Waltz in B Minor

Here's the waltz I linked to from my Journal.

Audio

Alternative Download (use only if above link does not work)

The pdf of the music is attached. A word of warning, the pdf here is not the final, cleaned-up version my professor played from in the recording above. It is the only pdf I have of it, however. The metronome markings are to be ignored outright, the performance tempo was considerably slower. All the notes are there, but the tempo markings and expressions were changed slightly in performance. All in all, I like the performance version better and will change the score to reflect that in revisions.

A little bit about this piece: This was the product of my first year of composition lessons with a professor here, and the first piece I've had performed. There are a few spots I'm not happy with because I was fighting a deadline, but, oddly enough, those are the spots that a lot of people have said are their favorite, so they will stay. As I said in the program notes, I feel this waltz is somewhat self-reflective, but not necessarily written to express emotions I was feeling.

Anywho, for those of you who kept asking when I was going to post a piece, this was the one I was working on. I was very nervous about having it performed. Before the performance, no one but me and the performer heard it, and I was rather worried no one would like it.

Waltz.pdf

Can you post a midi?

Can you post a midi?

One doesn't exist. All I have is this recording and a hard copy of the music now. I lost the MIDI when I switched from Windows to full Linux.

Wow...

If I were you, I would not have been worried about having it performed.. It's a very beautiful piece. The whole thing seems coherent, and your material fits together smoothly.

That's really all the criticism I can say about it... I'm completely unqualified to analyze it from a harmonic standpoint, I just judge it by how it sounds... and it sounds great.

if I could write a waltz like that, i would buy me the whole Trump tower,

great harmony,

a waltz does

I tried to listen, but it said "error loading songfile". That's too bad, because I really wanted to hear music by you.

It's probably server issues. Try again in a bit.

I just tried again, and it's 3 hours later, but it still doesn't work. I checked out other songs on soundclick and they all work, so it's not a server issue. When I go to your profile it says 0 songs. Have you tried it? Re-link it if possible, maybe it's not just me that's having trouble, I'll wait for others to comment.

Hm, odd. I'm updating it now. On my stats page, however, it shows 20+ plays yesterday.

[EDIT] Finished uploading. It plays for me.

New download link here.

I tried Soundclick again, and it seems to work for me now, so..sorry for making you go through the trouble of re-uploading it. Hope it wasn't too much trouble.

No worries, mate. If you were having the issue, I'm sure other people were too.

Anyway, I'm listening to your Waltz right now as I'm typing, and I'm surprised because first of all I usually don't have interest in old school piano stuff, but this was different. I'm actually picking up some composing techniques I'm hearing, I really started to like it around the 1:00 mark. It flowed smoothly, and if you ask me I really couldn't pick out any major problems. Second I would expect there to be way more views and comments than it has right now, very surprising. I don't want to say anymore good stuff, because it's starting to sound like I'm sucking up to you or something. Keep in mind that this is coming from a VG music guy, who pretty much listens to the exact opposite of this kind of music.(I don't know if that is good or bad)

Hehe. Thanks.

How long did this take you?

Hm, the initial inspiration started over last summer, near the middle. Of the original drafts, only 4 bars remain intact, but most of the melodies remained. I was composing the day of the deadline, two weeks before performance (So, it was finished April 1st.) All in all, it took almost a year.

I really love it. Man, I wish I could've composed something like this on piano. I got a piano solo in a month and two weeks to compose something to perform ('cause I don't think I can get the whole Revolutionary Etude by Chopin memorized in time), so, kudos to you for making this. It's really, really good. It does remind me a bit of something that Chopin would've done for some really, really weird reason.

Wow, that was great!!!!

John, this is a very nice sounding piece.