Short etude for harpsichord

Hi,

I present to you my new piece - short (1 min) etude for harpsichord (a little break after my last quite long cantata :) ).

As always, advices for future or this piece are welcomed.

Etiuda.pdf

Edited October 18Oct 18 by Josquins turban

Hi, welcome to the Forum!
Not only as a composer, but as a harpsichordist, I find that there is too much of the same for too long. Essentially, a lot of repetition and not enough imitation/ independence. However, before I go on to elaborate, was it your intention to imitate baroque style?

Maybe a little bit yes, I think most of what I write imitate or tries to imitate baroque style, even if I don't really intend it 😆. I didn't really knew how to write something longer/with less repetition on so short "theme", that was I think main problem here...

If you could write, what could be done to achieve this, it would be very nice :)

Hi @Josquins turban ,

I tend to agree with MK, it's a little too repetitive, even if the patterns you chose, and the harmonic progressions are nice.

It somehow reminded me of Prelude No.6 by Bach - BWV 875 --> if you don't know the piece, check it out, it's interesting how much variety of rhythms and melodic materials he can use. This can definitely give you some hints.

If I had to elaborate on your work, I would typically introduce some slower melodic material in bars 4, 12... before returning to your transition material (yes, I think that's my feeling, you have good transition material, but I don't feel there is a theme sticking out...)

Thanks for sharing and do share the evolutions, I'm keen to see how you've decided to make it evolve!

Julien

Wow... Thank you very much. I had this "theme/figure" in my head for so long and it felt familiar, but I didn't know where did it come from, so I thought it's mine :D. Now I know, so I think there is no need to reinvent the wheel (especially by Bach), so I better leave this theme to Him, cause he just does it better :)

It's really interesting how we can subconsiously "compose" something already made

Edited October 23Oct 23 by Josquins turban

Haha, indeed, we are influenced by what we listen, we all are...

Nevertheless, I would definitely encourage you to continue the journey, and exercise your composer skills on this work you started, by introducing some melodic phrases. My (limited) experience in composing clearly shows that the journey is hard, but really fascinating.

I agree with the others that this is a little repetitive, even for a short piece. 12 of the 21 bars are the arpeggio figure with mordent and a lot of those are pairs of arpeggios in the same key. You changed up the keys a little later, which helps, but that still a lot of repetition. How about continuing new material from 3 into 4 rather than going back to the figure of m. 1 and 2? Extending the new material through m. 4 would give interest before returning to d minor.

Since this is a baroque-style piece, I think a D octave in the bass of m. 10 is required. My ear at least felt its absence.