Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Composer's Lounge Spring Wind Prelude: Comments? Feedback?

Since I have felt free to comment on others' compositions, I thought it only fair to submit one of mine for your evaluation. This prelude was, originally, part of a suite (most of which has, thankfully, long been forgotten). The prelude has been reworked for solo piano. Comments, suggestions, etc. are, of course, welcome.

MP3
Score

Ed

Hi Ed,

"Spring Wind" indeed! An apt title.

The piece has a very pleasant sound and the only thing I will say having only listened to the MP3 would be your use of diminished chords. Referring to your score, they appear in bars 3, 4, 10, among others (the C Eb Gb). Since you're writing a tonal piece, you may find that the diminished chords at those places give a somewhat unsatisfactory sound because there isn't "enough musical information" that your listeners want. Take the first beat of bar 3, for example. Your base line Gb to F and your melody line that sings from C to Db (via F) clearly suggests that this is a V-I progression. The unsatisfactory sensation at that beat is due to the fact that there is no dominant (Ab) in your dominant harmony. Changing your right hand from Eb Gb C to Eb Ab C will - together with your left hand - create a full Ab7 chord, which gives a better sound. Try it and see!

Now, notation. Some may argue that as long as the piece sounds great it doesn't matter how you notate it. I beg to differ: notation gives clues to how other musicians will interpret your music and it's prudent to be as clear as possible.

For example, your "3/4" passage at the beginning of the piece. Is it really 3/4, i.e. three quarter-length beats in a bar? The answer is no, as you have dotted quarters rooting the rhythm so firmly. What you mean is "6/8" which means "2 dotted-quarter-length beats in a bar". Mathematically they're identical fractions, but musically they mean completely different things. While it's clear from the rhythmic pattern that 6/8 is what is wanted (In fact, your fifth bar is the only bar that is rightfully using "3/4"), sometimes ambiguities can arise and it's best to be explicit about this especially when you come to write more complex things.

I hope this is helpful. Thanks for a pleasing piece of music

I'll give it a listen. One of the things I was trying to do was to create a sense of something missing -- spring winds often have that feeling (at least, they do to me). However, in looking at the original score I see that I did carry additional harmony in the other instruments (flute and violin) so I may rework this yet again adding that back in,

I understand what you are saying and don't disagree with you until you comment that the "fifth bar is the only bar that is rightfully using '3/4'" -- the fifth bar is identical to the first bar.

But since the essence of the parts marked "3/4" is six beats to the measure you are correct that it should correctly be notated as "6/8" -- thanks for that observation (which, surprisingly, my composition professor never mentioned back when this was first written). I've updated the score to reflect that change.

Ed

I was wondering if anyone else had any comments on this.

Ed