I would appreciate to know how you "hear" this piece and whether in your opinion it is successful as a 1-minute piano piece.
Please keep in mind that the written score is an attempt to describe the piece in writing. However, the composition is what you can hear in the recording. To the extent that the score and the recording don't agree, it will be the score that needs to be fixed, and I would appreciate your help in fixing it. That said, I don't want to over-specify how every aspect of the piece should be played. The intention of annotating the score is to assist the interpreter, not to constrain the interpreter.
Thank you very much in advance for any comments on the piece (what you hear) and/or comments on how to improve the written score!
Mariza
Replies
Hi Mariza,
This is very well done and pleasant! Reminded me of Chopin -
Gav
Very pretty and clever. I like this a lot. You definitely have a gift for melody and harmony. I hear the influence of Bach the most, which can never be a bad thing! I think you should do a set of these....Maybe 6 or so so the set as a whole could be quite a substantial work.
The only harmony I didn't think worked was in bars 31 and 33. In bar 31, the RH melody has Ab,G,F,E with the LH having minums Gb and Db. The G I think doesn't quite work with the Gb. To me , putting a Gb in the RH too is more pleasing, and possibly in the bass just 2 minums Gb going to C, say. In 33 , similar and possibly also avoid the Eb and E together in 4th beat. Of course, this is just my opinion but is what I heard when I played it...
Paul
Wow, look! She wrote chords! ;-)
Jokes aside, I think this piece is quite successful. It has a very captivating theme, and I think you developed it well. The swift ending was a nice touch, full of personality.
As for the score, while there's nothing fundamentally wrong with it, it seems to me that what you notated as quarter notes could probably be better notated 8th notes at half the tempo in 2/4. Or leave it as-is, and notate it as 2/2, which is conventional for halving the value of the quarter notes (equivalently, doubling the effective tempo).
I have the same impression as Gav -- it reminds me of Chopin. I liked it a lot and listened to it many times. Thanks for posting another little gem!
I think there is both a Chopin and Bach influence on this piece, and I do tend to merge those two influences. Maybe that's my main point of novelty as a composer so far.
Paul, bars 31 and 33 are my favorites. I recognize the harmony is non-traditional, which is why they became my favorites. I don't pick the harmonies deliberately or "cerebrally," they just arise naturally from the flow of the music. In this case, I present one phrase on the left hand (measures 29-30), then another phrase on the right hand (measures 31-32), and then I play the two together (measures 33-34). I particularly love the way they sound together because it is unusual, but most of all because it belongs in the flow of the piece in the way I hear it.
I know what you mean about writing a few of these preludes and binding them together. Right now, my priority is to listen to the music that is coming into my mind unprovoked and to document from that pool a variety of styles. I kind of have one of everything so far, and I'm still in that phase of exploring myself inward -- I only started composing in October of 2013. Maybe once that phase is over I can consider being a bit more deliberate about what I do, and what styles to focus on. Although I could also continue on exploring and getting out of my usual territory, if that's what I feel like doing at that time.
It is very rewarding for me, and it helps me grow, to be a part of this forum.
Best!
Mariza
Teoh,
I'm so glad you liked it and you thought the piece was successful. It means a lot to me.
I will take your score suggestions to heart. I have my piano lesson (it's every-other week) tomorrow, and though it's only 30 minutes, I'll add this to the list of things to discuss. I would indeed like to have a proper score for this piece.
I agree it has a lot of Chopin feeling in it, but it does have those echoes (mimmickries) that are more typical of baroque music, so I can see why Paul thought of Bach.
Yes, I used chords! You know why? Because there are two melodies going on on the right hand. When you play them together, you get a chords :-) I have often wondered whether many sequences of chords can be thought of in that way. It helps me since I'm driven by the melody lines.
Have a marvelous day!
Mariza
H. S. Teoh said:
The idea of chords indeed arose historically from multiple simultaneous lines of melodies. The actual history is of course a bit more involved than that, but in a nutshell, the triad arose from 3-part harmony where each pair of notes (not necessarily adjacent) must be a concord. Thus, in early music, more attention was given to the melody lines (the horizontal aspect of music) than the chords (the vertical aspect), and a lot of chord progressions arose as a side-effect of voice-leading in the melodies. It was only later that composers started treating chords as independent entities of their own, something to be added as accompaniment for a main melody.
Thanks for this information, Teoh. I identify more with the horizontal aspect, as in "early music".
What if the horizontal aspect had pervailed throughout the romantic period? We might have ended up with "Emotional Baroque" in the 19th Century.... :-)
H. S. Teoh said:
Very nice piece, Mariza. I really like it!
Hello Marzia,
a very lovely piece! The first Chord and it's Vocing reminds me of Chopins Nocturne #4 in F Op. 15/1.
I can recommend you to sometimes change the rhythm of your 2nd hand when writing a piece for solo piano. Also a figuration of a quarter note in the melody might sometimes add some spice to your composition.
Keep up the good work!
This is very beautiful Mariza! And beautifully played as well! Thank you for posting.
I also listened to your 2 part invention, and enjoyed it very much! Just wonderful!
gregorio
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