# Piano Concerto No.1 in G minor 1st movement



## MarkMcD

I first wrote the piano part for this piece nearly 20 years ago, for that reason it has a less developed style than my more recent work. I always wanted to do something with it and this last month, I have been working on orchestrating it. I also took the opportunity to rewrite the piano part a bit. It's currently in it's "pre-finished" state, so I would really appreciate any input on how it might be improved.

Thanks in advance to anyone who may feel like commenting.

Regards Mark

https://www.dropbox.com/s/bimvfe3eu7xb8ne/Piano Concerto No.1 In G minor 1st Movement.mp3?dl=0

https://www.dropbox.com/s/zgq7btn40io460h/Piano Concerto No.1 in G minor 1st Movement.pdf?dl=0


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## Swosh

I like it a lot, especially the orchestration and modulation. Only thing I would say is change up the pacing a bit. There isn't really room to relax and contemplate what happened in previous bars and hear how it connects to later bars. It's all kind of thrown at you quickly. As the composer what would you say some characters of the piece are? Can you pinpoint clear ideas? There are a lot of good ideas to build on in it already which is great. You got anymore works?


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## MarkMcD

Hi Swosh,

Thanks for you comments I do appreciate it. Yes it is quite full on and I take you point about breathing space. This is the first movement of a piano concerto and I do have the 2nd and 3rd movements already in progress, they are both slower than this movement. As for the character of the piece, well for me it moves through 3 phases, the first is slightly melancholic, searching for something, then onto a contented phase, perhaps the searched for thing has been glimpsed, the final phase has a touch of madness to it, perhaps the path to the object is not as clear as first imagined. I don't know, everyone has there own interpretations and personally I'm not sure it is the job of the composer to impose their own thoughts onto the audience. As long as the piece does have some character, then each listener can imagine their own scenario.

I do have more works, check out my sound cloud if you feel like it.

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https://soundcloud.com/

Thanks again
Regards Mark


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## MarkMcD

I've been working on a cadenza and polishing up the rest. Just in case anyone's interested, here it is now more or less finished.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/qt639kvqu...in G minor Movement I (with Cadenza).mp3?dl=0

https://www.dropbox.com/s/35896vdyi...vement I (With Cadenza) - Full Score.pdf?dl=0


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## MarkMcD

There's only one thing worse than people not liking what you do, at least to be not liked is to provoke some feeling from someone, but when your work is not even worth a comment, be it good or bad, then I think it's time to stop posting it.


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## Guest

I actually listened to this a while ago, but I didn't comment because I don't really know what kind of feedback would be best suited to you. What are your goals with the piece? In what areas do you want to improve?

A few things that you can always keep working on is building a stronger grasp of your harmonic language and how and why you would use chromaticism. The pacing of it would be extremely important, variety of textures, figurations in the piano and orchestral parts can give the piece a better flow and through the harmony you can expand the piece more convincingly in terms of how harmony and modulation is linked to the structure of the work.


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## MarkMcD

Hi Shirime,

I think it's fair to say there are no areas I wouldn't want to improve in, my background is almost all self taught and so any advice is valuable to me. With 360 odd views and only 1 comment, I think it's drastically needed too.

To be honest, I think I know what the problem is. My music is not really relevant to todays composers. I don't really like much of the atonal, avant-garde compositions of contemporary composers, and so I don't usually comment on them. A) because I'm not qualified to give any technical critique, and B) because if I don't like something, then I don't want to be negative just for the sake of leaving a comment.
Likewise, if my music doesn't fall into the category of preferred styles for the majority of active members of this community, then the fault is not theirs. I can't really blame anyone for following my own criteria for commenting on a piece or not, and I don't. It is however a little disheartening, not enough to stop me from writing, but at least enough to make me not want to post any more music.
I have always said that I write music because I love it, and it gives me an outlet for my creativity. I write it for me, for fun, with no illusions whatsoever that it would ever be picked up by another musician or orchestra wanting to play it. If someone else likes what I've done along the way, then that is a great bonus.
My purpose for posting music is not to garner praise, although there is no one who does not like that, but rather, being self taught, I know that I need help and advice on where and how I'm not doing things well and how I can improve my music. Also to know where and how I AM doing things well, so that I might develop those things too.
Until recently I have mostly written piano solos, sometimes with accompaniments. I'm not unhappy with them, neither with the piano part for this piece although I know it could be improved. But I also want to branch out into writing for larger ensembles and full orchestras, though here, my knowledge is even less than my knowledge of the piano.
I suppose that it is not the job of any forum or member of a forum, to provide guidance and knowledge, but that is what most of us amateurs are looking for I think, when we post out work. Over the last couple of years I have had enough positive feedback to know that my music, whilst certainly not at the cutting edge, is at least not total rubbish and I am grateful for that.

None of this however is your problem, and I really do thank you for taking the time to write to me and to listen to my music, I really do appreciate it.

Kind regards
Mark


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## Guest

The question of whether your music is 'relevant to today's composers' or not doesn't sound like it would be a healthy thing to keep on your mind if you find yourself at odds with styles you don't enjoy.

I really _really_ admire anyone who composers for the pure joy of it, no matter what the style is.

From the age of 10 to 19 I was primarily self taught and I learnt a lot from asking around on forums and with musicians and especially from reading books on harmony and orchestration and reading scores.

