roy

Hello guys maybe you can help me figure out which piece this is? I cut it out of a podcast about De Machaut, medieval music, ars nova etc. but they did not include a playlist. It might be a secular work by Guillaume de Machaut or possibly Philippe de Vitry, but even if I know the composer I would really like to know what the title of the work is. I will contact the podcast publisher if I cant figure it out. However since they are German and I am not I would rather find out another way, one without having to call on my tremendous German writing skills. Thanks a bunch! music clip.mp3

Hey this is very nice! This would be perfect for some sort of animation show for young kids. The piano accompaniment is simple but very effective. The only thing I personally would have done differently is the second D in measures 2 and 10 in left hand piano; I think I might have made that into a B or G (probably B). Anyway, lovely piece. I hope your students liked it?

Great! this does right to your piece! The clarinet tembre is different from a modern clarinet right? Is it a different clarinet or mouthpiece/reed, or is it the way of playing that is different? (or am I just dreaming things?). Only thing I have to comment on was the unison written Fsharp in m36 (sounding E natural). Im nitpicking a bit here. Good job and congrats on your performance

hi diya nice of you to stop by here at YC :) This is a pretty sweet piece, and I too would love to see the score. When listening to it, I liked how you reused the material of the theme in different ways, however, it did feel to me like the ending came a few measures too soon - like I wanted to hear 1 or 2 additional measures to finish that last statement you were making at the end. Nice way of making an entrance with this piece. Thanks for sharing

Haha thanks guys, I totally agree. I mainly posted this to see if I was on to something :) This has been in my (digital) drawer for too long now... it's time to take it out and start working on it again once I find me some time!

Ah ok I totally agree :)

Pretty nice. I listened to it with piano and harpsichord sounds, which is better for this piece than the midi (harmonium?) sound. However, I think the 'adagio meditativo' part has not enough notes. Harpsichords are always arpeggio-ing and trilling because their sound doesn't carry very long. I would have liked to see that in the second part of your piece as well. Also because the first part is a bit slow already (for harpsichord). For other instruments this is fine :) Thanks for sharing

Well, the short answer is that these rules of thumb are also described in other textbooks. But (if I remember correctly) these rules are just made up by induction of the principles used by old composers who did use rules but these were the rules of counterpoint and not of voiceleading. Voiceleading is in principle not much easier than counterpoint, but in practice I'd say it is. These rules of thumbs are, of course, no actual laws. You are free to stretch their boundaries, or leave them altogether. Modern composers don't use these principles of voiceleading too often, but even composers like beethoven and mozart and bach etc did not always totally adhere to them - especially in instrumental (keyboard)music. Basically, these rules are a way of making sure that (in classical composing) the voices and harmonies shift as smoothly and as pleasant as possible, and making sure that every voice is very much independent and moves stepwise and logic (that is the why for those rules regarding crossing of voices, paralles etc). The rules are based on vocal music, and because vocal music has it's limitations (the pitches have to be created by the voice, not just by putting a finger down on a piano or violin) people wanted to write for it in such a way that it would not give any trouble when singing. Those 2 rules you stated are ways of making sure that all the voices move as little as possible between chords, because large leaps are harder to sing than small leaps. And they also make sure that no voice is deprived of its 'independence' to the others: if two voices move in unison or octave, they are practically doing the same, therefore making the distinction between the two hard/impossible. I think this fascination for independence came with the polyphonic practices and stayed even when composers were beginning to write more monophonic. The 5th is doubled if the root cannot or isnot to be doubled. Just make sure that the leading tone (7th tone in a scale) is never doubled: it is too dissonant for that (according to the rules ofcourse). 'More satisfying' would mean that the total amount of stepsize is smaller, that some form (like a cadence) is used, or that they just voted before sending the book into print on what voiceleading between chords would be most agreeable - and that one won. EDIT: Ah yes, to the how and why for specific exceptions you should listen to someone like siwi

to reupload the media you have to go to the music page (http://www.youngcomposers.com/profile/music/semotivo/composition?entry=68692), and in the square where there is also the title, instrumentation, genre (etc etc) specified, you will find in the right lower corner a white rectangle symbol depicting a blank page. Click that symbol to change anything from your upload, from name and genre to the actual media itself.

Great piece! I am not familiar enough with baroque music to comment on it in depth, so I will just say two things from a listener's point of view (my own though): There were two things I, first one being the change on page 7 from 4/4 to 9/8: I think this transition would have greatly benifited from a more dramatic, almost climaxing builup part right before it, only to then jump into the new meter. So more stretched out and an obvious crescendo. But, since this was not a live recording I suppose you would have done so yourself. Or maybe not, but it might be something to think about nevertheless I suppose. Second thing is that with page 11 and 12 you were stretching things up maybe a tad too much before returning to your original material. However, since I don't know how it would be when you'd performe it yourself I wont say any more about it ;) I enjoyed this very much, thanks for sharing!

