Jazzed up piano piece for the Holiday Season!

Festive greetings all!

I wrote this piece last week for solo piano.

The score is still in a very primitive state, and has all sorts of problems I've not tidied up yet. (I blame Dorico!)

There's even a flat that somehow floated away from the note it was attached to (in Bar 16).

Not quite sure how to handle the enharmonic spelling issues, as it's a very chromatic piece. Think maybe my F sharps would all be better written as G flats? Or most of them anyway. Not sure what to do with the D sharps though? 

I may insert an extra passage at some point; but haven't quite decided yet.

I have never heard such a hammery piano sample!  LoL  This piece might become much more palatable and musical if you introduced some balance velocity values/dynamics to the different notes.  Right now the heaviness of the chords is the most salient/discernable feature of the piece and it's overpowering!  The ear can't really hear the melody because of this.  Also - ask yourself - if your professor friend (or any other human being) sat down to play this piece, is this how they would play it/interpret it?  I don't think they'd just bang the chords into the piano as hard as they could!  LoL

You should join the Christmas Music Event by pasting a link of this piece into the thread!  You'll get a special 2023 Participant badge if you do!

Thanks for sharing!
Peter

12 hours ago, PeterthePapercomPoser said:

I have never heard such a hammery piano sample!  LoL  This piece might become much more palatable and musical if you introduced some balance velocity values/dynamics to the different notes

Hi Peter,

Many thanks for listening!

Have replaced the mp3 with a more mellow sounding virtual piano.

I haven't quite finished with the velocities/dynamics yet, as it's still a work in progress.

Not sure it's polished enough to enter a competition really.

3 hours ago, Alex Weidmann said:

Not sure it's polished enough to enter a competition really.

It's not a competition!  You don't stand to win or lose anything - you just get a badge for participating!  It's basically just a fun event for people to share each other's newly composed Christmas music!  Your piece is Christmas-themed, therefore you should enter since it will increase the amount participation in the event!

Peter

Hey Alex,

I really love your take on jazz harmony!

On 12/18/2023 at 4:54 AM, Alex Weidmann said:

Think maybe my F sharps would all be better written as G flats? Or most of them anyway. Not sure what to do with the D sharps though? 

I think both are ok since it’s jazz but not functional harmony.

I think you can fill up those “random” pauses (a godly term I have recently learned on YouTube from a self-proclaimed genius who named me as a novice), like having some  improvisatory figure in between?

On 12/19/2023 at 1:56 AM, PeterthePapercomPoser said:

Your piece is Christmas-themed, therefore you should enter since it will increase the amount participation in the event!

Just say your piece is related to snow or something and it will be Christmas related!

Thx for sharing!

Henry

21 hours ago, Henry Ng Tsz Kiu said:

I think you can fill up those “random” pauses (a godly term I have recently learned on YouTube from a self-proclaimed genius who named as a novice

Haha! There seem to be a lot of blue meanies on You Tube these days!🥶🥶🥶

This is a really nice listen - such satisfying harmonies! It does have its own Christmassy vibe, even if that's not what you intended!

I didn't hear the original audio but I still think this new one is quite bright and harsh (maybe just my speaker). I'd also be interested to hear it on various electric pianos etc. You could experiment with how that changes the mood.

As a piece of piano music, though, this works really well. Tidy up the score a bit and it will be a great piece! Thanks for adding this to the event!

On 12/21/2023 at 9:24 AM, aMusicComposer said:

I didn't hear the original audio but I still think this new one is quite bright and harsh (maybe just my speaker). I'd also be interested to hear it on various electric pianos etc. You could experiment with how that changes the mood.

Great idea! Why didn't I think of that?!

This is how it sounds on my bulk standard electric piano.

Have also updated the score with a better version; though I still have to tidy up the unplayable notes and chords near the end (and add dynamic markings).

Hey there!

Very cool take on the Christmas event. I love the jazzzzzzzzzzyness of all of this. Very interesting harmony and rhythms throughout. Personally would have loved a change in the piano like bar 66 a bit sooner, but it was still great. 

The drums added A LOT to me, but it felt like they were off at times from the piano. I'm not really a jazz guy, so maybe I just don't "get" it, but the color of the drums you used goes so well with the piano. 

As far as the enharmonic issues go, I agree with @Henry Ng Tsz Kiu. Depending on if it's functional harmony or not might give you more insight on how to spell the chords. I guess overall I would say think about what the chord is, not necessarily what key you're in (F# doesn't always have to be F#, it could be Gb depending on the chord and what it's doing). I'm no master of all that, but...

For instance, here I would put a D nat on the bar after the dotted half notes in the right hand. A reminder is nice when we saw Db, D#, and D nat within a few bars. 

Maybe sharps would work better since it's chromatic going up? Also, think about what your chords are, even if they're non-functional. If you know what it is, maybe you could go up in a parallel motion? Maybe you're just looking at one voice, and that's going up like the Eb here. 

All in all though, this was a joy to hear as I go through all of the great Christmas pieces this year. Part of why I love the Christmas event on YC is the diversity of music offered. There's no restriction, or guide, or right way to do it. You get to be creative and play to your strengths...or perhaps even challenge yourself when you don't. It's all in good fun, and your piece was one of the more fun ones for me to hear. Thanks for sharing 🙂

On 1/2/2024 at 7:46 AM, Thatguy v2.0 said:

The drums added A LOT to me, but it felt like they were off at times from the piano. I'm not really a jazz guy, so maybe I just don't "get" it, but the color of the drums you used goes so well with the piano. 

Hi Vince,

Many thanks for the kind words!

For the percussion I used GarageBand Smart Drums, which creates the track automatically.

I did lots of manual tweaking though, to fit different presets to different sections of the piece.

I varied the amount of swing from light to heavy: so that's probably why you're hearing offbeats. 
Swing is a very common technique in jazz percussion: so that's why I used it.