Piano World Home Page Forums General Discussions Musicians Welcome! 17 year old composer, self-taught, original, slightly minimal, please critque

Hello everyone!

I have been a member at piano world for a few years now but had to keep changing names because of lost passwords and new email addresses.

Anyway, I am 17 now and I started composing when I was about 10 or so on a digital synth. Since then, I've written a lot of music and I've finished 6 "albums" (collection of compositions). I assume I've written over 600 works, which probably isn't that much considering 85% of them were terrible. But anyway...

I might compare myself to Erik Satie in the sense that he is very original and he puts a lot of emphasis on a beautiful melody. My form is not very developmental, but at the same it isn't quite as minimal as John Adams or anything. I find my style to be very unique because I have not heard somebody that is similar to me. My teacher struggles with comparisons anyway, so I have not gotten many suggestions from him.

I write very tonal works to serial works. I also write free atonal music. I write an equal amount of piano solos and piano driven ensembles.

I only know 3 scales. C maj, A min, F min. I do not have any formal knowledge. I have never studied music theory in the slightest. My piano teacher is working on that problem of mine. I also do not ever write with scales or theory in mind. It all just flows. He'll ask me what key it is and I'll say, "Hmm, I don't know". Or if he askes me why I used a certain chord, I'll say, "I don't know what that chord is".

Please critique 2 pieces. One is a piano driven ensemble and the other is a demo from a piano solo.

Thank you!


http://www.atomic-design.com/_stuff/JosephMalicke-Fingernails.mid
http://www.atomic-design.com/_stuff/JosephMalicke-Collages.mid

What's with the long silence at the end of the second one?

Oh, the demo should stop at 1:28. Whenever I export to a MIDI I always get like 100 bars of blank space, meaning I get about a minute to a minute of half of silence. Sorry about that!

oh. I was just wondering. Hmm, that's kind of weird though.

Any comments on the piece?

sorry. There some very nice melody. I like that. There are these sections, each with there nice melody. However there is, as you said, little development. It seems as the song isn't going anywhere, just going from one phrase to the next. That get's kind of boring after a while.

Edit: I'm probably not the most qualified to critique your pieces (ok more like almost sure I'm not the most qualified). I think you've still gone really far as a composer, so keep working at it.

Have you ever listened to Yanni. That's probably the closet comparison to you that I can think of.

Not too sure about the repetitive chord bit at the end of the first one but apart from that i loved it!! It reminded me very much of Michael Nymann. Similar style.

I think musically speaking the second one was better (just my opinion though). I really liked this one. I don't know why but i pictured myself sitting by a big real log fire looking out the window and seeing it snowing and feelinig all cosy. I thought this was an excellent piece. I'd love to hear some more if you have any. Well done!!!!

Caroline

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I just listened to the second one again and i *really* love the beginning! You've got some really good stuff in there.

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Pretty good! I think the second one was better overall, it was very, very nice.
The intro on the second one is way cool though, I like that! I think you're doing pretty well, I'm pretty impressed as you've never had formal musical training before. Great stuff!