Melted Canary

No responses yet? :( I must warn people that the sound file is very quiet. You will have to turn up your volume to hear it.

01 Track 1.wma - File Shared from Box.net - Free Online File Storage (Score to be uploaded very soon.) EDIT: Score uploaded. I apologize, I only have a handwritten copy. Each of the below links is one page of the score; it's 4 pages total. http://i728.photobucket.com/albums/ww289/Melted_Canary/Rhapsodypg1.jpg http://s728.photobucket.com/albums/ww289/Melted_Canary/Rhapsodypg2.jpg http://i728.photobucket.com/albums/ww289/Melted_Canary/RhapsodyPg3.jpg http://i728.photobucket.com/albums/ww289/Melted_Canary/Rhapsodypg4.jpg Rhapsody is a piece for solo keyboard that I wrote last semester. The recording provided is a live performance by a good friend of mine at my school's biannual "New Voices" student composer concert. Although it's a much better quality of sound than midis and other digitized recordings, the performer isn't perfect and makes a handful of mistakes that unfortunately unavoidable in live performances. The piece itself is around 5 minutes long and is very quiet and contemplative in nature. It's based off of Atonal Theory, utilizing a specific group of sets as the main harmonic ideas. The 'theme' or motive is the gesture that opens the piece, and it permeates the entire piece. My main influences for the piece were Debussy, Bartok, and Webern. Debussy's style of coloristic piano writing has always been a big influence on my compositions. I also utilize a lot of Bartokian harmonic ideas often based around the octatonic, as well as adapting Webern's thin, clear sound and motivic obsession into the piece as well. I hope you enjoy it, and I would appreciate comments and criticisms of all kind.

Aural training is of critical importance to a composer and anyone telling you otherwise is lying. You don't need perfect pitch. There are plenty of good composers who didn't have it, like Stravinsky. But improving your aural skills with ear training can only make you better; being able to listen to a piece of music and really understand exactly what is going on is a critical skill. The best way to improve aural skills is to work on your recognition of intervals, chords, rhythms, etc through exposure. Fiddle around on a piano and try to find out what different note combinations sound like. Listen to music and try and hear and understand the chord progressions. Check with a score to see if you were right. If so, great! If not, oh well, at least you know now and can hopefully recognize it in the future. Also, singing can really help your aural skills. Join a choir if you're not in one already. Learn to sing melodies on paper without hearing them first. These skills can only make you a better musician.

Listening to more modern and harmonically adventerous pieces can help you get a sense of what type of dissonance makes sense and what kind of dissonance is just random noise. It also helps to learn atonal theory; much like there are rules and systems of categorizations for Tonal Music, Atonal Theory has its own theory and its own categories. What's interesting to note about Atonal Theory is that it accounts for every possible combination of notes possible under the 12 note equal temperament system. Because of this, it's both incredibly useful once you understand it but also can be intimidating to learn. Also, books on the subject tend to be expensive; I recommend this one: Amazon.com: Introduction to Post-Tonal Theory (3rd Edition): Joseph N. Straus: Books. Also, composers you should listen to if you want to expand your ear for dissonance; I'm posting you tube examples of their music as well. Charles Ives: Alfred Schnittke: Penderiski: Oliver Messiaen: YouTube - Oliver Messiaen Quartet for the End of Time I hope you enjoy!

