Etude in G minor

G’day fellas!

My interest in writing my own music goes way back, but it’s only been the last year and a bit since I’ve decided to take it more seriously and maybe even publish something later down the line! I’ve also never sought feedback from fellow composers before, so I’m real keen to give it a go! Anyhow, here is my Étude in G minor, which I believe I wrote back in late 2021:

Hello Quinn St. Mark,

Welcome to the forum! This is a well-written étude, and you must have an excellent harmonic vocabulary! Modulations are smooth, and the harmonic progressions are cleverly employed. However, the transition to the main theme from 1:16 to 1:25 may be unnecessarily long, making the piece a little bland. I suggest shortening this passage to four bars (I assume this piece is written in 2/4 time) unless it is intended to strengthen certain piano playing skills.

Overall, this étude is well-structured, and I find this piece engaging and enjoyable. I look forward to listening to more of your compositions!

Carl Koh Wei Hao

G'day @Carl Koh Wei Hao,

Thank you so much! Although admittedly I haven't formally studied music theory since 7th grade aside from my violin lessons and time spend in a small community orchestra, I have often found binge listening to be a key asset for inspiration. But this really means a lot, so thanks again!

Thank you for your feedback on the transition to the main theme as well. If I recall correctly, this was actually the last part of the piece that I wrote; my intent was simply to bridge the gap between the first half and the coda, and I suppose the number of bars wasn't really at the forefront for me at the time. But I'll definitely take your advice, and I'm sure I already know which section of the passage to retain! One personal qualm I had with the piece was whether or not the left hand part from 1:53 to 2:06 is a bit bland, too. 

Thanks heaps for commenting, and yes I definitely hope to become more involved with this community in the future!

Take care,

Quinn St. Mark

Hi @Quinn St. Mark,

4 hours ago, Quinn St. Mark said:

One personal qualm I had with the piece was whether or not the left hand part from 1:53 to 2:06 is a bit bland, too.

This passage is not as bad, but it can be improved further. For example, maybe you can add more voices to the harmony or some rhythmic interest to the accompaniment instead of just alternating octaves in the left-hand part.

5 hours ago, Quinn St. Mark said:

Thanks heaps for commenting, and yes I definitely hope to become more involved with this community in the future!

Glad to hear that!

Carl Koh Wei Hao

Hi @Quinn St. Mark,

Welcome to the forum!

Carl gives a great review on your piece. 

5 hours ago, Quinn St. Mark said:

my intent was simply to bridge the gap between the first half and the coda, and I suppose the number of bars wasn't really at the forefront for me at the time.

I think the transition is fine for me, and just suffer from the computer rendition, since you are having the LH featured there but not reflected in the rendition with the volume of RH louder there. Probably you can try to play it yourself for more authentic interpretation!

5 hours ago, Quinn St. Mark said:

One personal qualm I had with the piece was whether or not the left hand part from 1:53 to 2:06 is a bit bland, too. 

I don't think it's bland there, as you are having the cadence there and the octaves are fine with the RH busying.

This etude can be real difficult to play though with all these slurs. But you successfully create tension and drama even though the pattern is repetitive since it's an etude. Great job on this. Like Carl said your modulation is smooth.

Thanks for joining us! Hope to see you more here, both by having new posts and reviewing other works!

Henry

1 hour ago, Carl Koh Wei Hao said:

This passage is not as bad, but it can be improved further. For example, maybe you can add more voices to the harmony or some rhythmic interest to the accompaniment instead of just alternating octaves in the left-hand part.

Cheers, @Carl Koh Wei Hao, I'll also take that into consideration!

Quinn St. Mark

G'day @Henry Ng Tsz Kiu,

Thanks so much for having me here! It's an honour.

2 hours ago, Henry Ng Tsz Kiu said:

I think the transition is fine for me, and just suffer from the computer rendition, since you are having the LH featured there but not reflected in the rendition with the volume of RH louder there. Probably you can try to play it yourself for more authentic interpretation!

Thanks for the feedback, too. I see what you mean in regard to the difference in volume between the left and right hand. As of now, Crescendo Music Notation Editor is the software I use, and I'm constantly discovering new functions that I didn't realise it even have as a free application, but I'll see if I can get any of the dynamics to work! Unfortunately, I don't think my level of proficiency on the piano is quite up to par, but I guess this should motivate me to work on it!

2 hours ago, Henry Ng Tsz Kiu said:

I don't think it's bland there, as you are having the cadence there and the octaves are fine with the RH busying.

