Etude in Ab

I found this completed Etude in my old archives from probably at least 10 years ago and decided to publish it here.  I wrote it in the sequencer back before I started writing all my music on paper.  I also wrote it during a period where I was writing more avant-garde or experimental music so it's in quite a different style than usual.

It should definitely be possible to play but I haven't actually sat down in front of a piano and tried to figure out the fingerings which are likely to seriously contort the hand.  I didn't purposely write it to be really difficult - it just turned out that way (it is definitely beyond my own abilities on the piano).  It should be possible because there have been plenty of etudes that require the pianist to play scales in 3rds with each hand.  In this piece the 3rds also sometimes expand momentarily into larger intervals which are more difficult to play in parallel.  Anyways - I hope you enjoy listening!  I tried to make the score as nice looking as possible and if you notice any mistakes please let me know!  I welcome any of your feedback, criticisms or observations!  Thanks for listening!

Edit:  I added an updated mp3 of the Musesounds rendition, which I will probably be doing with many of my old pieces that can be improved in this way.

I understand that a Etude is a short piece where the composer insists in a concept or idea, harmonic, melodic, rhythmic or technical. In that sense, this piece fits well, as the chromatic scales come and go. The work is a big crescendo, being the last part a little bit percussive. I suppose it could be play by a virtuoso...

On the whole, its a beautiful piece. Sometimes this kind of Etudes focus on what the composer wants to show but they are not interesting. That's not the case.

5 hours ago, Luis Hernández said:

On the whole, its a beautiful piece. Sometimes this kind of Etudes focus on what the composer wants to show but they are not interesting. That's not the case.

Thanks Luis!  I used to write in a much more experimental style harmonically at one time but I haven't really gotten back into it since I started writing on paper.  Maybe publishing this piece will be a first step in that direction again.  Thanks for listening!

I'm usually not a great fan of such "experimental" music, but I must admit I really enjoyed some areas, e.g.: from 0:23-0:35 or 0:46-1:00, very interesting ending. The beginning was too an-harmonic to my taste. As for 0:35-0:46... I would not dare try it on the piano. Thanks for sharing!

9 hours ago, mazeth said:

I'm usually not a great fan of such "experimental" music, but I must admit I really enjoyed some areas, e.g.: from 0:23-0:35 or 0:46-1:00, very interesting ending. The beginning was too an-harmonic to my taste.

Thanks for the compliments!  I felt like starting simple with the melody only was a must for the listener to understand the heavily harmonized versions later on.

9 hours ago, mazeth said:

As for 0:35-0:46... I would not dare try it on the piano.

You might be right in that the rate of the passing of the notes is quicker there but I am not sure what I would personally find more difficult - the main theme harmonized in 3rds in both hands or the relatively simpler fioraturas in this section.

9 hours ago, mazeth said:

Thanks for sharing!

Thanks for listening and reviewing!

wish I could find the clip where the announcer says "he's simply amazing" about michael jordan lol. This is insanely good. You just... you $hit on my understanding of what can sound good with this piece. I love it!!

LoL thank you for that colorful description @Left Unexplained!  I'm glad I seem to have expanded your horizons.

JEEEEEEEZ, this is cool!

I love the heavy chromaticism, and I like how you start simple and keep making it more complex towards the end. The ending is very cheeky to my ears haha, with the held right hand note and the low chord. 

I won't dare try to play this, but would be a great exercise in executing those 3rds up and down

Thanks for posting this in the chatbox, I had forgotten about it!

2 minutes ago, Thatguy v2.0 said:

JEEEEEEEZ, this is cool!

I love the heavy chromaticism, and I like how you start simple and keep making it more complex towards the end.

Thanks!  Yeah the idea was to add more and more voices as the piece went on.

3 minutes ago, Thatguy v2.0 said:

The ending is very cheeky to my ears haha, with the held right hand note and the low chord. 

I wrote it that way with the held note in the right hand in hopes of setting the piece up for a transition into a slower contrasting section, but when that never materialized I just decided to publish it as is.

5 minutes ago, Thatguy v2.0 said:

I won't dare try to play this, but would be a great exercise in executing those 3rds up and down

I've never actually tried to learn this piece, so am not sure of how possible/impossible it might actually be to play at the speed required.  It is an etude after all so difficulty is expected.  Just not sure if that difficulty is blatantly impractical or not.

6 minutes ago, Thatguy v2.0 said:

Thanks for posting this in the chatbox, I had forgotten about it!

Thanks for your attention and review!

WTF my brain hurts after trying to visualize myself playing this little étude. The piano soundfont has room for improvement but that's obvious. My only serious criticism is this: 
Apart from that, some pedalling is questionable unless you want to create pure chaos which is perhaps the aim. This is something that would need in-depth study at least by me and the motive that drives the entire étude is catchy.

