Prelude In C-flat Major

I hope you guys would like this composition. What are you comments on it? Where could've I improved it? Also, I hope my use of the pedal was not excessive. 

Written in C flat like a true pianist 

I don't know if it's just me but some of the chords in the left hand sounded muddy, maybe try playing them higher or just spreading them out more. Nice melody

Hi!

First of all, why didn't you choose B Major which would be easier for pianists to read? I believe it would be easier to read for pianists, but that makes me go straight to my second point; please correct me if I am mistaken but a single pianist cannot perform what you wrote simultaneously. You have a lot of examples of it, indeed the majority of the piece starting from the 4th bar doesn't seem to be playable with two hands only. You have a tetrad in your left hand that lasts the whole bar while a second voice starts and goes down to E (which is hardly achievable without a pedal but could be done I suppose) while the rhythmic ostinato from your first bars continues with a fourth voice added on top of it. There would be no problem if the distance from the lowest pitch note to the highest on that hand weren't two full octaves, which makes that bar unplayable. There are a lot of examples you can hint easily (bars 4-7, 9, 11, 20-22, 26-27, 39 are those that I hinted).

Regarding the pedal, I believe it was not excessive (I suppose it's a matter of your taste) but let me tell you that you probably did not need to put a pedal indication in bars 13 and 14 since you make use of it when you are already sustaining the notes.

Finally, as you can see I have only discussed your score in terms of what's written but not in how it sounds. In that regard I find it very pleasant to listen to (I keep listening to it again while I am writing this), there are very beautiful passages like bars 17-22 and the last four bars. Anyway, It was very cool to review your score and listen to it a couple of times, thank you for sharing it ^^.

Kind regards,
Ømicrón.

 

2 hours ago, jejrekmek said:

Written in C flat like a true pianist 

Haha! I don't know if this may come as a surprise to you but I actually cannot play a piano, neither can I play any instrument, really.

2 hours ago, jejrekmek said:

I don't know if it's just me but some of the chords in the left hand sounded muddy, maybe try playing them higher or just spreading them out more.

I did think that it was muddy too, but I couldn't find any more variation on the theme and so I resorted to my last weapon: taking the whole thing down an octave.

2 hours ago, jejrekmek said:

Nice melody

Thanks! I'm glad you liked it!

2 hours ago, Omicronrg9 said:

First of all, why didn't you choose B Major which would be easier for pianists to read?

The key of this piece seems to be something multiple people have pointed out. The reason I chose C-flat in the first place is because I listened to Schubert's Impromptu No. 3, which is in G-flat Major. I thought it would be cool if I chose a "flat" key signature. That is my only justification; I completely did not have in my mind that these two are virtually the same thing, and now that I'm thinking about it, I find it pretty dumb of me haha.

2 hours ago, Omicronrg9 said:

please correct me if I am mistaken but a single pianist cannot perform what you wrote simultaneously.

You are most probably right. As I have mentioned before, I virtually have no experience with the piano, and so I, most of the time, underestimate how large of an interval anything above an octave is. I have received the same feedback before, and I tried to improve my sense of voicing in this piece, but it appears that there is more work needed!

2 hours ago, Omicronrg9 said:

Regarding the pedal, I believe it was not excessive (I suppose it's a matter of your taste) but let me tell you that you probably did not need to put a pedal indication in bars 13 and 14 since you make use of it when you are already sustaining the notes.

Ah; in my mind, the pedal was more of a "reverb" thing that added extra "atmosphere". Apparently, it just literally holds on to, or sustains, the notes. Noted!

2 hours ago, Omicronrg9 said:

Finally, as you can see I have only discussed your score in terms of what's written but not in how it sounds. In that regard I find it very pleasant to listen to (I keep listening to it again while I am writing this), there are very beautiful passages like bars 17-22 and the last four bars. Anyway, It was very cool to review your score and listen to it a couple of times, thank you for sharing it ^^.

Thanks for the compliments! It really means a lot!  

1 hour ago, bored_comedy said:

The key of this piece seems to be something multiple people have pointed out. The reason I chose C-flat in the first place is because I listened to Schubert's Impromptu No. 3, which is in G-flat Major. I thought it would be cool if I chose a "flat" key signature. That is my only justification; I completely did not have in my mind that these two are virtually the same thing, and now that I'm thinking about it, I find it pretty dumb of me haha.

You know what, just after that I realized that my fourth nocturne is in A-flat minor so, yeah I think 7 flats is just fine. 😐

 

1 hour ago, bored_comedy said:

You are most probably right. As I have mentioned before, I virtually have no experience with the piano, and so I, most of the time, underestimate how large of an interval anything above an octave is. I have received the same feedback before, and I tried to improve my sense of voicing in this piece, but it appears that there is more work needed!

Oh I see. Well in that case I think you could try rewriting it for two pianos instead, what do you think?

Looking forward to read and listen to your future works 👍.
Kind regards!

17 minutes ago, Omicronrg9 said:

Well in that case I think you could try rewriting it for two pianos instead, what do you think?

That is a possibility---for the future, at least 🙂 Thanks for the recommendations and valuable feedback; I found them to be really valuable!