Weihnachtsgeschenk "A Christmas Gift"

Greetings.

It has been a while since I posted something on this forum. Since Christmas is around the corner, I want to present a piano piece I composed years before, called "A Christmas Gift" or "Weihnachtsgeschenk" in German. This work was inspired by a short piano piece called "Music Box", written by the German composer Emil von Sauer. And yes, I managed to record this piece myself, which took me a few weeks of practice.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy the music, and any feedback is appreciated. Last but not least, I wish you a Merry Christmas!

Carl Koh Wei Hao

Hei @Carl Koh Wei Hao,

First you play it by yourself! Great job! It really shows your playing skill! It's quite rare to have live recordings posted here in YC.

As this piece is about Christmas, you should join the Christmas event held this year here!

Nice harmony used including the augmented 5th (Db-F-A natural), the french sixth and the diminished chord. Nice catchy melody as well with good accompaniment to move it around.

Nice change to the flat submediant key of A major! That's a chopinistic touch. I love the section on 2:30 which is modulated to F sharp minor, and in 2:55 the melody goes to middle register played by left hand, which is a great contrast to the previous section since many of them are in high register and played by right hand only.

In around 3:08 nice modulation back to D flat major. I love that half diminished seventh chord of D#-F#-A-C#, I always love half diminished 7th chord and you utilize it well to re-interpret it as Eb-Gb-Ab-Db as a pivotal chord, then resolve that Db to C to form the dominant seventh. Great use of harmony here, not only adding color but also ensure smooth transition!

The return of A material in 3:15 I love the timberal change you made by spreading the right hand chords. It for sure adds silvery effect for the music, good job!

That's nice ending as well. However personally I will just end the piece in that high register chord in 4:23. I find the sudden contemplative sound of the low register quite unsuitable to be used to end the piece.

But overall this is really an enjoyable piece!! Good job especially you play this yourself and record it!

Btw, I've visited your channel and you have other pieces posted on YT but not here. I think you can consider posting them here as well! (And you have 1 more subscriber than me, LOL!!) Last but not least, wish you a Merry Christmas!

Henry

Awesome piece! Definitely has a Christmas ring to it, and you play wonderfully. 

I have to say, your piano sounds amazing, it's very crystal clear and has a very bright tone. Very fitting to the piece you performed. Well done!

16 minutes ago, Thatguy v2.0 said:

I have to say, your piano sounds amazing, it's very crystal clear and has a very bright tone. Very fitting to the piece you performed. Well done!

I see that the brand is YAMAHA. No wonder why it's crystal clear and bright. YAMAHA is known for its bright sound.

YAMAHA is quite frequently used as well in Hong Kong since it's a Japanese brand and the material fits more to the hot and humid weather of Hong Kong and Malaysia instead of European brand. I once owned a Yamaha piano as well! But sadly now I don't.

Hi Henry,

Thanks for your feedback!

3 hours ago, Henry Ng said:

Nice harmony used including the augmented 5th (Db-F-A natural), the french sixth and the diminished chord.

The French sixth and the diminished seventh chord are two of my favorite chords simply because of their dissonance and the expressiveness they bring to the music. I have also used the German sixth chord in my compositions, but less frequently than the French sixth.

3 hours ago, Henry Ng said:

However personally I will just end the piece in that high register chord in 4:23. I find the sudden contemplative sound of the low register quite unsuitable to be used to end the piece.

I agree with you about this. My original intention was to include the low tonic chord because the piece is mostly played in the upper register, and something needs to be there to keep the balance. In the sheet music, the chord is marked "quasi niente", which translates to "almost nothing", and the dynamic marking is pianississimo (ppp). However, my phone isn't designed to capture the dynamics of musical instruments: no matter how soft it is, my recorder somehow amplifies the sound.

3 hours ago, Henry Ng said:

But overall this is really an enjoyable piece!! Good job especially you play this yourself and record it!

I am glad that you enjoy the piece, and I thank you for listening! I had spent quite some time practicing this piece.

3 minutes ago, Carl Koh Wei Hao said:

The French sixth and the diminished seventh chord are two of my favorite chords simply because of their dissonance and the expressiveness they bring to the music. I have also used the German sixth chord in my compositions, but less frequently than the French sixth.

I love to use that too, though my favourite is German Sixth. I really love the ambiguity between an augmented sixth and dominant seventh by using German Sixth.

21 minutes ago, Carl Koh Wei Hao said:

I agree with you about this. My original intention was to include the low tonic chord because the piece is mostly played in the upper register, and something needs to be there to keep the balance. In the sheet music, the chord is marked "quasi niente", which translates to "almost nothing", and the dynamic marking is pianississimo (ppp). However, my phone isn't designed to capture the dynamics of musical instruments: no matter how soft it is, my recorder somehow amplifies the sound.

Yes the recording thing sometimes distorts our music!!!🥵 But for my personal preference I will end the piece in high register, because I think ending in low register won't balance the register but will abruptly distort the overall mood. But that's just my opinion.

23 minutes ago, Carl Koh Wei Hao said:

I am glad that you enjoy the piece, and I thank you for listening! I had spent quite some time practicing this piece.

You really should post more pieces here! I find there are numerous good pieces posted in Youtube!! Members from here will provide  even more valuable comments to your music and I am sure you will benefit from them!!

Henry

Very elegant and graceful - beautiful. I love the music-box-esque main theme. I think the piece would sound equally wonderful on celesta, do you have software you could try that out on?

My favourite part was the passage at 0:56. It was a lovely new texture which made all the difference of keeping the piece interesting. This ties in to my only real criticism: it tends to be a bit samey. You could maybe change the accompaniment texture during the piece or maybe have some more of this light scurrying material. For this reason, I do like the low register at the end as it makes the piece a little more expansive.

Do you have any chance to get thks recorded again with a proper microphone? I'm sure it would sound so much better.

Thank you so much for sharing and for taking part in the Christmas event!

Hi aMusicComposer,

Thank you for your feedback!

5 hours ago, aMusicComposer said:

I think the piece would sound equally wonderful on celesta, do you have software you could try that out on?

I just tried it on MuseScore 2, and you're right, it sounds equally wonderful on the celesta! It truly resembles the sound of a music box.

5 hours ago, aMusicComposer said:

My favourite part was the passage at 0:56. It was a lovely new texture which made all the difference of keeping the piece interesting. This ties in to my only real criticism: it tends to be a bit samey. You could maybe change the accompaniment texture during the piece or maybe have some more of this light scurrying material. For this reason, I do like the low register at the end as it makes the piece a little more expansive.

This motif actually imitates the sound of cranking the music box. I am glad that you liked it! Also, I agree with you that it may tend to be monotonous, especially the accompaniment pattern. I will take note of this and try to avoid my music from sounding too bland.

6 hours ago, aMusicComposer said:

Do you have any chance to get this recorded again with a proper microphone? I'm sure it would sound so much better.

Before I recorded this performance, I considered investing in a condenser microphone kit and even researched the proper way to record an upright piano. However, I later abandoned this idea because of tedious setup and lack of space. Also, I rarely get myself to play the piano these days due to my studies. I might consider this idea again if I plan to make more videos like this.

I loved this piece!! Very, very graceful. My favorite part was the main theme, specially the 3:14 repeat. It just had a very special ring with a lot of elegance. Excellent performance too. Everything was crystal clear, which made the piece sound perfect. The harmony was amazing. I use the french 6th and dimished chords very often in my music. I love those chords, and your piece made perfect use of them. Thank you for sharing this lovely Christmas piece!