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Hello! I decided to write a classical mini-little piano sonatina allegro movement! I didn't use any dice or try to make the music overly complicated or anything. I was going for just a pure easy-listening simplicity and ease of playing. It's not exactly sonata form as there's scarcely a development here. There are three themes though, which come back in the home key in the recapitulation. Let me know what you think and I hope you enjoy!

I never ordinarily post non-original work - no cover versions, arrangements and on. This one is an arrangement of sorts so...bad.. It started when a student friend and I were looking through some of my recordings of old fashioned pop songs to build a folio in the hope of winning a few bookings at receptions and other events once lockdown is over. Most were "improvisations" although I'd choose the best takes, even cheating to learn a good improvisation. Several were quite flashy and flashy is not wanted at receptions where subtlety and background music is needed. Anyway, she suggested some pieces could be turned into easy studies that might help players wanting to be a bit more elaborate. Coming from the classical I'm a bit unorthodox this sort of music. As they were recorded on midi it seemed feasible. Except the worst was cleaning up the piano roll so it could convert to a meaningful manuscript. Anyway, here's one, a kind of fantasia on the tune (usually played very up-tempo, this one's quite slow and the mp3 won't tie up totally with the music. I don't know if the idea will work or has any mileage. If you're of a mind to comment on any aspect of the thing, thank you and it will be much appreciated.

An absolute delight!

You definitely met your goal. Very pleasant and easy on the ear but still with a few little wrinkles which keep it interesting. I particularly like transition to the second theme in minor, really nice.

Good day, J. Santos: I assume when you say this is experimental that you are referring to the harmony? The piece should be effective in that respect. MIDI performances of piano are always terrible - you never get a true sense what real pedalling and voicing sound like. If you haven't already, be sure to play the piece on a real piano to ensure that you find all of the harmony to your liking, and be picky about it. This is important to do with any composition but is especially important when you start exploring new harmonies that you haven't dealt with much before. I've never written a piano work that didn't change substantially after I started playing it. It's not the form or musical content that changes much - just the details, accounting for ease of playing and effectiveness of the sound. Many things that sound like they work on MIDI don't work that well on the real instrument. On a different note, I'm uncertain if you consider this piece "finished" or not. If you do, ignore what follows. If not, read on: If this were my composition, I wouldn't be satisfied with the rhythm in bars 9-25. In the first eight bars, you have a very natural rhythmic flow. But the continuation of your cadential rhythm from bar 8 in the subsequent phrase is not effective to my ear. Two possibilities come to mind: broken chord accompaniment (steady flow of 8ths in LH rather than stopping on dotted half), or syncopation of the top note on off beats (thus, starting on beat two: eighth/quarter/quarter/eighth, or perhaps better eighth/quarter/eight-eighth-eighth with octave displacement on the second to last eighth). In my inner ear, option 1 sounds better in this context, but both work. The goal is to avoid a sense that the music keeps stopping on beats 2-3. If anything, you want increased motion here to build on the first 8 bars and lead to the dramatic contrast at 27. What you did in 16-18 is a good example of that, and for me those are the most effective bars in the 9-25 span. Hope that helps. Keep it up!

Indeed. I can say that writing these gave me a new appreciation for what Mendelssohn accomplished in writing so many of them. You'd think it would be easy to put these short pieces together. Then you try it and find that it's much more difficult to write something compelling in short form than it would seem to be. There is a great deal of truth in the notion that there is a difference between simple and simplistic. I threw out an awful lot of ideas that just didn't work.

I find it to be an effective work. It may seem like a small thing, but I especially like your inclusion of major seventh chords in the chorale segment. I have a particular affinity for that chord, and its appearance in a much simpler harmonic context draws attention to its beauty. I find these extended chords have much less impact when used in a denser, more chromatic work. They get lost in that. I have said in reference to other works posted by composers who are clearly comfortable with their craft that there would be little value in me offering criticism, as there is nothing of a technical nature to criticize. I will echo that sentiment here. Early or not, it's a confident work, and though it is clearly more traditional in its harmonic approach than most of the other works I've heard from you here, I personally find this simpler approach to tonality highly effective - something characteristic of my own work. Thank you for sharing, and keep posting here. I've been remiss in responding to your works, but as you can tell, the views keep building slowly over time. I think a lot of people like what you write a great deal even if they don't say it outright.

Yes, I see. Excuse me, I have never studied Spanish (if I understand it correctly, it is Spanish) and did not understand what was written in your score. Anyway, as I said, this piece will sound even more impressive.

Your songs without words, I think, continue in some part the tradition of Mendelssohn. You also perform your works very well. I really enjoy your music. Thank you!

I learned of mode-progressions this way: Find the characteristic notes in the mode - D dorian is B that seperates it from aeolian. Then find the 7-chords that contain that note without containing a tritone. Eminor7 and Cmajor7. There are your chords along with Dminor7. Of course you could go the Bill Evans way: make intervallic structures and move them around the mode. Take this structure D A B E F for example