Hi Pukino,
Time to comment a bit, in hopes of getting a review of my own pieces, as it seems to be the norm in this thread! (just kidding of course).
I do have several comments, and I hope you won't find me harsh, or Zom won't find me an unkind human being, for mentioning them. After all we are all here to learn and pick up knowledge and help each other and get better, right?
Subjective issues. Feel free to take them into account or disregard them altogether... There's no right or wrong really.
There are 3 things that kind of hit me with this piece. The first one was the length. With the current rendering it's almost 5 minutes long, and... there is no recognisable theme to make it exactly interesting. This goes along with the second issue which is your rhythm. It's all 1/8ths! All! There is no fermata, there is no variation except for the dotted 1/8th and the 1/16th which gave freshness but is too little, and the paused moments with the half notes, which again are counting towards 4/8ths rather than something more... interesting. Maybe it's the rendering I heard, or the computer playback, but the fact still remains that this piece works almost like a metronome in 1/8ths... And yes, there are other compositions that seem to do the same (Beethoven moonligh springs to mind), but they have other things to make it more interesting.
The third thing to consider is how you use the range of the piano. You get 88 keys to play with. Why use only the 40, plus some octaves in the bass?
It is a great idea of a piece, the title is very fitting and it works in many ways, but the above are the issues that kept me from listening a third time, cause I did listen to it twice.
Objective issues. Again you are free to dissgree, or dissregard but in these cases there is right and wrong, much stronger than the composition aspects.
Your score!
Your score is a mess! You obviously made it to create the recording in Finale (I assume), but you can actually hide elements, if you want a dynamic to be there, and also have it in playback.
* All dynamics bellow the bottom staff need to go
* All clashing elements (a dynamic on a notehead) need to be cleared
* Dynamics need to be clear. decresc. and then FF (right before the chordal, which I did enjoy, btw) is not clear. Either put FF subito, or have a big rit. above to show your intentions clearly. try it in Finale and you'll see how the human playback will change.
* This is a bit more personal, but you could go for a smaller %. This doesn't seem as an 85%, but I usually put my piano scores at 70%.
* Pedalling. If you are aiming for a live peformance, remove all pedal notation. A pianist will do this on their own. Just add Ad lib. ped. in the beginning and in the bar where you have staccato (bar 56) add senza ped.
* It is a pity and a lost page to have page 7 with 1 system. If you reduce size it will go futher, but if you don't, just move the bars further up to have only 6 pages (and of course remove the empty page 8).
* Tempo indications are only put once, above the top staff in
bold lettering.
* clef clashings and anything else touching anything else need to go as well
* any legato markings? I'd imagine that you want the first 2 bars with a legato slur, then the 3rd and 4th and so on. Would give a much better impression to a live performer.
Exactly like Steve, I wouldn't bother spending one hour with this post if it wasn't worth it.
It's a lovely piece and a very... fresh and uncomplexed composition.
Thank you for sharing!
