Tango in D minor

Hello,

I want to share my piano piece that I was inspired to write out of the blue a few days ago.  I liked the tune in my head, so I spent about an hour and 20 minutes composing this piece in my Finale: harmony, reverb, and all.  I’m overall glad with the result, and find the highlights of my piece are the heavy chords measure in the middle section close and the more elaborate variation of the first theme in the last section.

Do tell me your thoughts on my piece, and enjoy!(:

Sounds good so far, before I give more feedback, would it be possible for us to get a copy of the score?

59 minutes ago, GospelPiano12 said:

Sounds good so far, before I give more feedback, would it be possible for us to get a copy of the score?

 

Sure thing, I’ll send you the PDF score by private message, plus thanks for your compliment(:

It sounds very good, within what is a very standard tango.
 

12 hours ago, Luis Hernández said:

It sounds very good, within what is a very standard tango.
 

 

Thank you.  I’m glad you find it pleasing.

It sounds very dance-like, how a tango should be. 
I like the subtle change in harmony between the first and last iterations of the theme (the interrupted cadence or however you say it in English). I think you could try to add even more ornamentation, since the main theme is easily recognisable and will not make the piece much more difficult to understand. 
Maybe exploring chromatic mediant relationships and Neapolitan chords could fit the mood of the piece 

6 hours ago, Jqh73o said:

It sounds very dance-like, how a tango should be. 

Thank you.  I’m glad I achieved the feel I was aiming for in my piece.

6 hours ago, Jqh73o said:

I like the subtle change in harmony between the first and last iterations of the theme (the interrupted cadence or however you say it in English).

To be honest, I don’t really know what to call it either, but I wanted a change of pace in that part, so I’m glad about that too.

6 hours ago, Jqh73o said:

I think you could try to add even more ornamentation, since the main theme is easily recognisable and will not make the piece much more difficult to understand. 

Good idea, I could try to implement some more complexity in my theme.  Maybe it will make the listeners more engaged.

6 hours ago, Jqh73o said:

Maybe exploring chromatic mediant relationships and Neapolitan chords could fit the mood of the piece 

I’m a bit familiar with Neapolitan chords; I will consider it.  And sorry for asking this, do you mind explaining me what chromatic mediant relationships are?  I’d love to learn more about these more advanced theory topics to improve my compositional skills in the near future.

Lastly, thank you for your thoughtful feedback!(:

3 hours ago, Frank Normandy said:

do you mind explaining me what chromatic mediant relationships are?

Of course: A chord’s mediant is another chord whose root is a third apart (it can be a major or minor third), in this case, a chromatic mediant is mediant chord of the same quality as the original chord (Eg: C - E, C - Eb, C - A, C - Ab. Or: cm - em, cm - ebm, cm - am, cm - abm).

However, this is just a simplification (sorry, this is a bit complex). Diatonic mediants (C - em or cm - Ab) share two notes (E and G in the first case and C and Eb in the second case); Chromatic mediante share only one note (Taking the huge list above, in order, the notes are: E, G, E, C, G, Eb, C, Eb) we also have double chromatic mediants, this share no notes, but are still a third away (Eg: C - ebm, C - abm  or cm - E, cm - A) 

So:

Diatonic mediants have their roots a third away, have different qualities and  share two notes

Chromatic mediants have their roots a third away, have the same quality and share one note

Double chromatic mediante have their roots a third away, have different qualities and share no notes

The uses of chromatic mediants could be to: prolong the tonic or a certain degree of the scale (this could be further explored by employing chromatic mediants a minor third away of minor quality so they can be chromatically altered to form a common tone chord of the first chord (Eg: C - ebm - cdim - C, where c dim is a common tone chord)); to “smoothly” modulate by going from a chord to its chromatic mediant and then twist the harmony even more; to abruptly modulate by resolving a cadence to its chromatic mediant, eliding the tonic (G7 - E, eliding the C in between) or to just come up with a different way to use it that sounds good to you.

Chromatic mediants between minor chords sound eerie, chromatic mediants between major chords sound uplifting, but it also depends if they are a minor third apart or a major third apart. Just explore them and use your favourites.

If you have survived this soporific music theory lesson, let me give you one more fact about them: playing four chromatic mediants all a minor third apart gives you an octatonic scale and three chromatic mediants a major third apart gives you a hexatonic scale 

Sorry if this was a bit too long

Thanks @Jqh73o for your thorough lesson on chromatic mediants, and sorry for taking lots of your time.  Either way, you’re really helpful, and I’m awed by your sheer knowledge on music theory.  I’ll take some time to digest this information, and hopefully use it to improve my compositional skills in the near future.

Thank you again!
~Frank

Hi @Frank Normandy,

I like this dance. It’s simple and effective!

As @Jqh73o said, if you use octatonically related keys you may modulate to F minor, B minor or Ab minor, that may suit the dark mood of the tango, and hexatonically related keys would be F# major/minor and Bb major/minor. In your pieces it only modulates to relative major twice, so maybe you can explore more keys in different episodes! Thx for sharing.

Henry

Thank you @Henry Ng Tsz Kiu! Yeah, I originally aimed for simplicity in my dance.  I felt that melody and emotion are the important parts.  However, I’ll consider what you and @Jqh73o suggested to make my piece and future ones use multiple keys and overall sound more interesting.  It’ll take some creativity in my part to add more complexity in my music, but I’ll try my best;)

~Frank