"Forgetting" - for piano, sightread by Erica Sipes

[Dave Dexter]

I wrote a short, heavily bleak piece for piano at the end of 2021 and the wonderful pianist Erica Sipes included it in one of her live sightreading streams. I can't add .pdfs to show the score, but her performance raised some issues in my notation which I then addressed after consulting with her - the main aspect was my prevalent 10th LH intervals, which she had to stagger with her smaller reach. Nonetheless, she really captured the mood of the piece on a cold reading. I hope it made you sad.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8WZkkk8DbI&t=1475s

[Kristofer Emerig]

It’s good, but it didn’t make me sob like a baby.

[Dave Dexter]

Well, find a baby and see what happens.

And thanks.

[HS Teoh]

It sounds sad, but didn't make *me* sad (sorry, I'm a stubborn optimist ;-)). Nevertheless, it does sound like you were totally channeling your inner Chopin, what with the triple time and the extensive chromatic figurations. Even a lot of the accidentals in the melody sound quite Chopinesque in many places. So, good job for writing in a pianistic idiom!

I did kinda hope for more fun in the LH part, i.e. more counterpoint perhaps, or the occasional inversion of melody in LH and accompaniment in the RH... but that's just my inner fugologist speaking, don't pay any attention to him if this is totally not what this piece is about.

[Kristofer Emerig]

I have to agree HS. While I can appreciate music which depicts a melancholy mood (certainly more than music of a jovial nature), it doesn't necessarily imbue my emotional state with its qualities. Perhaps fugue writers are simply clinical brutes lacking natural human sensitivities, or worse, sociopaths who delight in the knowledge that the piece in question is going to make someone, somewhere, very, very depressed.

But even sadness represents a relative spectrum of possible emotional states; there's the profound sadness that comes of losing a close friend, pet, or beloved family member, and then there's the sadness produced when we drop our ice cream off its cone, and just as we're reaching to pick it up and brush it off, Dave Dexter comes along, whistling a pensive tune, and kicks it into the dirt road.

[HS Teoh]

Don't forget also the sadness of Barbie the doll as she sings a tear-jerking dirge to a wind-up music box, pining for her beloved Ken who has been so cruelly broken into sad little tiny pieces by the so very naughty child who owns them.

[Kristofer Emerig]

HS, I didn’t see the movie, but you’ve already convinced me that my reluctance was justified.

[HS Teoh]

I didn't see the movie either 😆 I just randomly picked the name as the most easily identifiable doll in the English-speaking world. The plot is entirely made up by me, there are no spoilers here. 😅 I should have picked Punch and Judy instead, but couldn't remember the names when I wrote my last post.

[Kristofer Emerig]

Ah, good then. At least you didn’t spoil the experience for me. I still have something to look forward to in life.

[Dave Dexter]

STOP IT YOU'RE CHEAPENING MY SACRED ART

[Dave Dexter]

Thanks Teoh :) it is indeed meant to be a simple piece. LH with almost rudimentary chord voicing, RH with single melody line. I have other pieces with more flashy writing in both hands, and my choral (and choral arranged for string 4tet) pieces have counterpoint and all that, but it's not what this piece was about. Just drawing the melody out simply. I can't recall the specific inspiration, but I'd definitely been listening to Chopin among others and wanted to feel freer about repeating chord progressions (something I stupidly feel is like cheating) and creating an improvisational, wandering melody.