Piano

Who is your favourite composer? My favourite composer at the moment is Koichi Sugiyama, the composer who is famed for composing the music to the Dragon Quest games. He has been frequently called "The Father of VideoGame Music" and he deserves this title. Even within the tiny limits of the NES soundchip, he was able to compose wonderful works that became masterpieces when he orchestrated them. His main musical influences are that of J.S. Bach and Handel, and he composes at least one work per soundtrack that is in their style, which sounds remarkably authentic. There are a few fugues across his huge musical opus, if you search hard enough. He is also known as a wonderful orchestrator too, as shown by his DQ Symphonic Suites and the outstanding Orchestral Game Concert Series. If you want to start listening to VGM, the OGCs are a great place to start. As for a Classical composer, I can't really say at the mo because I've only been listening to piano music recently. I'll say Ravel for the moment.

I have little to add, except that the accompaniment to bars 31-78 becomes tiresome after listening to it for so many times. If you remove the octaves in the LH, it will become slightly easier to play. I can't quite pinpoint it, but your melody is weak at places. This is possibly due to that your melody moves primarily in a scalic fashion, which does not suit the style and mood of the piece. That said, apart from the pianistic issues, it is a good piece.

I noticed that there was a huge problem with the form even before revising it. I cut out huge chunks but I knew it was still shakey, hence why it's still at half revision stage. In short, I agree with you wholeheartedly. I'll have a look where parallel motion is occuring, though I have a sneaky suspicion that it comes from the alternation of accompaniment and polyphony. Thanks for the extremely long post and kind comments! On a side note, I still find it incredibly difficult to appreciate Beethoven. EDIT: Added an old composition composed for my GCSEs. It was originally a piano piece created from four chords, hence satisfying the Ostinato style that was required. I later added strings. It is fairly unpianistic in places because at the time I was still fiddling around with Finale and marvelling at the cool rhythms I could create.

Of course there needs to be! It becomes tiresome after listening to just arpeggios without a melodic sense, and it becomes very easy to dismiss the piece as just being flashy arps. I found Chopin's 10-01 very repetitive, but found his 10-08 much better as 08 has a melody, even though both are arpeggio etudes.

Jojodi: Sibelius doesn't read .MUS files that are newer than 2001 according to my past experience. I'll try to post a MIDI when I can. Mike: Thanks for the input. It's still being revised so there naturally are going to be some parts which are shaky. By the way, what do you mean by sounding lost? Is it the structure or is it the melody? EDIT: Added another composition. It's a Neo-Baroque Suite for piano, composed for my AS level. The Minuet was inspired by Bach's (in)famous Minuet in G and the Gigue Pachebel's Canon. I have no idea where the Saraband came from though. The Gigue uses Pachebel's harmonic progression, and modulates into D major and G major, the keys of the previous two pieces (I know that the Saraband is in B minor, but it's almost the same :happy:).

I'm known in other forums for arranging for piano, rather than my compositions, so this will be the first time in a while that I've posted one up. The first piece is called "Serene Ballad" (I'm not good with naming pieces) and was composed for a friend many moons ago. I composed most of it at Finale, hence the bland accompaniment figures and probably unpianistic textures that I haven't resolved yet. I cut large sections out from the original draft to make it less repetitive andadded dynamics and tempo markings. It still needs some work, but I haven't much time these days. Comments are welcome. :happy: .MUS files are opened with Finale Notepad, which can be found at http://www.finalemusic.com/notepad/ Serene_Ballad.MUS Neo2.MUS E_Minor_O_.MUS

I loved the harmonic progressions and the general mood of the piece - so relaxing and serene. There seems to be one thing that's lacking - melody! There isn't a real singing melody that could be so easily incorporated into the left hand.

It's an extremely short piece and contains some nice ideas that could be expanded. The melody is a bit chopped up, and again, you can expand the melodic line a bit. EDIT: I would post some of my compositions, but they're all on my other computer. I'll try to get them as soon as I can.

Depends what type of music you're listening to. If you listen to Techno frequently, I doubt that 5.1 surround sound will enhance your listening experience much. Speakers are pretty important though, because otherwise you wouldn't be able to listen to music (apart from playing it and going to concerts, of course). Having good quality speakers might lend itself to inspiration and is quite important for listening to orchestral music as they will enable the listener to hear all the details clearly. That said, I've got crappy speakers on this computer (when your television sounds better than your computer, somthing has got to be wrong :().

That'll make my topic redundant (and my username :() :)

I feel that pieces do not have to be very lengthy to be considered as a "serious" piece of music. Maybe one will get less recognition for writing a 30 miniature than writing a film score, but an amateur couldn't care less if they do not want to pursue a career in composing. Examples of short pieces that are very profound are Chopin's Mazurkas - such genius and originality within the miniature form.

I've had a minimal experience with Sibelius, simply because my laptop did not have a numpad. :( So I stuck with Finale, clicking in one note at a time (I still do :)).

I also wanted to add to the title "And how long have you been playing", but it won't fit. :( I play the piano and mainly play Classical and Video Game Music, though I have ventured into Jazz and Pop also. I've been playing since late June/early July 2001 so it is almost a total of four years. I passed my Grade 8 ABRSM last Christmas without Merit or Distiction because I was working on the same three pieces for over a year. Gross, no? :) As for other instruments, I can play a few chords on the guitar, a few melodies on a Chinese Bamboo flute called a Dizi (sp) and can play Twinkle Twinkle Little star on many other instruments. :) I can play one drum beat decently. That's about it. How about everyone else?