It drives me insane

This is the fourth musical piece I have written in my life. And I am entirely unable to understand if it can be called music. Is it perhaps a form of musical graphomania? I need an outside perspective (or someone to listen to it). I want to understand.

Score

I'm not acquainted with this style, but I think there is a musical narrative throughout the piece. I think it's this kind of music that especially benefits from real playing instead of a generated playback, because readers can't just predict the hierarchy of notes from the harmonics.

Hi @Evgeni,

12 hours ago, Evgeni said:

This is the fourth musical piece I have written in my life. And I am entirely unable to understand if it can be called music. Is it perhaps a form of musical graphomania? I need an outside perspective (or someone to listen to it). I want to understand.

Of course this qualify as music! This is by no means graphomania. To my conception this piece is in three part strcure. The first part is, as you say, craziness. In the second part which begins with Andante in b.46, one is trying to regain their reason with less dissonant chords, but finally succumb gradually in b.63 and in the end it's the same craziness.

I like your use of tone clusters.  They are very consistent and thus creates a coherent sound throughout the music. I love your middle section as well as it provides something more calm, but I really want this part to be developed in order to have the craziness of the next section more terrible. However I love your process of regaining the craziness. Just like the end of the exposition in Prokofiev's Piano Sonata no.7 it's gradual and reasonable. Sad this piece is not played in real life, otherwise the craziness can be interpreted more realistically, though some parts can be difficult like b.37 and b.102.

What is the sign in b.46, 48 & 49 in RH?

Thanks for sharing!

Henry

This music, if it were a person, would be diagnosed with a category B personality disorder. Makes me want to go wild and see what crazy sounds I could make. It's ugly but it kept me interested to see what sounds you would create next, it's definitely music. The ending leaves me wanting more.

2 hours ago, Henry Ng Tsz Kiu said:

Hi @Evgeni,

Of course this qualify as music! This is by no means graphomania. To my conception this piece is in three part strcure. The first part is, as you say, craziness. In the second part which begins with Andante in b.46, one is trying to regain their reason with less dissonant chords, but finally succumb gradually in b.63 and in the end it's the same craziness.

I like your use of tone clusters.  They are very consistent and thus creates a coherent sound throughout the music. I love your middle section as well as it provides something more calm, but I really want this part to be developed in order to have the craziness of the next section more terrible. However I love your process of regaining the craziness. Just like the end of the exposition in Prokofiev's Piano Sonata no.7 it's gradual and reasonable. Sad this piece is not played in real life, otherwise the craziness can be interpreted more realistically, though some parts can be difficult like b.37 and b.102.

What is the sign in b.46, 48 & 49 in RH?

Thanks for sharing!

Henry

 

Thank you Henry. The sign in bars 46 etc. is Unstressed, i.e. play as a weak beat.

12 hours ago, PCC said:

I'm not acquainted with this style, but I think there is a musical narrative throughout the piece. I think it's this kind of music that especially benefits from real playing instead of a generated playback, because readers can't just predict the hierarchy of notes from the harmonics.

 

Thanks. Real playing is preferable, I agree. But I can't unfortunately. As my cat says, I have paws.

2 hours ago, Papageno said:

This music, if it were a person, would be diagnosed with a category B personality disorder. Makes me want to go wild and see what crazy sounds I could make. It's ugly but it kept me interested to see what sounds you would create next, it's definitely music. The ending leaves me wanting more.

 

Thanks a lot. I'm off to read what category B personality disorder is 🙂

Hey there

Wow, this is only your 4th composition? Usually I'd expect to hear something far more tonal, but you jumped into the deep-end of languages vastly more dissonant, eh?

Of course it qualifies as music. 

I like your exploration of tone clusters. But, I'll be honest, it doesn't seem very idiomatic to piano writing. It sounds more like an experiment on the style.

For instance, throughout the entire piece the left hand plays nothing but block chords. It sounds like you came up with some sort of progression with your chords, wrote a melody on top, but forgot to flesh out more pianistic textures. I don't mind block chords for parts of your piece, but it was the whole thing. I think you're off to a good start, but if I were you, I would go back and mess around on a piano to figure out how you can make those left hand chords more appealing in their rhythm and texture. 

