Lessons with khhuynh

Alright. Thread is made, so this is where our lessons will be posted. I'll take a look at the piece you posted either today or tomorrow and I'll then have some idea of where to start.

Thanks Christopher. I am already excited. :)

Not to seem pushy (though I probably already am for saying so), but have you had a chance to listen to my piece, Christopher? I have reworked it since I first uploaded it and feel as though the piece is mostly done. It is still lacking dynamic markings, but I have always felt they were best left up to the player rather than the composer.

Thanks for your time,

Kevin

I've been dealing with some lease applications for a new apartment. I'll take a listen tonight.

It's cool, just wondering what's up. Good luck with that. Take your time until you're good and ready.

Alright. I took a listen last night, and my thoughts are as follows:

A piece like this, with a melody so simple, needs interest from counterpoint. The pedal tones are either F or G through most of the work, with few exceptions. You said that the piece was an exercise in not modulating too much - but you overcompensated, I think, by not modulating at all, which makes it sound harmonically stagnant, which in turn obscures the form that you have. In addition, the highly sectionalized nature of the piece contributes to its stagnation by forcing the audience to reset after each section. If you were to elide or introduce transitional materials between phrases/ideas/themes, the piece would flow much more easily. That said, you do a lot of things well: the embellishment of your themes is strong, and the sense of counterpoint and independence of line from bars 10 - 14 is very good.

What I'd like to work on, given that - is the further development of a thematic idea into transitional materials. What I'd like you to do is to take your theme (the first 4 bars of the piece) and write a set of three to five variations on it.

Now, I don't mean variations in the way Mozart meant variations. I'm talking variations in a BROAD sense. That means - pull out one aspect of the theme (rhythm, melody, harmony, texture, pacing, etc.) or one motif of it (the first two bars - or even the first bar on its own) and write a variation that uses that aspect as the primary material. The idea is to break the theme down into its smallest parts, and then use each of those parts as fodder for new material which can then be distributed throughout the piece.

Thanks Christopher,

Most of the counterpoint was done by ear, so that is probably why they only stuck to a few key notes, but I will focus on what have you assigned and perhaps we can tackle that later.

I am a little unsure about what you want from "broad" variations; I have the impression that you want me to develop specific parts of my theme into entirely different pieces. Correct me if I'm wrong, and I apologize for my lack of theory background (it makes it hard to understand what you want). Nonetheless, I will attempt three variations and submit them here, and you can tell me if I'm understanding you correctly. I'm also not sure how long you expect these variations to be, but since I will be writing a set of them I will try to keep them short; enough to flesh out (hopefully) what each piece is supposed to develop.

Thanks Christopher,

Most of the counterpoint was done by ear, so that is probably why they only stuck to a few key notes, but I will focus on what have you assigned and perhaps we can tackle that later.

I am a little unsure about what you want from "broad" variations; I have the impression that you want me to develop specific parts of my theme into entirely different pieces. Correct me if I'm wrong, and I apologize for my lack of theory background (it makes it hard to understand what you want). Nonetheless, I will attempt three variations and submit them here, and you can tell me if I'm understanding you correctly. I'm also not sure how long you expect these variations to be, but since I will be writing a set of them I will try to keep them short; enough to flesh out (hopefully) what each piece is supposed to develop.

That's correct; each part of your theme should essentially be the seed for a new short piece.