The Princess in the Tower

Back when I was into creative writing, I tried my hand at writing a fairytale set in a fantasy world based on ancient China. The story was about a young princess locked up in a tower by her father the king for refusing to be married off to a foreign prince. I never got around to finishing it, but it did inspire me to write this piece.

The style is heavily inspired by Joe Hisaishi, one of my all-time favourite composers. All feedback welcome!

Harmonic ambiguity seems to be the name of the game in this piece which is a cool way to approach this topic.  I like your use of suspended sonorities too.  I do think that a few more well placed simple triads might have been more tasteful to me and some of your chromatic dithering between F# and natural sounded a bit iffy.  That might just be me though.  Overall an enjoyable piece though - thanks for sharing!

Joe Hisaishi is really great. He's the reason I got into Studio Ghibli films a few years ago. This piece would have immediately made me think of his style even if you hadn't said it was inspired by him, so very good job! I think the harmonic choices were appropriate. In terms of the piano's register I think the piece spends a bit too long in the middle, and the bass region and upper octaves are slightly neglected - some of my favourite Hisaishi moments are a) when he pulls everything back and focuses on the piano's upper register, and b) when he introduces bass and makes it feel new, just because he hasn't used it until that point (Spirited Away etc.). Also, I'd consider adding strings in the background to fill out the soundscape that you're going for, and to really drive home that whimsical, cinematical feel of Hisaishi and others like him. Overall, very listenable and evocative. Great job!!

Could be funny if you wrote there "porco rit..."

My only constructive criticism is that it feels emptier than it should be at places.

Even when Hisaishi is empty, he never really is. Something would make up for it, usually harmonic complexity.