I also didn't really care for the B section. It felt very out of place. I know you were going for a change, but a more tonal approach just didn't vibe with the A section imo. 

So here are some thoughts:

-I like how you stretched out the tone clusters for some of the chords, maybe expand upon that? What about low pedal tones for the B sections, and hence creating a bass line we could follow. A dynamic change of texture could be all you need to achieve the contrast of a B section without changing languages, which is always confusing. 

-the melody/motif was really cool, so what if you developed that a bit more? Maybe that could be your bass line for some other spot in the piece, or experiment with the intervals a bit more. 

-again, don't neglect rhythm. Sometimes a simple ostinato is all you need to give your piece drive when the harmonic content is more ambiguous and unable to do so with it's lack of function. 

-you probably already did this, but I'll say it anyway. Don't reinvent the wheel. Listen to what other composers have done with the type of music you're writing. Expand upon their thoughts and ideas, or steal (YES, STEAL) their ideas and embellish them to create your own. And if all else fails, do what I did and listen to everything of a particular style that you're interested in, and when you hate everything about it, tinker and craft that idea in your own way as you see fit to make it pleasing to you. And if only you, then that's okay and all that matters. 

Since you're here, you might as well get to know some of the other members on our forum. You'd be surprised at their willingness to share thoughts and bounce ideas off of you, all for the low low price of nothing. 

Thanks for sharing, I'm excited to hear either edits to this piece or brand new works you're eager to share with the composing world. 🙂

On 5/27/2023 at 1:06 AM, Thatguy v2.0 said:

Hey there

Wow, this is only your 4th composition? Usually I'd expect to hear something far more tonal, but you jumped into the deep-end of languages vastly more dissonant, eh?

Of course it qualifies as music. 

I like your exploration of tone clusters. But, I'll be honest, it doesn't seem very idiomatic to piano writing. It sounds more like an experiment on the style.

For instance, throughout the entire piece the left hand plays nothing but block chords. It sounds like you came up with some sort of progression with your chords, wrote a melody on top, but forgot to flesh out more pianistic textures. I don't mind block chords for parts of your piece, but it was the whole thing. I think you're off to a good start, but if I were you, I would go back and mess around on a piano to figure out how you can make those left hand chords more appealing in their rhythm and texture. 

I also didn't really care for the B section. It felt very out of place. I know you were going for a change, but a more tonal approach just didn't vibe with the A section imo. 

So here are some thoughts:

-I like how you stretched out the tone clusters for some of the chords, maybe expand upon that? What about low pedal tones for the B sections, and hence creating a bass line we could follow. A dynamic change of texture could be all you need to achieve the contrast of a B section without changing languages, which is always confusing. 

-the melody/motif was really cool, so what if you developed that a bit more? Maybe that could be your bass line for some other spot in the piece, or experiment with the intervals a bit more. 

-again, don't neglect rhythm. Sometimes a simple ostinato is all you need to give your piece drive when the harmonic content is more ambiguous and unable to do so with it's lack of function. 

-you probably already did this, but I'll say it anyway. Don't reinvent the wheel. Listen to what other composers have done with the type of music you're writing. Expand upon their thoughts and ideas, or steal (YES, STEAL) their ideas and embellish them to create your own. And if all else fails, do what I did and listen to everything of a particular style that you're interested in, and when you hate everything about it, tinker and craft that idea in your own way as you see fit to make it pleasing to you. And if only you, then that's okay and all that matters. 

Since you're here, you might as well get to know some of the other members on our forum. You'd be surprised at their willingness to share thoughts and bounce ideas off of you, all for the low low price of nothing. 

Thanks for sharing, I'm excited to hear either edits to this piece or brand new works you're eager to share with the composing world. 🙂

 

Hi. Thank you very much for the detailed review, it's highly appreciated. I feel that after some time, I'll have to come back to this opus — it will allow me to hear it, so to speak, from a different perspective.