original composition Ghibli-like Waltz (Pastiche)

Hi everyone this is my first post here, and I would like to share a piece I finished composing for a small performance in my Uni, dedication is to a friend of mine, and yea please tell me what you think! 

https://musescore.com/user/2760916/scores/13427143

theres like 4 bars where the audio and music dont play the exact notes, but theyre similar, I'll find a way to fix it one day...

Hello @DragonJade and welcome to the forum.

This piece has a jazzy and sometimes romantic style at the same time, which makes the piece sound contemporary.

I think the introduction does not “introduce” the waltz, since it doesn’t resolve to the harmony at the beginning of the waltz 

The theme beginning at bar 185 somehow reminds me of rachmaninoff’s second sonata second theme from the first movement (I think it is the siciliano pattern)

thanks for sharing 

Wow, this is awesome!

It's fun, catchy, jazzy, and very well crafted. I love the score dedication too haha. Sounds like you got a performance, any chance you have the recording?

I'm not sure which measures sounded off, as you referred. Maybe some spots had the occasional funny or odd dissonance. Meh. 😄 I would have spelled some of the notes differently in some areas (like the blues grace notes on the 3rd), but this is just nitpicky. This is well done, and you and your friend should be proud.

You have a cool style, and I especially like your transitioning. Was this a theme and variations, or something of the sort?

You might like this, it's from another user here. Your writing just reminded me of his. He has lots of great music, here's one:

Welcome to the forum, and thanks for sharing!

Hello @DragonJade,

Welcome to the forum!

I really love the opening theme. It's jazzy and at the same time reminds me of Japnaese anime themes! I love the key changing in b.76 with more flatted keys, very nice mood change! Nice neapolitan sixth used in b.80. 

I think the contrast in b.113 is changed too sudden, maybe having more transition will be great! The retransition back is also less prepared with only a diminished chord A#-C#-G reintrepreted as Bb-C#-G. But the 7/4 section is so nice and improvisatorily varied! This is my favourite section of the piece. It's also nice for you to bring back the contrasting theme at the end.

For the spellings, the Fb in b.1 and 29can be written as E natural. B.21 the Gb can be unified as F#? The F natural in b.136,137 and 142 should be E#.

The new tempo marking in b.43 is redundant right? The change of key signature in b.109 is not necessary.

Thx for sharing your music and joining us!

P.S. I know why @Thatguy v2.0 loves this piece. Check out his prelude no.7 and 12!!!

Henry

Sounds nice! I could imagine being at a jazz club hearing this! Or even a movie soundtrack! I liked how you quoted the studio Ghibli song (I forget the name atm). Overall it sounds nice!

Even with the horrid playback of MuseScore, this piece is awesome! Beautiful harmony, interesting development and extremely fun to listen to. It's also great to hear hints of Satie as well. My only complaint from a composition point of view would be from minute 2 through 3. I felt like this was a bit too repetitive, and the mood / style just seemed drastically different from the rest of your piece (which was quite pianistic and adventurous). It could also be that MuseScore's playback is just so bad, that when we have too much note density, it starts to sound too overwhelming. Now that I think of it, a real performance would take care of this without a problem (or a better tweaked playback).

Hi @DragonJade ! Are you a fellow Ghibli fan? Cos I am!

It definitely has that shade of Ghibli's music and both of Hisashi's jazz and waltz style. The parts that, I think, veers away from Ghibli and Hisashi's style would be from m109 - 168, other than that, the piece generally lean to these styles. The introduction reminds me of parts of Bygone days from Porco Rosso. Here and there throughout the piece are some impressions of the waltzes of Kiki's and Howl's main theme.

As for the form, maybe the changes in time signature and experimental nature makes it sound more like a jazz overall than a waltz...? But I have to say the variety and spontaneity of motif and ornaments is something I can learn fr you.

And maybe I would recommend you to change clefs/ add octave lines for parts that require too many ledger lines ( esp m109-114) for score readability.

Thx for sharing!

I LOVE this! It is so fun to listen to. And that jazzy element to it just is so pleasing to listen to. I would love to hear this performed on a live piano! I fully could see it set in a jazzy club or fancy restaurant in a movie. In the middle section of the song the tone changes, and while I'm not a person with any technical training really (mostly self taught on what I know) I really like the bit of energy it brings for a moment. Then right back into a fun, (almost very Final Fantasy) section at 3:30!

So fun to listen to!