That's a good point.

2 hours ago, Henry Ng Tsz Kiu said:

This etude can be real difficult to play though with all these slurs. But you successfully create tension and drama even though the pattern is repetitive since it's an etude. Great job on this. Like Carl said your modulation is smooth.

Thanks heaps! May I ask which particular parts you believe created the tension and drama, just for some future reflection?

Again, it's great to be here! All the best,

Quinn St. Mark

3 hours ago, Quinn St. Mark said:

May I ask which particular parts you believe created the tension and drama, just for some future reflection?

I particularly like the latter part of the music, from 1:26 to 2:08 since you know how to create tension and drama by modulation and regulating the harmonic rhythm!

Henry

G'day everyone!

Hope you are having an amazing day! Thanks for all the feedback you've given on my first draft of my Étude in G minor; I went ahead and made a couple of revisions accordingly.

I hope you enjoy!

Quinn St. Mark

This has really good potential. I think the lack of pauses or rests in the right hand though can lead to desensitization. I am actually guilty of this myself when I listen to my older works. You want to introduce some pauses and duration changes from time to time to help the listener absorb what they are listening to. I know that something like Chopin's prelude 16 basically has no pauses either, but hear me out on this one:

Pianists rip through that piece in a minute or so, and Chopin's note placements going at those insane speeds make for some interesting melodies that you can only hear, in fact, at those speeds! Go figure! Your piece is much slower, so you have to rely more on pauses and/or dynamic changes.

With that said, I notice you opted this piece in to be presented in one of my videos. My next video is going to talk about realistic playback, and the insanely difficult process in getting realistic playback to be effective with a notation software. So I was wondering a few things:

1. Would you mind if I use your piece to demonstrate how it sounds "pre nuanced?"
2. If you don't mind, could you send me the midi of this piece?
3. Then I will nuance and record parts of your piece, to show my audience the before and after. This would greatly help me with my demonstration.

If you are ok with that, I need your midi file. You can PM it to me here.Thank you for posting.

Hey @Quinn St. Mark,

First of all you can just post your updated version in your post yesterday!

@chopin's points are all very valuable and you should consider them! He composed many Chopinstic ballades in his Music Jotter Channel and definitely has a say on the issue of rest and no. of notes here!

I know that you have 5 seconds reduced but I am quite hasty that I don't find where does the reduction happen😅! Maybe providing the PDF score here can help!

Anyway, thanks your update!

Henry

G'day @Henry Ng Tsz Kiu,

Hope you're well.

8 hours ago, Henry Ng Tsz Kiu said:

First of all you can just post your updated version in your post yesterday!

Yeah, sorry. I'll remember that for next time. I promise I'm not trying to spam the system!

8 hours ago, Henry Ng Tsz Kiu said:

@chopin's points are all very valuable and you should consider them!

Thanks, I will! Noted.

8 hours ago, Henry Ng Tsz Kiu said:

I know that you have 5 seconds reduced but I am quite hasty that I don't find where does the reduction happen😅! Maybe providing the PDF score here can help!

As requested, I have attached here the PDF file of the newer version:

All the best!

Quinn St. Mark

Hi @Quinn St. Mark,

10 hours ago, Quinn St. Mark said:

Yeah, sorry. I'll remember that for next time. I promise I'm not trying to spam the system!

Haha of course I'm not blaming you for spamming the system! 

Thanks for providing the score! I will take a look inside it.

For me there are many details that can be added to it. There should many slurs there as I listen from the audio file I think it does have the slurs but not in the score. Tempo marking, dynamic marking, expressions, all these things help performers to know how to play your piece! Maybe even fingerings can be added since this is an Etude and you may have to teach the pianists how to play them, just like what Chopin did in his etudes!

The modulation marking is ambiguous in b.57. Usually if there's a modulation you will first have the accidentals of the first key turn to natural first and then have the new keys' accidentals in it. In your case it should be like this:

 (Cut from Tchaikovsky's June as an immediate example I can think of)  And in b.85 like this: 

Thanks for sharing!

Henry

Hey, @Henry Ng Tsz Kiu!

Sorry about the late response, but thank you for the further feedback!

On 5/22/2023 at 5:47 PM, Henry Ng Tsz Kiu said:

For me there are many details that can be added to it. There should many slurs there as I listen from the audio file I think it does have the slurs but not in the score. Tempo marking, dynamic marking, expressions, all these things help performers to know how to play your piece! Maybe even fingerings can be added since this is an Etude and you may have to teach the pianists how to play them, just like what Chopin did in his etudes!

