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Hi guys,

Just a couple of days ago I borrowed a midi keyboard from a friend of mine. After messing around with it a little bit, this is the result:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JRUdQA0AUAg

I know my piano skills are not the best but I'll keep practicing. If someone wants to play it, just let me know and I'll hook you up with the sheet music

Regards
gfa

Ok guys, tried to play it again a dozen of times and eventually came to a better version which, in my opninion, is played much more fluently.

New link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntAuD3FoDSU

Please do not only listen, but also let me know what you think of it
Then I'll try to comment on other people's work too, as that is the meaning of this forum I think

Thanks!
Regards,
gfa

-Edit: By the way, how can you tell if something is written in a specific key? How can I see in which key this is written?

Sure, gfa, I'll trade comments with you! (ha)

To answer your question, to figure out your key, you'll need to figure out where your tonal "center" is (please forgive me, theory folks, I am not formally trained and I'm sure I'll use some incorrect terminology!) You will find that info in your LH, in the case of the work you've posted, since you have very defined chords. I was going to suggest looking at the very first chord you played and changing it to root position (you start with second inversion; move the bottom note up to the top and you'll have root position), then name that chord. Glancing at your fingers as best I could it appeared it might be c# minor. Whatever it was, it was minor. However now that I think back over what remains in my head of your melody I think you don't reach your tonal center until the third chord you played. So skip 1 and 2, look at #3, play that chord, see if that feels like "home" harmonically. I could be wrong since I'm not listening presently, though. At that point you should be able to enter a key signature of some kind in however you've entered it, and whatever accidentals you wrote in yourself will disappear. Also, keep in mind you have a key change halfway thru so you have to determine what your new key is at that point or you'll have a whole new slew of accidentals from then on.

As to the piece, to be perfectly honest I think it needs a little more variation in the LH especially, the constant chords in a small register (by that I mean you're always playing with three notes close together, you don't venture out beyond that much), gets repetitious after awhile. Aside from that, I'd consider either switching up the melody a bit more than you do, or keeping the melody but experimenting with different harmonies underneath it. I am not an elegant composer personally, in the sense that I need a LOT of trial and error, and I'd suggest just play around with the LH, throw a different note in there, let it go somewhere totally unexpected, and see what you come up with. It is so easy to get hooked into "Oh, that works, OK, moving on", rather than saying "Oh, that works, but what if......hmm...that's icky, but what if........." etc. Don't get locked in too soon, I guess is what I'm saying.
Keep at it!

This is off topic but I couldn't help that your hand position looked uncomfortable in that you were reaching over the computer keyboard to get to the piano keys, and your computer keyboard was more comfortably situated than the midi keyboard. I have the opposite arrangement - I have my midi keyboard in the ideal playing position and I drag the computer keyboard on top of it when I need to use both. For me this works better.

As for suggestion about the song it seemed to be in 12/8 time, and while each measure was interesting in itself there was not much of a flow to hold the whole song together, it felt as though it was repeating itself rhythmically. You might want to record the left hand on it's own and experiment with different lines in the right hand to see if you can create a narrative that
will keep the listener's attention.

Thank you very much for your comments.
After listening it for a couple of more times I agree that it definitely needs some more variation. But since I'm in a very early stage of playing the piano I find it quite hard to play 2 different rhytms with a high speed with both hands. But I'll keep practicing
musiccr8r, your "don't get locked in too soon" sounded very familiar to me, often I play or hear it too much which somehow strangles my creativity I think. Maybe it would be better to put it aside for a couple of weeks and later on some fresh ideas might pop up when you hear it again.

I'm still not sure in which key it is written. The very first chord that is being played is C sharp, F sharp and A. But the main melody starts with D, F sharp and A (D major chord?). The third one is F sharp, B and D. For the first and third chord I couldn't find the name. What exactly do you mean by "move the bottom note up to the top"?

Chris: actually I don't find the hand positioning very uncomfortable. My desk is quite low, so I don´t have to bend my arms over the computer keyboard in a, to me, uncomfortable way. Only thing bothering me is that I now don´t have a lot of space for my arms on the desk to type on the computer keyboard, but I get used to it.

Thanks again guys.



Playing around with the same chords I made another song. Maybe also in this one it rhytmically needs some more variation, but overall I think this one is much more colorfull with a greater contrast between the different parts.
Actually I made this song for a girl I like, now I tried to come up with a title, but the only thing I could think of was "X's Song" (where X = name), but I think that is maybe a little bit too simple. A while ago I read somewhere that it is better to first come up with a title, and then try to make a song around it. But this doesn't work anymore for this song since I already started working on it. So if someone has any ideas, please let me know

Here you can have a listen:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vR4OIAE9Tk

Thanks.
Regards,
GFA

Ok guys, tried to play a better version of the song:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HOAp6w9S280

At least I think it's better than the previous one, please let me know what you think!

Best regards,
gfa

And by the way I'm still not sure in which key it is written. Maybe D major?
Here are the notes if that may help: http://www.4shared.com/file/95888468/5a92d0d2/pb6.html