Thank you for putting the link in the chat 🙂.

Kind regards,
Daniel–Ømicrón.

Yes - the rests in the left hand at the end I think, could have been eliminated/merged into a whole measure rest.  But the rests in the right hand are stuck there, because I used voice 2 for the long held Eb so I can't delete the rests which are in voice 1 because that's the primary (and thus necessary) voice.  I would have had to have the chord played by voice 2 and then the held Eb in voice 1 and that would have created even more notation difficulties.  (unless I used voice 3 for the chord and voice 1 for the held Eb maybe?)

About the pedaling - there are definite places that I want a dry sound but others that I felt could easily be pedaled.  It's not my intention to have every harmony underneath a pedal mark to be perfectly individual and clear so the smearing of the sound effect is satisfactory to me in those places.

Thanks for your (at least cursory) review!

As a pianist I will regard bar 19-24 and bar 32-42 really difficult to play! It's so difficult to play that chords smoothly. And the whole piece is really monstrous to play!

The pedal marking in bar 4-6 seems strange for me since it's put under the right hand. I am used to having the pedal underneath the left hand!

But apart from that this piece is so nice with its chromaticism! Overall cool and I am unable to stop it once it's played! I love the chromatic and sometimes bitonal nature of this work, so effective in the sound! If that can be played, it will be an amazing encore piece for every concert! So exciting and a technically showoff piece for audience to enjoy!!

9 minutes ago, Henry Ng said:

The pedal marking in bar 4-6 seems strange for me since it's put under the right hand. I am used to having the pedal underneath the left hand!

Yeah - in Musescore I would have to put a hidden dotted quarter note in the left hand in order to make the pedal marks last for just that duration, since I have no other material in the left hand at that point.  And hidden 16th notes too if I wanted to say end any given pedal mark on the 5th 16th note of any given group instead of the last one which would be very laborious to input so I just made things easier for myself by putting the pedal marks in the right hand staff.  Our of pure laziness - I know LoL.

13 minutes ago, Henry Ng said:

As a pianist I will regard bar 19-24 and bar 32-42 really difficult to play! It's so difficult to play that chords smoothly. And the whole piece is really monstrous to play!

This is actually a revised version.  Previous versions of this piece had more parallel 6ths which were even more difficult to play than these (mostly) parallel 3rds.  I am hoping that it is at least on the edge of possibility for a virtuoso.  I've been learning another piece that I composed - A Strange Lullaby - which also has lots of parallel 3rds which I thought would, at least in theory, be easy to play.  But yeah - the piece requires lots of pedal to smooth out the disconnected sounding 3rds which are difficult to play legato with one hand.

17 minutes ago, Henry Ng said:

But apart from that this piece is so nice with its chromaticism! Overall cool and I am unable to stop it once it's played! I love the chromatic and sometimes bitonal nature of this work, so effective in the sound! If that can be played, it will be an amazing encore piece for every concert! So exciting and a technically showoff piece for audience to enjoy!!

Thank you!  I take that as a huge compliment!

Just a few thoughts:

1. In the section shared by Henry above, perhaps reconsider your slur markings to better indicate the harmonic pedaling that you are wanting. Unless the slurs are indicative of compositional organization (which I suspect they serve a dualistic role for idea organization and musicality), then its best to make it more clear and concise with these. 

2, Just a caveat, several areas of planing could do better with contrary motion between the bass line and upper parts -which wouldn't necessarily mess with the overall sound of these passages. For instance, bar 11 (which is the same material as bar 9) would make more sense to have the material in the right hand to go from the lower register back up -and one that would make this passage seem less of a repeated passage. Measure 13 is another area I'd also look at. The last beat in the bar (with the ascending eighths and suspended quarters) might go well with more contrary motion -though this would be minor as the ascending section is grounded with the suspension. 

3, Measure 25 looks like a hot mess with the slur markings. I'm suspecting this is due to the notation program used to compose this. I'd also look at perhaps changing the homogeneity of the accompaniment pattern. Perhaps if you thicken up the left hand -which would add sonic mass to that pattern and free up the right hand to bring some weight to the descending chromatic motif. 

Finally, how to add a slow section. I'm very fond of chromatic music like this -though usually in a much more dissonant context. One thing I found works is to apply a ritardando to material. You can achieve this by taking the chief motivic unit (or cell) and applying diminution to it. This is where you extend the note values (eighth replaces 16th, quarter replaces 8th, etc) or just simply applying a ritardando to the passage and changing the tempo marking when you arrive at where you want the material to begin. This works well (particularly the diminution) and allows you better cohesiveness with your material.