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Hey Guys, I participated in a competition. The task is to compose an original piece of music about this artwork below. I tried to evoke the atmosphere of "spaghetti western" films. What do you think? I'm curious about your opinion. I've been working on it, so feel free to give me some advice or ideas! Thank you! (I almost forgot, the time limit is 90 sec, so this is the reason why is so short this piece of music.) The artwork itself: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/XnXOEa Here's the piece of music itself. The embedded player disappeared for some reason... It could have been some kind of bug. The funny is, let's take a look at the height of this post, without any content. These are not line breaks, this is the size of the SoundCloud player... https://soundcloud.com/olivercomposer/western-wasteland

I wrote this for fun. Whenever I try to write fugues I don't have the patience to check all the intervals. Also, in this case, the tonalities sometimes get a little fuzzy. What I did was to start from a simple material Subject I and its counter-subject I, written in invertible counterpoint. Answer (subject II) and countersubject II, written in invertible counterpoint. In this way, these parts can work the same up and down or the other way around. And with this, I followed the following scheme:

A very enjoyable piece, well crafted making great use of the characteristics and timbres of each instrument, realistic dynamics, tuneful. The episode that began about 5'34, chorale-like is most delicate and lyrical. The score-engraving is superb. Thank you for setting the instruments at concert pitch...I felt a little lazy this evening happy not to transpose as I go! In all, there's nothing obvious to comment on. I can't claim I liked any movement more than another... well, as I say the slow one showed a great understanding of the instruments and harmony. Just an accomplished work. Easy to listen to and engaging. Brilliant.

As someone who believe that sonata form is the best musical form of all, I can't just let you butcher it 😒 But first, the good parts. Although a bit repetitive in many places amounting to a heavily repetitive feeling, I think you have presented the themes/ideas in a very thoughtful way, there are questions and answers, so each individual part feels connected. Your development(?) (question mark... I'll come to that) section feels also quite carefully planned out and has an overall sense of direction. It is lacking in personality but I think if you are imitating this sort of Mozart/Haydn style of music in the 21th century it will inevitably given that feeling no matter how good the music is. There are some harmonic issues generally throughout the piece but with a bit of studying I think you can improve this piece easily. Why are you using ABA form in the exposition? At the end of the exposition, you have to move away from where you began the exposition with. This is why the second subject is almost always in another key and ends there for the exposition, and is the only reason why monothematic sonatas would even work. End your codetta in a foreign key. The recapitulation is basically a repeat of the exposition. If you have actually moved away from the home key first in the exposition your recapitulation would then necessarily and naturally sound different from the exposition, which is unfortunately not the case here. Again with the issue of keys. You ending the development section (which is the best part of your piece, kudos) in the home key then followed by the recap in the same home key is anticlimatic. In this styling of music writing, at the end of the development section it is typical to use the dominant key as the pedal point (i.e. the V chord for many bars) for the home key to return as a perfect cadence. If your first theme of the expo is more fluid then you can play around with this transition (check out my sonatina in A major btw). Overall I like this well-mannered piece, but it has many elements of rooms for improvement that need reworking to be made good.

I was actually thinking the same exact thing with implementing jazzier feel. Thanks so much for the response. And yeah the sound font irritates me so much.

Hi, Here is the first movement of a piano sonata in e-flat major please enjoy BREAKDOWN OF MOVEMENT: