Musical Theme in G Maj for Piano

Hello everyone! 

After a long time without being able to study music I finally found the time and focus for studying again. I started learning "Analyzing classical form" by Caplin, a book that I am finding extremely interesting. The first part of the book is about the two main types of classical music themes: periods and sentences. It also gives insight about different types of techniques for turning simple themes into longer ones. 

I composed this theme as a way of practicing some of the concepts I am learning with the book. The theme is constructed as a sentence and it features phrase deviation techniques such as a compressed continuation or interpolation of material (if you want to, you can see the different sections of the theme in the description of the video). 

As always, any comment or feedback is more than welcome.

Thanks for listening and hope you like it!

Edited June 13, 20223 yr by JorgeDavid

Hi, thank you for the indirect book recommendation, I'll check it out.

I did like the exercise, it's simple and it does what you say, though I'm almost certain sibelius didn't pay attention to the dynamics (?). I know it's just an exercise buuut it demands a G minor section after it :>.

Kind regards ^^!

There are a few reasons why I think your main theme comes off as sounding sort of overly happy and not like a serious theme.  You overuse stepwise or scalar motion which is okay if contrasted with other intervals but you don't do that (except in the short introductory phrase which actually works).  Because of this your melody ends up sounding aimless and meandering up and down the keyboard without really hooking the listener in to let them know that something interesting is happening.  First you go up, then you go down (with those little mordants interspersed which just makes it sound overly playful and comedic) but you don't take the listener on any kind of meaningful melodic/harmonic adventure.  You do create some interest later on but the last phrase ends up just sounding like harmonic noodling imo.  I think you just need to write more melodies.  Everything takes practice and sometimes book learning can lead one astray and make things seem more complicated than they really are.  That's my 2 cents.  Thanks for sharing and keep composing!

This isn't bad, but I think it could be better. I think where it could stand to improve the most is in your handling of the thematic material. The various phrases employ different rhythms — typically a good thing to engage listener interest, but in this case there were too many. It sounded too much like improvisation. You need to create themes that are derived from each other rhythmically. For example, the passages at m. 17 and 20, while harmonically interesting, seem to be very much out of place. You might have used a dotted quarter note at the start to sort of echo the dotted eight-notes you use elsewhere in the piece.

There are also issues harmonically. Your opening chord progression (I - IVc - I - IVc - V of D major) is not very convincing.

Actually, upon closer inspection, I'm not quite sure what your video is presenting. The captions of the various sections lead me to believe that this is not a single piece, but rather a few attempts at the same thing strung together. I will hold on further analysis until I've gotten clarification.