A Romantic Serenade for Piano Solo

Hello,

This is a piano piece I finished recently for Valentines last month. I hope you enjoy! 

Kaiyun

Hi @kaiyunmusic!

What a wonderful and bright piece this is!  And I am glad you're finishing more of your pieces and finding good titles!  One thing that I perceive to be different from your score is that the first phrase seems to be in 3/4 rather than 4/4.  Kinda like this:  Then the rest of the material is in 4/4 from then on.  Thanks for sharing!

Hi @PeterthePapercomPoser!

Thank you for your feedback! Are there any tricks to help determine which time signature to use? It wasn't obvious to me when I was notating it. I picked 4/4 because of the way the melody seemed to flow when I play it.

Thanks in advance

Kaiyun

1 hour ago, kaiyunmusic said:

Thank you for your feedback! Are there any tricks to help determine which time signature to use? It wasn't obvious to me when I was notating it. I picked 4/4 because of the way the melody seemed to flow when I play it.

You can do a couple of things to help you sense downbeats.  You already know how to do this because it was obvious to you for example, that the first note in the piece is a pick-up note or up-beat.  The E following that is a downbeat.  Then you just continue categorizing each beat into either "upbeat" or "downbeat" category.  When I do this I sense that the first E in the melody is a downbeat, then the B and then finally the A are also downbeats.  With this information you should be able to come up with the right meter to fit around the down and up-beats.

Another way to help hear downbeats is that they're usually emphasized by changes in harmony (or also referred to as the harmonic rhythm).  The piece starts on a C major chord on beat 1, then beat 2 could be considered a passing chord between C major and A minor 7.  A minor is a relative minor to C major and hence can be subsumed under the tonic chord function.  Hence the first three beats can be considered in C major with a passing chord.  Then on beat 4 the harmony changes to G major and hence the change creates an emphasis on that beat making it feel like a downbeat.

Don't hesitate to ask if you have anymore questions!