use virtual instrument.

All comments are welcome

Christophe

Edited September 4, 20223 yr by Christophe

Hey--

    A good start.

Some observations:

1.  the texture stays the same throughout.  The viola has the melody and the piano accompanies.  It would be more interesting if you vary the lead---piano lead, viola lead, perhaps solo piano.   Each could carry the melody for a bit.  Passages together could add drama.

2.  Maybe shape the melodic line a bit more, with  a clear chord progression.

3.  Find a suitable model with similar forces: a violin  or viola sonata --20th c perhaps.   Learn form the masters.  Dover prints cheap scores.  They can cuts YEARS off of study.

    Overall a nice start.  Congrats.

Thanks a lot Rich for your encouragement and precious advices.

For next compositions I should pay attention to musical development and for Viola there is some interesting master pieces to study (Koechlin, Schostakovitch...).

I definitely enjoyed it. Welcome to the forums!

I must say that I am quite satisfied with the first 16 bars. I like the subtle melody that lies within the piano accompaniment that precedes the main melody. Obviously tremolo parts would be benefited from a real performance but the digital one is alright.

Cannot say the same thing about the next section [M17-End], not because it sounds bad, ugly, or anything like that, but more because I think it ends too soon (of course that's just my opinion, my feeling of it). In other words, you have a first section of 16 measures and a second section of 6 and perhaps it's just me but that feels unbalanced. In case you did not intend that and you see my point my advice here would be getting some info about structure. 

And overall the best advice I can provide is: keep composing, listening to your favourite composers and expanding your knowledge.

Finally: what did you intend to do here?, why did you use a different tempo marking just in that lil' note? Is it related to limitations of the playback feature of your engraving software?

Looking forward to see more of your work here!

Kind regards,

Daniel–Ømicrón.

Edited September 5, 20223 yr by Omicronrg9

17 hours ago, Omicronrg9 said:

I definitely enjoyed it. Welcome to the forums!

Thanks a lot. The forums looks like  a very friendly communauty.

17 hours ago, Omicronrg9 said:

Cannot say the same thing about the next section [M17-End], not because it sounds bad, ugly, or anything like that, but more because I think it ends too soon (of course that's just my opinion, my feeling of it). In other words, you have a first section of 16 measures and a second section of 6 and perhaps it's just me but that feels unbalanced. In case you did not intend that and you see my point my advice here would be getting some info about structure. 

I'm totally agree with you. I was in too much of a rush to finish and was missing new idea to do it. It's a Consolation, the Major part (bright and hopeful) should be longer.

17 hours ago, Omicronrg9 said:

Finally: what did you intend to do here?, why did you use a different tempo marking just in that lil' note? Is it related to limitations of the playback feature of your engraving 

 

I've just forgot to hide it. It's for an accelerando on Musescore export to MIDI.

Thanks a lot for your encouragement.

Edited September 6, 20223 yr by Christophe
Orthographe