A Father's Love for solo violin and piano

[Tim swanger]

This was the second piece for solo violin I've attempted. I was trying to come up with a unique Christmas gift for my teenage son. Lol, at least he acted like he appreciated it. Hard to tell with teenagers. It's not bad but it's not my favorite work. I'd love to get a violin players perspective on how I could improve it, as well as perhaps tips on better accompaniment writing. 

[Ray Kohn]

Hi Tim

As a violinist, I think the piece might gain more interest for the players if the fiddle were ti accompany the piano as the pianist played the theme in the 2nd half of the work. It is an attractive theme whose fiddle accompaniment might involve some gentle double stops and/or quiet arpeggios that stay in the lower register to contrast with the high-pitched theme (top G sharp is pretty high at the end)

Ray

[Michael Lofting]

There's a lot to like about this piece.

I have a couple of suggestions.

I am not much of a pianist and I am sure I couldn't play six notes in the treble at the end of bar 59. Same thing in bar 55 on. Need an enormous right hand in bar 29. It's a trap I've fallen into myself where you can write as many notes as you like in a piano part. Even writing the same note in both hands.

The other is articulation. MIDI files tend to play too smoothly. Need to think about slurs in for example 30-31 48-49 in the violin otherwise this would sound quite staccato. Also end of bar 35 the first semi would be short to change bow in time.

Hope this helps you.

[H. S. Teoh]

Very sweet theme, quite fitting the title. I liked it a lot.

That said, please have mercy on the pianist!! You have quite a lot of chords that require an incredibly large right hand, or a lot of piano gymnastics with left hand alternately playing both bass notes and the bottom notes of the chord. Measure 29 is outright impossible since the right hand is busy playing bass notes while the left hand needs to stretch a 10th on two consecutive chords. Ditto for m.34, where the left hand is busy and the right hand is asked to stretch a 11th. Measure 44 is outright frightening to behold (to a pianist). A skilled pianist might be able to arpeggiate these chords to sound all the notes, which maybe is what you have in mind, but still... this is making what ought to be a relatively simple piece needlessly taxing. I think you should seriously consider paring down those chords to the essentials. I'd highly recommend restricting all piano chords to not more than an octave per hand, unless you consult with a pianist which 9ths or 10ths are playable. Either that, or add a second pianist (i.e. piano for 4 hands) or a second piano. I don't recommend writing piano chords that span beyond a 10th, unless you have a specific pianist you're writing for who is able to play that, and you don't mind the piece being unplayable for anybody else.

Having said that, though, it is possible to play certain 6-note chords if you depress two keys with one finger (I do that sometimes). However, this only works for two adjacent white keys, and probably should be limited to one such pair per chord unless you don't mind the notes coming out all wrong due to the fingers needing to contort in unnatural ways just to pull this off. And you probably shouldn't be expecting this while simultaneously asking the pianist to stretch a 12th :-) (which I doubt is even possible -- perhaps somebody with monstrous hands can manage that, but even then, I'd think only certain combinations are physically possible). I'd recommend consulting a pianist (or playing it yourself on the piano if you can) before writing such chords.

[Tim swanger]

Thank you, truly. I admit that I gave almost no consideration to the playability of the accompaniment when I was writing it, mainly because it was supposed to be just for my son and I couldn't imagine it ever being seen by anyone else. It was only as I was posting it to this that I realized the piano part wasn't playable. I shall fix it ASAP. Thank you!

[H. S. Teoh]

Will we get to hear the fixed version? I really enjoyed this piece, and would love to hear it in its final form!