Perhaps reading some orchestral scores to pay attention to the way composers use instruments for their unique timbres and how they balance them could be useful. I often do this, and I like to try to find ways that composers have notated sounds I find interesting and attractive and work out how to incorporate them in my own music from time to time.

Also: I highly recommend Schoenberg's theory of harmony as a resource if you haven't read it already. Perhaps there are some things you can work on in terms of delaying resolutions to the tonic, in order to draw out some more harmonic movement?


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## Dimace

*A very nice try indeed!!! *

You have listened a lot of Mozart (or Haydn). His influence is everywhere on your work. Nevertheless you sustained well a personal color, which is quite difficult. Your main theme is a small problem: It wasn't very characteristic. It came, while you were developing, again an again, like a try to remind us its melody but the result was an overall delay to your development, which finally tends to have the form of a rondo. All these are minor technical issues. *The most important is that you have studied music and you composed something very pleasant to my ears. * Keep going!

P.S Did you play the piano? It was also very nice. Try only to keep it more together, A,B,C etc. to navigate better the listener. (this will also be solved with a better development of the music.)


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## Phil loves classical

Sounds rather Brahmsian to me. As an exercise in the Classical/Romantic era, I think it worked well. I would say it needs a stronger underpinning, to make it more memorable. I don't think it is a matter of it not being "Modern". I felt the piano part could use some more dynamic variation in certain passages


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## MarkMcD

Many thanks to Shirime, Dimace and Phil, I really appreciate your comments.

Shirime, The idea that my music is not relevant to the trends of 21st century classical music doesn't really bother me, it never has. I know it's the case, but I don't write music to try and break new ground. It would be essential for any professional or semi professional composer wanting to get their work played by others, but that's never been my goal in writing the stuff. I actually have a sound cloud page. I would consider sound cloud to be a site that is much more open to the general public, rather than being a forum like TC which is mainly populated by musicians and composers (at least the part for posting new compositions). The reaction my music has there is always really positive. I don't mean by that that here the reaction is always negative, far from it, but the difference in reactions leads me to believe that the general public still tend to prefer music that is easy for them to listen to, that has a good tune and is not too challenging, where as here, I believe that innovation and perceived originality are prized more highly. That's not a complaint, just the way I see what happens here.

As for reading Schoenberg, or any other text books on the subject, I have tried (I do have a copy of Schoenberg) but I just can't manage such a dry manner of leaning, it doesn't go in. I think I need to find a teacher, however, living in a smallish Spanish village, that's not going to be very likely LOL. However, I have started to read orchestral scores and thanks to the IMSLP library, that is actually a very accessible resource, now I just need a few years to take it all in!


Dimace, thanks a lot for your comments. I have to say that composers like Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven etc., are very much my favorites to listen to and so I suppose that it is inevitable that those influences would come through in my music, but I am very pleased that you think I did manage to keep a bit of a personal colour in the piece. Actually the main piano part was written over 20 years ago and so I think that is one of the reasons it has the more classical period feel to it, as back then I was much less developed in my style than I feel I am today. Perhaps there is a lack of character in the main theme, or at least that the structure is a bit chaotic and doesn't allow the listener the opportunity to grow too familiar with the themes and motifs, I don't know. However, I do recognise what you say and I do agree in the main.


Phil, thank you too for your comment. I had not considered it to be Brahms like, but on reflection it could possibly have that feel to it. It is however as you say a classical/romantic cross over. I would consider my style today to more romantic, but as I said, the bones of the piano part I wrote a long time ago and in that time I had a much more classical style. At least I think with time, I'm moving slowly through the centuries. Who knows perhaps in another 20 years I'll reach the 21st century LOL. For some reason I always tend to restrain the dynamics in the score, but I think that is because the score you read here is the one that Sibelius plays best. A real musician would need more detail, I agree, but since a real musician is never likely to want to play it, then I don't usually bother creating another score better suited to publication. 
I suppose also that that answers the other question that Dimace asked. I am a pianist, but the mp3 is not a live recording, but rather a Sibelius and Noteperformer rendering.

Once again, thank you all for your comments and my kind regards to each.


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## E Cristobal Poveda

For the record, Mark, I quite liked the piece. I didn't comment mostly because I didn't have any real critique to provide.


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## Swosh

Sorry for the late response, I recently started university and just remembered recently. Giving the first link in your comment a listen, one gripe I have with the piece is the piano is entirely in triplets. Did you ever try to experiment without using triplets? One section that is nice regarding this is 5:28 - 5:36 which doesn't contain very many triplets. That's what I would just say for now, if you're still trying to improve the piece and haven't moved on yet xD I for one think it's worth coming back to "old" pieces to see what one can do with them.

Cheers


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## MarkMcD

Thanks Cristobal, I know what you mean, I also only really comment when I feel I have something of value to add, so no worries.


Thanks also Swosh, yes I know the triplets can be a bit too much. I did try to give it some rhythmic differences inside the triplet pattern but it seemed to me at the time that that is what the music was asking for if that makes sense. I do however always keep open the possibility of changing and editing my work so maybe I will look at it again in a while, when I have a bit more distance from it.

Regards
Mark


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## Swosh

I think it's awesome that you are exploring this music style, I do it too with my string quartet arrangements.


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https://soundcloud.com/user-570795444%2Fbeethoven-sonata-no-7-for-sq-v1


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## MarkMcD

Thanks Swosh, but the track link didn't work, says it's been removed.


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