# Etude in E Minor



## TennysonsHarp (Apr 30, 2017)

I started this piece last summer when I was still tinkering with composing as a serious hobby. This was originally meant to be an experiment with chords and harmonies and such, and was meant to have a ternary structure; but I eventually just did whatever came to mind and made a rudimentary piece out of it.

What do you think? Are there any areas that could definitely use improvement?

I've included both an audio file as well as a copy of the score, in case any of you want to follow along. 
View attachment Etude in E Minor.pdf
View attachment flat-etude-in-e-minor.mp3


----------



## MarkMcD (Mar 31, 2014)

Hi TennysonsHarp,

I have to say that probably the reason you're not getting many replies is that you've call this an etude, but I couldn't find anything etudinal about it. Forgive me if you already know this, but an etude is a piece meant to practice certain elements of performance and usually concentrates on one or two technical difficulties in order to improve the players technique.

I think that the horrible midi sound also contributes to the lack of interest from the folks here although if you have no other recourse, that's not really your fault.

The piece itself is to my mind, not very imaginative, it doesn't really go anywhere and it doesn't really say anything to me. You obviously have some musical background and an interest in composition, but I think maybe you haven't really achieved what you wanted to achieve in this piece so you need to keep working on developing your skills and listen, listen, listen, to your favourite composers and try to work out for yourself what they're doing in their music, and then you can apply what you've learned to your own.

Don't give up on what you want, just because nobody seems to get you. Keep at it and it will get better.

Hope you don't mind my comments, I know they weren't very complimentary but I wanted to try and give you a few pointers that's all.

Mark


----------



## Vox Gabrieli (Jan 9, 2017)

MarkMcD said:


> Hi TennysonsHarp,
> 
> I have to say that probably the reason you're not getting many replies is that you've call this an etude, but I couldn't find anything etudinal about it. Forgive me if you already know this, but an etude is a piece meant to practice certain elements of performance and usually concentrates on one or two technical difficulties in order to improve the players technique.
> 
> ...


+1

A very common mistake for young composers will be to subconciously write in elements of a previous composers work, thus making it unoriginal, and bland. It's ok to have certain elements of a composer, as long as you make it your own thing, add a little TennysonsHarp to it!

Another thing to pay attention to is structure. Things like form, phrase melody and theme, accompainment etc, etc. Without structure there isn't much meat to it.

One could argue that a lack of structure makes the piece atonal, but as a young composer its best to begin with structure before you Schoenberg everything up!
There are lots of brilliant books that help you with this. Consult the book references in TC book thread.


----------



## pokeefe0001 (Jan 15, 2017)

I ran into the same naming problem recently. I called something "Study in 2nds and 4ths" (because I didn't know what else to call it) but it really wasn't a study in anything except composition - certainly not a study or etude for the performer. I got called on that.

I thought the first two musical ideas presented in the first 15 seconds had material that could successfully be developed into something but, as others have said, having a discernible structure would help both composer and listener.

You said you posted the score, but all I saw was the MP3 file.


----------

