Sketch No. 43 - Cinderella

Another edition in the daily sketch project I've been doing, this one aimed to try to tell common and simple stories through musical means (the one before was "Little Red Riding Hood"). The ending has the tone I want, but I don't really know about how it was executed. Let me know what you all think;

Well for a sketch is something complete by itself.

First of all, I don't believe that music can describe anything. I do believe music can transmit emotions and sensations and you can take a story as inspiration.

There are many good ideas in the sketch. At first I thought it would be a bit boring because of the vertical chords (wich is a way to underuse the piano), but as an introduction is perfect for what comes next. The allegro speranzoso part is wonderful, simple but fantastic (I would take this part to develop, it's between impresionistic and minimal). The third part is OK because the chords are emphasized and tha left hand is different. The frenetico part is the one I understand less in the piece... The largo part is good, a strange chord here (F - Ab - B - C), this is used in some oriental scales. The last parts include new motives... And that's a "problem"... many parts with many possibilities...

When there is much material in a short time is like a musical brainstorm. Yes, I know it's a sketch and it's supposed to be written quickly. Anyway I always, in my case, try to put some order in everything I do (even using simple forms like AB, ABA, ABAB).

Greetings!

20 hours ago, Luis Hernández said:

Well for a sketch is something complete by itself.

First of all, I don't believe that music can describe anything. I do believe music can transmit emotions and sensations and you can take a story as inspiration.

There are many good ideas in the sketch. At first I thought it would be a bit boring because of the vertical chords (wich is a way to underuse the piano), but as an introduction is perfect for what comes next. The allegro speranzoso part is wonderful, simple but fantastic (I would take this part to develop, it's between impresionistic and minimal). The third part is OK because the chords are emphasized and tha left hand is different. The frenetico part is the one I understand less in the piece... The largo part is good, a strange chord here (F - Ab - B - C), this is used in some oriental scales. The last parts include new motives... And that's a "problem"... many parts with many possibilities...

When there is much material in a short time is like a musical brainstorm. Yes, I know it's a sketch and it's supposed to be written quickly. Anyway I always, in my case, try to put some order in everything I do (even using simple forms like AB, ABA, ABAB).

Greetings!

 

Fair enough! Thanks for your comments, and I think the idea thing is something these sketches are notorious for, but we'll see how that goes in the future.

There is a lot more here than in the earlier sketches you posted. I understand what you were trying to do, tying in the different sections to major points in the story. Some of the programmatic symbolism is obvious on first listen (m. 61-64 is surely the clock striking 12). I think it could perhaps work, but many parts would have to be seriously extended so that each new idea has a chance to be used to its full potential. But it is a very ambitious idea to write a sketch on an entire fairy tale in one day, and the fact you've managed to do it at all is impressive to me.

Keep on sketching!

14 minutes ago, fishyfry said:

There is a lot more here than in the earlier sketches you posted. I understand what you were trying to do, tying in the different sections to major points in the story. Some of the programmatic symbolism is obvious on first listen (m. 61-64 is surely the clock striking 12). I think it could perhaps work, but many parts would have to be seriously extended so that each new idea has a chance to be used to its full potential. But it is a very ambitious idea to write a sketch on an entire fairy tale in one day, and the fact you've managed to do it at all is impressive to me.

Keep on sketching!

 

That's very kind of you! The "obvious programmatic symbolism" is kind of what I'm going for in these sketches, and that's by no means a defense of me not elaborating on my sections. For me, it was just an exercise in "can I make people feel that story in this way". It seems to have mostly worked, but it seems I cast aside a lot of the "musicality" of the music in sacrifice, haha! Thank you!

The symbolism comment wasn't a criticism, btw. Those sorts of things are usually effective for me, and I think they were here.

I took a few listens to it last night and this morning, and let me say that I agree with fishfry that your execution of the symbolism was quite effective. I'll even take it a step further to say that musically you've got a lot of strong material to work with in this one. There are more or less two ways I usually work with a piece like this, which has a lot of thematic and cinematic material in a relatively short span of time:

1. You could elaborate on the existing themes, extending the sections to allow them the "time" they need to "breathe and grow" into their "adult" forms. (sorry for the excessive use of comparisons in that comment....!)
2. You could find ways of tying the existing themes together, either by carrying them forward into the next section somehow (i.e. melody becomes a countermelody to the new theme, the harmonic motion or style bleeds into the new section, etc.), or by foreshadowing the upcoming material using techniques similar to what I just mentioned above in italics

These two things help me as a listener to follow along where the piece is going. Think of this kind of work as a tour, and we as the tour guide need to make sure we know how our guests are being transported from one musical location or idea to the next. This helps me to get a large-scale idea of how the piece will work as a whole, and usually helps me know better how I need to construct the smaller pieces in terms of technical execution.

I love this sketch, and you say you've done others like it. Can I find those somewhere on this forum? I'd love to listen to them!

Happy Writing :)

Gustav Johnson

1 hour ago, Gustav Johnson said:

• You could elaborate on the existing themes, extending the sections to allow them the "time" they need to "breathe and grow" into their "adult" forms. (sorry for the excessive use of comparisons in that comment....!)
• You could find ways of tying the existing themes together, either by carrying them forward into the next section somehow (i.e. melody becomes a countermelody to the new theme, the harmonic motion or style bleeds into the new section, etc.), or by foreshadowing the upcoming material using techniques similar to what I just mentioned above in italics

1. Haha yeah, I've gotten that quite a bit; it was just a matter of getting the story across.

2. I kind of did that. At m. 82 (Largo), I combine the clock strikes 12 theme with the beginning theme as a constant oppressor. 

Thanks for your comments!