Sad piece in major key

This is my third small form I've composed at the piano. I composed it as a minuet and trio but more in the style found in a piano sonata. I encountered a problem when I began composing the trio, it begins on a weak beat unlike the minuet which begins on the first beat of the bar. I wasn't sure if this was in the style but after looking at a set of minuets by Mozart I found one that begins anacrusically but the trio begins on the first beat of the bar. I guess the minuet is just regarded as a separate piece of music attached to the minuet.

Usually I think of minor keys when creating music thats quiet, introspective and sad but I know major keys can also create the effect. I wonder whether you can hear the play between hope and sadness in this piece.

I can imagine this being played by Salieri at the mental hospital and then he tells the priest "Ah - that was Mozart ..." LoL.  I think it's a nice and quaint little minuet and trio!  Did you know that a Gigue and Musette have much of the same kind of relationship to each other as a Minuet and Trio does?  I've even included a Musette in a Gavotte.  It pretty much functions as a trio does in a minuet in any other kind of Baroque court dance.  Thanks for an entertaining listen!

This is excellent! Very elegant and in-style writing and the performance helps bring the notes into life.

If I had to make a single suggestion, I'd try maybe to end the first half of at least one of the binary forms on the dominant, since that's what happens in most classical-era minuets (and other stuff in large ternary forms). This is more common in the main minuet than in the trio.

Keep writing!

On 9/5/2021 at 3:39 AM, Papageno said:

sad

pushing aside for the moment all else and jumping in with one of my pet theories....it is interesting to me that you refer to "sad" as being an effect and not an emotion because i (too?) do not believe that music is ever emotional, per se. but it can be and often is ABOUT emotion.

Thank you for taking the time to listen to my music and for your comments.

Peter. Haha, I wasn't trying to immitate Mozart but the deceptive cadences were a Mozart favourite for creating pathos and I used a few in this piece. No I didn't know that about the Gavotte and musette acting as a pair. Haydn uses the musette sometimes in his trios and I think I've heard beethoven do the same in one of his german dances or minuets. 

Snake. Thank you, I wish I could improve the sound quality of my recording. 

Christopher. I think emotion in music comes about through expectation, consciously or subconsciously, that is frustrated or entirely denied. As we know, minuets are generally upbeat, dignified, and danceable (in the 18th century style) and they convey a sense of the nobility of the upper class. If you keep some aspects of this but change others, that creates the effect. 

Of course minor keys, repeated notes, slow descending bass lines can create a sad mood but if all music followed this pattern, it wouldn't create a sad mood but fulfill the expectations of what music should sound like and end up just being relaxing and nothing else. I think this is why the minor key sonatas of the romantic period bore me (although there are a few exceptions) because they all sound the same and fail to set up and contradict any expectations. The original audiences would have been blown away by stormy music but its lost on me.

Music is never emotional but can in the right audience affect mood.

I enjoyed this piece, and I think you did a good job on giving this piece a “sad” sound. Or at least give reason to convey these emotions. I was pleasantly suprised with the deceptive cadende passing through V7/VI before arriving on VI . This is something I’m a huge fan of. 
 

I also like the idea of composing a sad piece in a major key and will be attempting it myself this evening. And I will try to use as many deceptive cadences as possible with it. Might even upload it here if I’m happy with it.

regardless, great piece!

A very satisfying and pleasant piano work.  For me ... it has a touch of Beethoven.  It is extremely well crafted.

1 hour ago, Bertal piano said:

I enjoyed this piece, and I think you did a good job on giving this piece a “sad” sound. Or at least give reason to convey these emotions. I was pleasantly suprised with the deceptive cadende passing through V7/VI before arriving on VI . This is something I’m a huge fan of. 
 

I also like the idea of composing a sad piece in a major key and will be attempting it myself this evening. And I will try to use as many deceptive cadences as possible with it. Might even upload it here if I’m happy with it.

 

regardless, great piece!

 

Thank you Bertal for taking the time to listening to my music and for you kind comments.

For a masterclass in how to create a sad mood in a major piece listen to the slow movement of Mozart's eine kleine nachtmusik.

The theme seems cheerful enough on the surface but the slow bass and use of hesitation give the music an introspective and almost mourning quality.

I picture someone remembering old times long past. The middle section captures the feeling of anxiety really well. And the coda is what the whole piece was building to I think, the magic moment that everything preceding it prepared the listener to experience. The theme is repeated but changed to create the feeling of acceptance. Grief passes through so many strong emotions before finally acceptance.

1 hour ago, MJFOBOE said:

A very satisfying and pleasant piano work.  For me ... it has a touch of Beethoven.  It is extremely well crafted.

 

Thank you MJ! I spent hours on this piece and thought carefully about its construction. 🙂

3 hours ago, Bertal piano said:

I enjoyed this piece, and I think you did a good job on giving this piece a “sad” sound. Or at least give reason to convey these emotions. I was pleasantly suprised with the deceptive cadende passing through V7/VI before arriving on VI . This is something I’m a huge fan of. 
 

I also like the idea of composing a sad piece in a major key and will be attempting it myself this evening. And I will try to use as many deceptive cadences as possible with it. Might even upload it here if I’m happy with it.

