My Original Turkish March, How did I do?

This here is my original Turkish March. I didn't have much to go on except 2 pieces by 2 very famous composers to know what a Turkish March is supposed to sound like. Those being Mozart's Rondo alla Turka and Beethoven's Turkish March from Ruins of Athens. I pretty heavily borrowed from Mozart for this one. I didn't even know the tempo range until I listened to Mozart's and Beethoven's Turkish March pieces(which are the only ones I could find on Youtube by searching "Turkish March") I found that the tempo for both hovered around 110 BPM. Here is the form that it ended up being in:

ABACABADCAECDC Coda

A - Starting theme in C major

B - Contrasting theme in F major

C - Scalar theme in C major

D - Contrasting theme in A minor

E - Contrasting theme in C minor

With the A minor theme, I use harmonic minor throughout. With the C minor theme, I only use harmonic minor as a pivot back to C major. This is because, at the time that I composed this piece(which is almost a year ago now), I thought harmonic minor just made C minor too much like C major for my ears to accept using it outside of pivots. In contrast, C dorian, another minor scale with a sharpened note, felt much more minor to me than harmonic minor. Now, I don't have that strong "Harmonic minor is too much like major" inclination for any key, not even C minor(which is the key for which that inclination lasted the longest). Melodic minor though, I still avoid, even in minor - major pivots, and for the same reason, sounding too much like major to be acceptable.

In the coda, I use GM7 as my dominant instead of G7. It sounds, to me at least, more urgent to resolve than the dominant seventh, because you have 2 leading tones, the leading tone of the key and the leading tone of the dominant of the key. What do you think of my Turkish March?

Although you wrote this a year ago, I think this is the first completed original work of yours I've come across on this site, so you're probably better now at most of the issues I'm about to mention. Take them with a grain of salt!

The flow of the piece is, to my taste, quite abrupt and choppy. Each theme erupts onto the scene with naught but a half-note chord to introduce it in the preceding measure. Your use of note values doesn't lend itself well to recreating a march; instead, I feel it "hurts" the overall rhythm of the piece. As an example, your opening theme goes: | 8 8 8 8 | 2 16 16 16 16 | 8 8 8 8 | 8 8 8 8 | 4 4 | 4 4 | 16 16 16 16 16 16 16 16 | 2 |. This doesn't allow for an established accented rhythm one would expect to hear in a march. The rhythm never really sets in, and so the half-note cadences just sound "too soon." Perhaps the work could use better transitions overall.

This work also lacks interesting variations, in my opinion. There are instances where the themes are transposed to different tonalities, but rhythmically, they do not vary. The scalar theme was initially a welcome relief from the monotony. However, even it shows up several times throughout the piece with no variation to it, just a C scale ascending and descending with altered harmonies beneath. The dissonances in the coda (Gmaj7 chords) are very jarring, and, in my opinion, do not belong in this piece. They almost sound like the performer accidentally hit the wrong notes. If this piece had included more dissonant chords throughout, I don't think those Gmaj7 chords would sound so alien.

You clearly have a great understanding of music theory, at least in isolation. I encourage you to experiment more with how the chords relate to each other when actually sounded (and not just what the theory books tell us). And, seeing as how this was written a year ago, I'm sure you've done a lot more experimenting. 😊

Keep up the good work!

It's a big work.

With this kind of pieces I feel a bit tired of repetitions. In times of classicism repetitions were needed because all these works were made to dance. And the music had to go over and over to the same parts.

What strikes me is that you call it Turkish. In Germany, there was tradition about wars against the otomanes, and that's why sometimes composers bring turkish elements to their compositions. Mozart wrote a signspiel full of this music (Die Entführung aus dem Serail, El Rapto en el Serrallo).

Turkish music is always in a fast tempo, and almost always is a march. When a orchestra was used, additional percussion instruments were scores: bass drum, triangle, cymbals. Also the piccolo. When the composition is for piano solo, some rhythmic patterns are present. There is a heavy marcatto (go to Beethoven's).

Beethoven also wrote a Turkish March for the IV movement of his 9th symphony (12:50): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zhk1OnaYJg

The final movement of Mozart's 5th violin concerto has a turkish part (23:13): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aecQlKc_Vfg

Haydn also wrote turkish music in the 2nd mov of his Military Symphony.

Beethoven did it again in Wellington's Victory, in the very beginning: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mczvfByofiw

There are many other examples of turkish marchs: Michael Haydn, Rameau, Rossini. Gluck, Spohr, etc...

But of the most representatives is the overture of The Abduction from the Seragilo, Die Entführung aus dem Serail): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJhIChIS9pM

In that sense, I would say that the prelude to Act I in the opera Carmen by Bizet is totally influenced by this music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6eO3groGwA