Grizwald

Hey everyone... I'm looking for pieces of music written for piano, electric guitar and percussion (mallets, or whatever). Any suggestions?

simply beautiful. although it didn't give a sense of "darkening"... i'd rather a name change then changing a note though. :)

i used both... however once we got to ear training IV solfege became largely irrelevant as the music we were singing didn't have traditional tonal centers. we started using a system of singing pitch names and... adding an "es" for flats and "eese" for sharps. (c, ceese, d, deese, e, f, feese...etc) i think it works much better...

this is one of the better pieces i've seen you post... keep pursuing these ideas... keep pushing yourself and your writing and i think you'll achieve good things.

thanks for the critiques guys... they were very helpful.

let me just say i completely disagree with most of the aforementioned posts... this piece is quite well written and the variations are fairly easy to follow... (even the quasi atonal-ish one) (although there's no such thing as atonalism... its a misnomer) the theme sounded almost Chopin-ish... and then you cycled through a variety of techniques... i personally have no problem with a piece "adopting" "atonality" for part of a section... in fact i think it helps introduce people to "atonal" styles while giving them something familiar to hold on to... even in the 7/8 section you could still feel the general shift of the opening section. this piece however could use a good editing session (or two)... you have some great material, most of the variations are well constructed... the last few were a little underdeveloped (i'm thinking specifically of the section marked "flowing" and the one marked "grave"). Flowing was a little stutter-ish and grave simply wasn't grave at all... it was slow. my other complaint, and this is a complaint i have with many many variation pieces (including my own) is that they're are often no transitions between the variations, so they can become predictable. (here's a riff on the idea... here's a cadence... new variation... cadence) i think if you went back and really worked on the transitions so it wasn't so much a "stop/start" motion it would really add to an already well written piece... keep up the good work...

wow everyone, thanks for the critiques, i didn't expect so many... as far as enharmonic spellings go, i did what i thought was best for each individual line, obviously its not perfect, but i did what i thought i could to avoid weird intervals, like augmented seconds or diminished fourths etc., while this may cause some misspellings vertically, the horizontal relationship is much more important to me, as thats what the singers will be focusing on. there are inherent problems with our notational systems (thats why schoenberg tried (and ultimately failed) at creating a new notational system)... i reviewed each line and found that horizontally the line makes sense even when the vertical line has enharmonic spellings. text setting... you guys are absolutely right, when i'm looking at an overall piece i tend to forget readjusting the barlines. (i try to write the music without a time signature so that i'm not limited) the rhythm in m. 20 is a fairly standard notational device (taken directly from Elliott Carter truthfully) it reads the same as a duplet. i can change, but i think its more a matter of taste structure- with a text like this (that lacks a clear verse/chorus or A/B relationship) i had to find a different way to structure the piece. i decided to through-compose the piece... there are reoccurring motifs (such as rising notes on heaven, a move from minor to major cadences). the main idea that i was attempting was to start on a single note (C4 in this case)... then move away from that in constantly shifting directions. reflecting the faith journey... then as the piece comes to an end and the singers reach deliverance cadencing in C major (bringing the piece full circle)... the Amen "fugue" is a sense of relief from the aforementioned constantly shifting harmonies. finally with the last Amen the opening gesture is repeated (signaling that the faith journey is never completely over) but instead cadences in the established key of C major... thanks to everyone who has critiqued so far, they have been helpful (even the harsher ones hehe) i appreciate it a lot.

I just finished this piece, its a setting of the lord's prayer (the catholic version) for an SATB choir. Let me know what you guys think... The Lord's Prayer (Final Copy).pdf The Lord's Prayer (Final Copy) copy.mus

listening to it right now... i like the harmonies and the "chaotic" (i'm using that term without its judgementive suggestion) feel going on. however i think given the meterless feel you have going on here (which is something i remember you writing about wanting to achieve) there needs to be something that propels the piece (and by result the listener) through it. the suggestion I can make for that is to do much much more with dynamics... especially in the beginning... have the voices fade in and out, not in any unison way but with gradual overlapping of the parts. i think this will the piece a general shape in direction rather than having static harmonies (which are quite beautiful i might add) chris

i think midi is a good tool. i myself am not the greatest piano player, so when i have a complicated accompaniment part to work out, i like to use midi to play around with ideas, rhythms, etc. its nice to be able to hear rough outlines of orchestration of how the individual parts might sound... it makes the first rehearsal go much smoother because you don't have to worry about rhythmic/harmonic notational issues, as you've already worked through those... the problem with midi is its just a tool... a poster above was making the argument that a good "live" midi performance (and i think he's using midi in a much different context that most, by playing into it live, so its a "recording" except with better samples) is as good as a live recording with mics. that may be true, but a live recording is never as good as the real thing regardless of whether its midi, .wav, .mp3, cd, cassette or Vinyl. nothing is as good as a real performance.

i agree it was an extremely well written piece... reminded me in parts of Debussy's piano writing (Prelude from Pour le Piano specifically) and John Adams. My only complaint was that it went by so fast that it was hard to keep up with the score ;)

ya i have that book, it doesn't list all of them though, it merely gives a set of examples... but its moot at this point since i arranged it without double stops... the double stops sounded out of place, it focused too more on the minor second dissonance than i wanted

Does harmonic complexity equate with quality? If so should 12 tone still be popular? Or shouldn't it have been popular at one point? What about minimalism? Also, there's something to be said for the fact that popular music is popular... its easy to dismiss it as crass commercialism, that the songs are popular because thats what the radio plays and people are too apathetic to change the station, but there is a solid amount of audience that is connecting with a large amount of this pop music... isn't there something to be said for a piece of music that connects with people? Isn't there some worth in that music?

is an education necessary for great music? why? if something sounds cool, it sound cool, doesn't matter whether or not the guy (or gal) who wrote it had a PhD from Harvard... good music is good music...

i disagree, there is plenty of "pop" music that utilizes more that common practice harmony (Bjork is the aforementioned example...Radiohead has done some cool things...though personally i can't stand thom yorke's voice) also i think there are musical ideas in pop music that are valuable. rhythms, the ability to create something from a simple point of view rather than overly complex (while not making a judgement statement about either)