Prelude No. 1 in E minor

Quick, light, prelude for the virtuosic pianist. Not too valuable intellectually, but a nice listen nonetheless.

Prelude.mid

Prelude.sib

Quick, light, prelude for the virtuosic pianist. Not too valuable intellectually, but a nice listen nonetheless.

"valuable intellectually"? what exactly do you mean?

And quick and light? I wouldn't really use those words to describe this piece. But IMO, Virtuosic is sort of an understatement for skill level :P

Although, I didn't really find the piece interesting in the harmonic aspect, a little retrograde I think would have made this piece 100X more interesting. And your melody with the right hand seemed kind of weak as well, that's my honest opinion. The piece was sort of remiscent of some of Villa Lobos' guitar studies. The spot near the end where the left hand melody changed was a bit of fresh air, but IMO not really enough.

A good effort, but next time you may want to try to spice it up a little more :)

Will

Preludes tend not to contain elaborate melodies. When I call a piece intellectually valuable, it means the chord progressions and melodies are complex and lengthy; I would call the music of Britten and Ravel intellectually valuable.

Preludes tend not to contain elaborate melodies. When I call a piece intellectually valuable, it means the chord progressions and melodies are complex and lengthy; I would call the music of Britten and Ravel intellectually valuable.

Ahh, I see

Well actually, Preludes tend to be very elaborate depending on the era and whatnot. But it's up to you as the composer to do what you want :P

Hi, Nice piece overall,

But I agree with wiil kirk, the left hand should have been much quieter, there were quite a lot of good melodies in the right hand but you couldn't hear them properly. I like action song, but this was a bit overwhelming. I know it would sound much better played on a real piano.

Good work.

About the left hand dynamics, I had the dynamic as piano, but the crescendos in the right hand applied to the left for some discreet reason. Is there anyone familiar with Sibelius 4 that could help me fix that problem?

Oh, and it's a prelude alla Chopin; if you've heard his 24th, it'll be clearer.

Quick, light, prelude for the virtuosic pianist. Not too valuable intellectually, but a nice listen nonetheless.

I agree with whoever said it is not light. The left hand is heavy, not just dynamically, but harmonically too. Its repeated root/5th (power chords) along with a "run of the mill" major and minor chords - and set in a rather unimaginative progression, make it almost seem ponderous. there are a number of things you could do to alleviate this. For instance, if the left hand were to move about and not be in the same octave al the time, the piece could have more motion, and be a bit more virtuostic. Another Idea: It wouldn't hurt if you could break up the ostinato-ish effect in the left hand by having one (or more) of the notes in each chord move about to create some contrasting movement for your right hand melody to feed off, as well as to create some additional harmonic interest.

Just a few suggestions. Good luck with your work

I agree with everything that was already said. In addition, if you are going to use such an ostinato in the left hand I think it would be best to create more harmonic interest.

By the way, managing your notes in an economical fashion takes sound intellectual understanding. Harmnoic and Melodic complexity and virtuosity aren't the only means of complexity. :P

i'm very glad you gave the credit to chopin for the underlying idea, i was afraid i was going to have to call you on it! haha

it's a bit of a spanish chopin, which is something i never thought i would hear!

the thing is, chopin's prelude is intensely interesting to me. I think part of the reason this one falls a little short in comparison, in addition to what has been said already, is that your melody is always complex without stating the underlying idea first for us to have a foundation for the variations later, and he can find something as small as one note changing just a minor second in the left hand, and create a completely new colour. economy of means! i feel thrown into the middle of a movie with no explanation. also chopin builds the entire time in intensity and virtuosity. it feels to me like you hit the climax near the middle, and after that it sort of drags into nothing. too much too soon. your "virtuosic" sections will be much more effective if they are saved for the right moment. like in the chopin piece where the thirds are. if he had done that elsewhere, it would be robbed of it's power.

i would be interested to hear a piece like this by you not based on anything. keep up the work.