 

regardless, great piece!

 

I just visited your home page, you're the person that wrote the Romanza! I come back to listen to it every now and then. Its a short fragment but its really quite special, did you continue it?

@Papageno

That is indeed me, I’m amazed you remembered it since is was such a short starting sketch. It is now the only work im seriously working on. And by coincedence I thought off a short themelike structure for it while attempting the same challenge as you did here.

On 9/6/2021 at 12:10 PM, Papageno said:

Music is never emotional but can in the right audience affect mood.

before you got to this sentence i thought we were not quite on the same page about (the lack of real) emotion in music. the death of children as memorialized in Mahler's song cycle "Songs on the Death of Children" is a wonderful work but i am glad that it does not and even cannot make me feel the actual emotion that would surely surge up within me if i had to contemplate and experience such deaths in real life. case closed. music can be and often should be about emotion but it is never emotion itself.

On 9/5/2021 at 7:25 PM, Snake_Cake said:

that's what happens in most

but if i were Elmer's to your Gorilla glue then you could say i'm almost just like you, but really - who'd want that?!? r u crazy! lol. 

On 9/6/2021 at 12:10 PM, Papageno said:

sound quality of my recording

how would you like it to be different from what you posted here?

2 hours ago, AKAChristopher said:

but if i were Elmer's to your Gorilla glue then you could say i'm almost just like you, but really - who'd want that?!? r u crazy! lol. 

 

ummm what?

13 minutes ago, Snake_Cake said:

ummm what

just saying that no one necessarily needs to end their pieces even half way through just like the old masters did but then again, of course they don't call them 'old' and certainly not 'masters' for just any damn reason. just sayin'.

3 hours ago, AKAChristopher said:

how would you like it to be different from what you posted here?

 

I record using my phone and some of the detail is lost and the timbre of the piano changes. I found an app called 'Dolby On' which is good for reducing the hissing noise. Eventually I'll get a laptop and decent microphone.

Very nice. Perfect sense of timing and that is very important for a composer.

4 hours ago, Minx said:

Very nice. Perfect sense of timing and that is very important for a composer.

 

Thank you for taking the time to listen to my music and for your kind comment. I'm not entirely sure about what aspect of timing you mean. 🙂

Hello, Papageno!

What a nice, delightful piece of music. I enjoyed it very much!
There's something about the meter I was thinking about; m 9-14 and 59-64, to me it feels like the piece is jumping to 4/4 a little bit, and I guess it has to do with the bassline in m. 10 and 13, and the second time m 60, 63 where (if I remember correctly) the tonic falls on the second beat - and also the following descending line in the end of the same measure adds to that "feeling of 4/4" if you will. That is just my viewpoint.

I have a suggestion on the image file I uploaded, I hope I'm not being too rude messing around with notes in your piece.

Anyway I really like your music

23 minutes ago, Olov said:

Hello, Papageno!

What a nice, delightful piece of music. I enjoyed it very much!
There's something about the meter I was thinking about; m 9-14 and 59-64, to me it feels like the piece is jumping to 4/4 a little bit, and I guess it has to do with the bassline in m. 10 and 13, and the second time m 60, 63 where (if I remember correctly) the tonic falls on the second beat - and also the following descending line in the end of the same measure adds to that "feeling of 4/4" if you will. That is just my viewpoint.

I have a suggestion on the image file I uploaded, I hope I'm not being too rude messing around with notes in your piece.

Anyway I really like your music

 

Thank you for listening and your detailed comment. I always knew something was wrong with the fonte, I couldn't put my finger on it and attempted to fix it but got stuck.

I composed this piece via improvising and when I sat down to listen to the recording of me playing the piano and jot down the notes I found the fonte phrase was an odd length so had to adjust it but never found a satisfactory solution. 

Now I know why! Thank you very much for your suggestion, I will play it and correct my work. Im currently building a piece from this improvisation.

1 hour ago, Papageno said:

Thank you for taking the time to listen to my music and for your kind comment. I'm not entirely sure about what aspect of timing you mean. 🙂

 

Knowing what to do and when to do it. Believe me, a lot of composers aren't very good at it. You're obvious a natural.

On 9/12/2021 at 1:39 PM, Papageno said:

listen to the recording of me playing the piano and jot down the notes

i have software that will convert audio to MIDI; take the MIDI into the free app version of MuseScore - not the website per se - and voila! your piece in sheet music. i have been doing this for myself and a friend and would like to get feedback on how accurate the audio to MIDI is done; if you like, i can process your piece and let you tell me how the app did. all i need is the original audio file.

10 hours ago, AKAChristopher said:

i have software that will convert audio to MIDI; take the MIDI into the free app version of MuseScore - not the website per se - and voila! your piece in sheet music. i have been doing this for myself and a friend and would like to get feedback on how accurate the audio to MIDI is done; if you like, i can process your piece and let you tell me how the app did. all i need is the original audio file.

 

I Agree! It is more usefull especially with official scores now- https://musescore.com/sheetmusic?publisher_id=0 they are correct and have multiple types (only for one instrument or for full ensemble).