Thanks for the tips! I'll see if I can add those details into the score, since I'm definitely open to a 3rd draft.

On 5/22/2023 at 5:47 PM, Henry Ng Tsz Kiu said:

The modulation marking is ambiguous in b.57. Usually if there's a modulation you will first have the accidentals of the first key turn to natural first and then have the new keys' accidentals in it.

Yeah, I will admit this bothered me a little too. I think the problem is that the shifts from the minor to the parallel major and back again both occur at the start of a new line, and hence the key signature is not as apparent as it otherwise would be halfway through an old one. As far as I know, this is how Crescendo Music Notation Editor functions, (I'm also working on a Scherzo where at one point the key signature changes from E Major to Eb Major in the blink of an eye) but I'll see if I can personally customise it.

Quinn St. Mark

Hey welcome to the forums!

Very cool work you posted. Maybe you mentioned it, but do you play piano? I'm always curious if the composer plays the instrument they're writing very difficult music for. 

A few questions came to mind:

stuff like this might be really hard to pull off, if not impossible

do you want this pedaled? I just don't see how I could pull this off, but then again, I suck lol

what does the orange note mean?

I think a lot of the "hands together" stuff you do is really cool, but some of it seems VERY hard at that tempo

Content-wise, I think this is really cool. It has kind of like a minute waltz type of vibe which I really like, but it's also partly a challenge to keep up that break neck speed for 2:15. Sure it's an etude, but something I always try and think about is what the listener is experiencing. Even a few measures of well placed rests to let the phrasing of the melody breathe, or a gap in one of the hands I think would do this piece justice. 

Like I said, I'm no expert, but just some thoughts on your music. I'd love to hear feedback, and again, welcome to our forum! You'll find there are loads of great people here to get to know, and many are willing to share their advice on your music. It helps to offer others some feedback as well, you seem to have some talent and a lot to share. More often than not, a few words about someone's music will make their day, as I'm sure it does for you, and the more you mingle with people the more attention you'll get with your own music. 

Thanks for sharing, I'm excited to hear more from you 🙂

G'day, @Thatguy v2.0!

On 5/27/2023 at 7:44 AM, Thatguy v2.0 said:

Very cool work you posted. Maybe you mentioned it, but do you play piano? I'm always curious if the composer plays the instrument they're writing very difficult music for. 

Thank you so much! I had three years of piano lessons when I was younger (followed by five years of violin), but I wouldn't say my level of virtuosity is anywhere near up to par with the demands of this étude. I just learn by immersing myself in works of the composers who inspire me the most!

On 5/27/2023 at 7:44 AM, Thatguy v2.0 said:

stuff like this might be really hard to pull off, if not impossible

You might be right. Just experimenting at this stage!

On 5/27/2023 at 7:44 AM, Thatguy v2.0 said:

do you want this pedaled? I just don't see how I could pull this off, but then again, I suck lol

I'm probably worse, hahaha! I'm not sure about using pedals here, to be honest because I really want to make it clear that I am echoing the main theme with the left hand.

On 5/27/2023 at 7:44 AM, Thatguy v2.0 said:

what does the orange note mean?

Hmmm...let's just call it a "golden tooth"! 😉

On 5/27/2023 at 7:44 AM, Thatguy v2.0 said:

I think a lot of the "hands together" stuff you do is really cool, but some of it seems VERY hard at that tempo

I'm considering a third draft based on @chopin's feedback, so among other things, I might redistribute some of the notes between the left and right hands.

On 5/27/2023 at 7:44 AM, Thatguy v2.0 said:

I think this is really cool. It has kind of like a minute waltz type of vibe which I really like, but it's also partly a challenge to keep up that break neck speed for 2:15.

Thanks again!

On 5/27/2023 at 7:44 AM, Thatguy v2.0 said:

Sure it's an etude, but something I always try and think about is what the listener is experiencing.

That's a good point.

On 5/27/2023 at 7:44 AM, Thatguy v2.0 said:

I'm no expert, but just some thoughts on your music.

I appreciate your feedback a lot!

On 5/27/2023 at 7:44 AM, Thatguy v2.0 said:

It helps to offer others some feedback as well, you seem to have some talent and a lot to share. More often than not, a few words about someone's music will make their day, as I'm sure it does for you, and the more you mingle with people the more attention you'll get with your own music. 

Duly noted. Cheers, Thatguy v2.0!