Papageno

Thank you for listening to my music. They are improvisations meaning I just make it up as I go along. I do it everyday at the piano and sometimes I record them. Some are more coherent than others. I'll upload another. When I played the first chord it felt like the beginning of a sonata so I continued with that in mind. I can be experimental with my ideas and you just don't know whether they'll work until you try them. A trill between a major third high on the piano ended up sounding like an old fashioned phone ringing! Lol. I play plenty of bum notes too. Ideas from previous improvisations come up too.

I love it! I can see and hear what your intentions were and they are great ideas. The execution in places could do with some work. Was there a particular style you were looking for?

This second improvisation is more personal in that i was expressing how i felt. I had no theme but found one as I played.

This is an improvisation on a theme I had stuck in my head, an ear worm. In my minds ear it was a fugue subject sung by a choir. I don't know if going from d minor to e7 in 3rd inversion at the beginning of a theme is original. It does give the idea a forward tilt and restlessness which I liked.

The revised minuet. I decided to shorten the trio.

Hi, Kevin You pretty much summed up my approach to composition! I didn't know others thought as I did. It is indeed a language and no textbook can replace sitting at a keyboard instrument. I would also add that midi software is great, but it's a trap. Use it for multi-instrument composition but use pencil and paper for keyboard work. If you can't play the piano, compose and learn at the same time. That's what I'm doing. Compose easy to play music and as your ability progresses, so will the complexity and difficult of your compositions. As your learn to play a new piece, learn from it. I learned to compose just by playing JCF Bach's musical leisure hour book. From there I bought minuets from Haydn and Mozart. They use all the musical schemas and they are clear to see and understand. Darren

Thank you Henry for listening to my music and for looking closely at the score. I never really thought about my handwriting, I think it's clear so I can read it better at the piano, I tried doing a scruffy short-hand style before but it looked awful. I like your balancing suggestion, I'll see what extending Minuet B or contracting Trio B does to the feeling of forward momentum. And I wasn't quite sure about the 5ths when I wrote them, the pedal note might count as a third voice, I'm not sure to be honest. In any case going down to e after f and going up as V7b would solve it. Thanks again 🙂 Darren

I love it! Its very expressive and romantic. It is truly a bouquet of flowers! The difference in dynamics between the loudest and the softest seemed quite extreme though. Not your score, the midi rendition, maybe its a problem at my end. I had to adjust the volume on my phone a couple of times. I'm not sure about the final few bars, the repeated high chord for 4 bars was a bit like a stuck record, maybe a descending octave in the left hand would give it more movement or give the left hand a two bar sequence that's repeated twice to make the 4 bars. Perhaps that was the point though, to keep the suspense hanging in the air! Either way it's great and it would be breath-taking played on a grand piano. I listened three times in a row, it's one of my favourite pieces I've heard on the forum. It's beautiful and expressive and my mind was filled with pictures of dance, lipstick and champagne. Darren

I like your work in A minor! Most composers gravitate to one particular minor key. Henry Kiu likes C# minor I think! I like D minor. The fugue is cool but without counterpoint skills it'll just be a stab in the dark, Henry. Take a look at the basic counterpoint rules and maybe have a little fugetta in one of your bagatelles if you want to explore that type of immitation.

Here is my minuet and trio in C major. A bit more baroquesque than my usual offerings, except for the speed. When Mozart was 14, and in Italy I believe, he wrote about quick minuets which a bit more livelier than the stately dance he was used to.

I improvised on the theme again today. I don't know if it's of interest. Might be interesting to hear my second run and how it has evolved. If I allow myself to keep going it'll be composed but I'm trying to go in step with Aaron so I'm being patient.

Thank you, Henry and Vince I'm helping Aaron. My idea was to ask him to create 5 x 2 bar themes and from there create a modulating period. I chose the third theme although the other themes are OK. I'm going to compose along side him step by step. Darren

Hi, Peter It should be over 3 minutes. I just listened to it again. It's raw AF. Not sure I should have shared it. I improvise to look for ideas and try out new sounds and textures. Hopefully it will have uploaded properly this time.

An improv based on a 2 bar theme I created to demonstrate how to create a modulating period in a lesson plan I'm working on with Aaron. It's a first run so very raw and noisy. Influenced by mozarts piano sonata in D I think because of the repetition of the theme in ii.