Musical Essay

This was written over the course of a week. It was written for a composition class where we were asked to write a piece examining pitch. This piece examines pitch through relativity. For this reason, bitonality and in many case polytonality is used. The ending is very dissonant. This piece is very short and is written for two pianos.

Musical Essay.MUS

I LOVE IT !!!

O well, thank you!! ;)

Anybody else?

I have no criticism for this peace. Beautiful. I loved it. It was great for this style too.

I have no criticism for this piece.

slight edit;)

bloody pedant!

Thank you for posting a score rather than a midi. I love commenting on piano works but if all the author posts is a MIDI file there is little I can say, because piano writing is about so much more than the pitches.

That said, I like the experimenting you have accomplished with this piece. It is always a good thing to try new things, and even better when you have some sort of purpose, point, or philosophy behind it. Using the C and the G in the left hand is a good idea, but doing the exact same thing for the whole duration of the piece strikes me as a little too simplistic. There are several things you could do to that C-G ostinato to keep it from getting monotonous:

-Vary the octave you put it in

-Vary the rhythm of it

-Vary the way in which the two pianos layer/interlock

-You could even let the piece go into a different key (say, G major = G-D-G) for a middle section, and come back to C-G-C.

...and I bet you can think of more.

Now let's talk rhythm. You do something in this piece which seems pandemic to piano pieces, and I want to address it. You treat the barlines as if they are 'rhythmic fault lines' -- that is to say, any rhythmic changes in the piece tend to happen right AT the barline. Bars 3 to 4 is the first example, and it happens all over the piece. Now of course this is not a 'bad' thing in any pure sense -- but when ALL of your rhythmic changes occur on the bar, the changes become predictable and then they don't sound like changes anymore. Consider doing something unexpected -- rhythmic changes in the middle of the bar, or layering rhythmic changes, or something that doesn't make it so that the first piano makes its change, and then the second piano makes its change, in this appealing but rather predictable back-and-forth manner. (You start doing something like this in the second bar of page 4, but there's a lot more that could be done with it.)

Kudos for going out on a limb and seeing what happens when you combine notes that don't 'traditionally' go together. As this piece demonstrates, the result is much more appealing than some people around here would have us all think!

Thank you for posting aerlinnden. I'd like to adress your comments however.

There was a reason for using only c and g in the left hand parts and this is because they are very neutral notes in the C major scale. The tonic and dominant don't excentuate C major, but they do imply it which is what I was striving for. If different notes were added, I think this piece would lose sight of the goal which was to examine pitch through key relativity.

I realize the rhythm is rather monotonous and although this may sound like an excuse here is the reason for it being so : The teacher of my class wanted us to focus solely, or almost only, on pitch. If I varied the rhythm too much I wouldn't really fulfill this criteria.

The two pianos do interlock and change "principality" although it may be hard to tell with the program playing it. Both instruments take "turns" rising toward the climax and the ending, although I agree it is hard to tell. I should probably fix that.

I think moving the piece into a different key is, if you don't mind me being blunt, useless for several reasons. 1. the piece is trying to examine harmomy and polytonality and if I switch keys in the left hand it sort of defeats the point. 2. if the piece is really clangy already, you can't really tell what key its in which is what I really like. In fact it never even resolves to C major in the end as it is stuck in a B major - C major "lock" if you will. So changing keys doesn't really seem worthwhile.

Thank you for your comments.

And now if my "somewhat of a rival" would mind posting : Nico, any thoughts?

OK, I normally don't respond to responses, but I need to because this response is a good occasion to bring up some important points.

First, on the nature of comments. Well, actually, first first, on the nature of writing a piece of music. If you are on this forum and you are posting pieces and legitimately trying to become a better composer, it goes without saying that the pieces you post, unless otherwise specified, are the best work of which you are capable of producing. Obviously, if you personally thought anything needed to be changed, then you would have changed it before posting.

So you post a piece and get comments on it. Now if any of the comments are constructive criticism, they are by very definition things that you have not thought of, things that were not in your original conception of the piece. And yet they are comments by other musicians, with legitimate musical instincts and thoughts about your work. Reviewers take time to leave comments about your pieces so that you will sit back, consider them, and digest them, not simply sit back and come up with a response to each one that details how the comment does not fit in with your conception of the piece. Of course the critique does not fit with your conception of the piece -- if it did you would have changed the piece before posting it!

Composers around here need to make a constant effort to be receptive to the comments of reviewers. This is not an intellectual process that takes place for a few minutes after you read a review and reply to a post. Comments are something you should sit on for a while, digest, and come to understand if they apply to your piece or not.

That aside, I am going to use my next post to write rebuttals to your responses -- and hopefully as you read them you will keep the above comments in mind.

There was a reason for using only c and g in the left hand parts and this is because they are very neutral notes in the C major scale. ... If different notes were added, I think this piece would lose sight of the goal which was to examine pitch through key relativity.

A constant pedal point C, unless you are Terry Riley, is a rather simplistic way of establishing a key center. I understand that your 'point' was to experiment with what happens when you throw distant keys on top of C major. My comment, which still stands, is that while this is a great idea, it ends up sounding unexciting when the device is used for the duration of an entire piece of music. Furthermore, you could very easily change the pitch content of the left hands while still retaining a sense of C major. And doing this would not undermine the goal you set out for your piece. In fact, I argue, changing the pitch content for a period of time would only further the goal you set for yourself of 'examining pitch through key relativity' because the 'key' of C major means a whole lot more than just a C major chord.

I realize the rhythm is rather monotonous and although this may sound like an excuse here is the reason for it being so : The teacher of my class wanted us to focus solely, or almost only, on pitch. If I varied the rhythm too much I wouldn't really fulfill this criteria.

I didn't say the rhythm was monotonous -- I said it was simplistic by construction. The way you have put rhythms together, I feel, does not contribute most effectively to the development of the piece, or the development of the pitch goals you set up for yourself. Furthermore, focusing on one goal in music has never been a good reason for neglecting other goals. (Imagine if Chopin had set out to write one of his etudes and said, 'the point of this piece is right-hand arpeggios, so I can let things like harmony and form fall by the wayside'!)

I think moving the piece into a different key is, if you don't mind me being blunt, useless for several reasons. 1. the piece is trying to examine harmomy and polytonality and if I switch keys in the left hand it sort of defeats the point. 2. if the piece is really clangy already, you can't really tell what key its in which is what I really like. In fact it never even resolves to C major in the end as it is stuck in a B major - C major "lock" if you will. So changing keys doesn't really seem worthwhile.

1. It furthers the point (see above).

2. Your piece is definitely and unequivocally centered around the pitch C. Dissonance does not destroy a sense of key -- look at any Prokofiev piano sonata for examples of that. What this piece has done is examined the effect of placing distant sonorities on top of a C pedal. But it always remains in C, and for this reason I will continue to claim that changing notes in the left hand (not changing the key -- I mean you could do IV or V or bVII in C and never venture too far from C) would actually help further your goal of harmonic/polytonal exploration.

This has to be the best review of all time.