Shame that nobody has commented on this yet. Just for good order, you uploaded the scores in the wrong order. You might want to reupload them :) 1st movement: The freedom of the structure would be its weakest point to be honest. Structure is used to provide a way of putting one's music and intentions into more than just a few random musical ideas, so to make sure someone else gets what it is one is trying to portray or convey. Sure you can allow yourself some freedome, but don't loose structure - structure of any kind, whether it be repeats, variations on previous things, buildup of sentences etc. Besides this I think you have some nice ideas (sounds very 'popmusic'-y to me, the harmony and melody that is). I didn't like the excessive repeating of things in piano (m13-18 LH, m19-28 RH) and violin (m29-36) though. 2nd: Some parts sound quite hollow here: m9-10 (violin), m15 (piano and violin). There was more structure here, which made this more enjoyable to listen to. 3rd: I loved the differences between the intro and the middle part, and how you let the intro return again. Also, great job on putting a repeat there. This one sounded very well thought out, the best one of the 3 movements imo. There were no points which sounded empty or hollow or whathaveya. Well done. Overall: make sure you have solid idea of what you want to do and how you are going to do it music-wise. Just randomly putting some notes in because they sound a'right is usually not going to do the trick. Be sure to keep structure at hand, even very loose-structured sounding pieces have some structure to keep things logic; sometimes even more than one would expect from just listening to them. Personally I like the ABA or ABA' structures for short pieces best (or some variation on it like ABCA, ABAC, ABB'A' etc..). I did like it that you did not go all out with these pieces, overdoing it and trying to write >10 pages per movement or anything of the nonsense. One needs to have a solid background and idea of structure, sound and direction to do so, but that is not to say that you should not experiment with longer pieces. Just pay extra extra extra attention to those things when writing something larger. When done, don't forget to be your own critic ;) Thanks for sharing! :D

lol is it largo or lento? Seems fine to me as far as playing goes. Everything should be managable, especially because it is not in fast tempo and there is a lot of pedal use. I see how you might have liked this to be part of something larger, because after (or before) this piece, a more uptempo one could be very welcome. Not to say that it is not working as a standalone though, which it does I believe. The piece itself is quite gorgeous, I liked it very much. Although, it's a good thing you did not make it any longer. 5 minutes in a slow tempo without any real tempo/texture (as in rhythmical texture) changes is - at least for me - close to the max :P One thing I wondered was why did you chose to position the last 2 chords of measures 40 and 41 that way? Thanks for sharing!

Having only listened to the file, I liked the opening statement (3 chords 'bam bam bam'... very strong). I didnt like the silence after the 8th chord though. The beginning, what I would guess first 2 measures (first 6 chords) has a nice dramatic feeling to them. Maybe you could expand on that just a bit more (like 2 measures) before changing it up? I suppose that silence would come unexpected, but would not sound uncomfortable (which it did to me this way). I think the measures with the silences are build like this: | quarter note - quarter note - quarter rest + eight rest - eight note | quarter note - quarter note - quarter rest - quarter rest | Am I right? If you want the listener to be eased into this change you could do something like this RH | quarter note - quarter note - quarter rest + eight rest - eight note | quarter note - quarter note - quarter note - quarter rest | LH | quarter note - quarter note - quarter note - eight rest + eight note | quarter note - quarter note - quarter note - quarter rest | I think this way you don't startle the listener with the silence: by stopping with the right hand (upper voices) but letting the left hand (lowest voice) play one more deep note. As if it was too late to follow with the quarter rest indicated by the upper voices. And another thing that might smoothen things a bit, is to write the 'bam bam bam' figure in the measure after that so the listener has a sense of continuity. I personally feel this continuity is very important because the listener has only had a few measures to get into your piece and might loose track if you are not careful. This is also why I suggested extending the first 2 measures by adding another 2 measures with this 'bam bam bam' figure. So far the intro, the more cheerful part after that is kind of... how shall I put it... it does not seem fit for following the introduction. Not in style or in character, but in technique. So much repeat of that same chord is killing the expectations you set. You might want to rethink the matter (or just leave it that way, after all, it's all up to you). Like Beethoven's sonata no 8 (mvt 1), which I think has been a source of inspiration for your intro, this piece sets a kind of disturbing mood. Beethoven lets it follow by a somewhat frantic (at least for the time) main theme. This does not mean that you should do so too, but if you are going to follow it with a cheerful part, why not make it disturbingly cheerful? Keep some tension in that part as well to make the listener slowly but certainly become aware of something not being quite right. By keeping the tension and not letting it wither away that easily, you can very effectively reintroduce the introduction along the way. These are just some thoughts. Maybe this is absolutely not what you had in mind, and that is perfectly fine :) I think this piece has great potential to become a nice piano sonata in a Romantic era style. Whatever you are going to do with this comment, I wish you good luck with the piece!

I couldnt get to the musicpage by using the link, took me right back to the homepage. Ah well, I can access it through your own profile page though. This is quite interesting instrument combination, and the piece sounds very much a like culture-/folkmovie music meets pop song meets minimal music. Especially that last thing is worth mentioning, from 1:12 in the music file onwards I think you have really something going there. This has a nice 'vibe' and sounds very inviting, very easy and enjoyable to listen to. Why not expand on this and make it even more minimal? Then you could at times include other chords (like the ones you used in the beginning of the piece)... Keeping things relatively simple is very often a good thing! :) Thanks for sharing

I dont think I have ever heard something like this... quite original You have not specified any instruments? The ending was a bit unexpected (sounds like the dominant (V) of the piece), but not totally out of place. It seems to me though that you were not very consequent with your accidentals. Like m4 where you use Bb and A#, and C# and Db at the same time, or m6 where you use C# and Db at the same time (etc), while I would think it is all in the same key... I would say some key of Bb (I think you made up the key yourself? Or did you use a MIDIfile which your software screwed up accurately visualising?). The piece has a nice flow and sounds like a mixture of western and more (middle)eastern influences. Not very sad though! Thanks for sharing