I just had to reply to this because I am a composition student at the University of South Carolina. Let me first off tell you that you will absolutely love it here; the composition faculty is wonderful and there's a very strong emphasis on modern music. The composition faculty hosts a series of concerts called 'Southern Exposure' devoted to modern music and it's won national awards. After reading your score and listening to your piece, I'm sure you'll get accepted into the program. First, I would like to comment on your harmonic language; You seem to have a good grasp of the 20th/21st century theory. At times, your harmonies are very dense and crunchy, but at other times they're quasi-diatonic, which gives you a nice variety of sounds. Also, you do a good job of indicating performance instructions like dynamics, articulations, tempos, which are elements that many composers tend to leave out in their rush to get notes on the page. But I do have some criticisms for it. I think at times, the texture is simply too thick, dense, and even unplayable. There is a tendency for it to sound like you're trying to cram as many notes in a section as possible; a good example of this kind of writing is measure 112 and 113. You've got the pianist playing fast, contrary motion chromatics on both hands, an octave in each hand. This kind of writing is very, very demanding, especially at the tempo you're indicating, for an effect that may or may not be all that important. Whenever you write something difficult like this, you must always ask yourself: "Is the effect I want worth the amount of time the performer must spend in learning this?" If the answer is no, than you must reconsider your passage and rewrite it. Another good example is measure 87 and 88; you've got the pianist playing parallel major tenths in BOTH hands. I know you wanted the piece to be difficult and not necessarily easily accessible, but the problem is that you're essentially writing for a virtuoso, and the problem with virtuosos is that they're rare and not necessarily interested in playing your piece. A big mistake a lot of young composers make is writing without a performer in mind; having your pieces performed in public is a part of the growing process of a young composer and I can't see a piece like this getting performed because, while it's good, it's not good enough for a performer of the caliber required to play this piece to want to spend the time necessary to learn it. When the piece isn't needlessly difficult and thick, however, you've really got some great ideas. The parts that stick out to me the most are the parts that use thinner, simpler gestures. The opening is very good, for example. It's loud and sonorous, but it's very clean and clear, and not to mention idiomatic for the piano. It's not easy, but it's not excessively difficult either. My favorite section was the one beginning at measure 31. Your lines have direction, the writing is good for the piano, and the harmonic ideas are very interesting. I think if you write more along these lines rather than the way I discussed above your piece will improve drastically. Good luck with your USC Audition. I'm sure you'll be fine!

I really like this a lot. I'm a huge fan of the viola (one of the most overlooked common instrument), and this piece is written very well for the instrument. You utilize both the low range and the higher range of the viola very well, keeping it within a comfortable range for most of the piece, while occasionally pushing it up, but not so much that it's unplayable. The glisses were really neat effects that you incorporated well. I'm a huge fan of effects if they're used properly, and you use them well; it helps that you use them so often and so consistently. It almost becomes part of the language you use for this piece. Very well done, and I'm very happy that you managed to get a good recording of this; a midi would not have done this piece justice.

Please upload your song onto a safer website. When I clicked on your link, I got a ton of notifications about incoming malware and the like. I would love to look over your piece, but not at the expense of my computer.

I think you desperately need an introduction to what I call the black notes on the piano. There is nothing wrong with diatonic melodies and chords, but this piece is simply too much of the same thing over and over again. It lacks direction, and although it's rather long, I feel by the end of the piece we haven't traveled anywhere. Also, your voice leading in many parts is lacking; there are several instance of what I believe are unintentional parallel fifths and the like. Also, there are a lot of issues with the score. The opening measures have all three players marked at different dynamics; the viola is marked forte, the 2nd violin mezzo forte, and the 1st violin marked mezo piano. I could understand such an effect if the three lines were very different and you expressly wanted one more prominent than the others, but as is, they're playing the exact same rhythms with similar interval patterns, and thus such instructions feel out of place. Expression and articular marks are sorely needed throughout the piece; you do a good job of marking slur marks in the first couple of measures, but after that, they're rarely if ever marked. In addition, it seems you forgot to delete the extra measures finale likes to tag on the end of your pieces. It's little details like this that make all the difference, and young composers are very guilty about thinking they're not very important. I used to be guilty of the very same thing, and only very recently have I been very thorough in expressive markings. Edit: Another quick tip. Another bad habit beginning composers get into is what I like to call "writing for the computer" rather than writing for actual instruments. You're a musician, which means you probably have a friend or two that also play musical instruments. Instead of writing on finale, try doing it the old school way and write it by hand on staff paper. It's ok to use a piano or another instrument to assist you, but avoid using the computer until you're ready to put in the final edition. Here's the revolutionary part: after you're finished with your piece, actually have you and your friends play and record it. Then listen to it. One of the most life changing experiences I had was when I actually had one of my pieces performed rather than just hitting "play" on finale to hear it. It's a completely different experience, and by writing by hand, it'll help improve your ear at a far faster rate than if you just sit down at finale all day. With these criticisms in mind, I think you should start a new project with what you've learned from this one. The worst thing beginners can do is get hung up on one project too much, trying to turn it into a master piece. At this stage of the game, composing as much as possible while learning from your older pieces is more important than perfecting individual pieces. Finish a piece, learn from it, and start a new one and try to make it better than your last one.