# Piano Concerto unfinished.



## Op.123

What do you think so far?

http://musescore.com/user/81525/scores/100414


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## kostas papazafeiropoulos

Hi, i like some of your tunes here. Some are very catchy. 
A question. What exactly do you want to do (what style) ? 
(If you like a personal advice, compose first your melody and your Basses and make a long draft. After that you cut or change anything you don't like. Then you orchestrate. This will save you a lot of time  )
Best regards Kostas


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## Op.123

kostas papazafeiropoulos said:


> Hi, i like some of your tunes here. Some are very catchy.
> A question. What exactly do you want to do (what style) ?
> (If you like a personal advice, compose first your melody and your Basses and make a long draft. After that you cut or change anything you don't like. Then you orchestrate. This will save you a lot of time  )
> Best regards Kostas


I compose which ever instrument hold the melody first then the basses and then fill in the rest. I don't make a long draft.


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## kostas papazafeiropoulos

Yes that's what i meant (except the draft part). In What style do you want this to be?


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## Op.123

kostas papazafeiropoulos said:


> Yes that's what i meant (except the draft part). In What style do you want this to be?


Classical-ish...


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## kostas papazafeiropoulos

OK Then probably sonata form. (?)


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## Op.123

kostas papazafeiropoulos said:


> OK Then probably sonata form. (?)


I am just experimenting at the moment so it probably won't have a particular form.


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## Op.123

I've now updated the score with a bit more on the end


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## PetrB

kostas papazafeiropoulos said:


> OK Then probably sonata form. (?)


actually, very often, 1st movement is sonata-allegro with (typical of classical concerti) a double exposition prior the entry of the solo piano.

_*You can, however, do whatever you want, as long as it works*_


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## Aramis

It seems to me that there is almost no direction in this piece, sometimes I don't know if you're simply lost/clueless or if you're trying to step away from the rules. 

Maybe write a piano sonata instead of concerto, especially if you're using this kind of playback.


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## Mahlerian

If you're interested in going full hog and emulating the classical style, you'll have to use natural horns in A, without full chromatic capability. You'll also have to cut some of those weird syncopations, which you haven't balanced properly within a phrase, as a classical era composer would. The (C-C#) cross relation between bars 19 and 20 feels very awkward, because the oboes leave a C natural as the violins jump to C#, leaving the former an unresolved dissonance (Mahler did this in the first movement of the 2nd, at the end of the second theme, but there he meant for it to sound harsh). There's also an odd dissonance in bar 77, where the violins are playing G sharp against a G natural bass in the piano, momentarily creating a Stravinsky-like mixed thirds harmony. I assume it's a mistake on your part. It also should modulate at some point to the dominant, and then come back. In fact, just modulate somewhere. I don't even care where. It will make the music more interesting.


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## violadude

If I were you, I would read a few books about harmonic progression, voice leading, balanced phrasing and the classical style in general. 

Unfortunately, I'm not sure which books those would be, I learned it all in school. Maybe someone else has a recommendation.


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## Op.123

Mahlerian said:


> If you're interested in going full hog and emulating the classical style, you'll have to use natural horns in A, without full chromatic capability. You'll also have to cut some of those weird syncopations, which you haven't balanced properly within a phrase, as a classical era composer would. The (C-C#) cross relation between bars 19 and 20 feels very awkward, because the oboes leave a C natural as the violins jump to C#, leaving the former an unresolved dissonance (Mahler did this in the first movement of the 2nd, at the end of the second theme, but there he meant for it to sound harsh). There's also an odd dissonance in bar 77, where the violins are playing G sharp against a G natural bass in the piano, momentarily creating a Stravinsky-like mixed thirds harmony. I assume it's a mistake on your part. It also should modulate at some point to the dominant, and then come back. In fact, just modulate somewhere. I don't even care where. It will make the music more interesting.


I can't find a C sharp in bars 19-20


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## violadude

Ok, here I do have a book recommendation.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Classical-Style-Beethoven-Expanded/dp/0393317129

The Classical Style by Charles Rosen. This book gives a pretty good overview of what is involved in the classical style, for starters at least. There's a lot to it, a lot more than I would have thought 5 or so years ago, at least.


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## PetrB

violadude said:


> Ok, here I do have a book recommendation.
> 
> http://www.amazon.com/The-Classical-Style-Beethoven-Expanded/dp/0393317129
> 
> The Classical Style by Charles Rosen.


_*Strongly seconding this recommendation!*_


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## Mahlerian

Burroughs said:


> I can't find a C sharp in bars 19-20


Sorry, the cross relation is actually in bars 21-22. The sudden introductions of the minor mode don't feel right in the classical style, because they introduce all kinds of unprepared (and here, often unresolved) dissonances that are more at home in Romantic style.

The final "cadence" is also extremely ugly and very out of place in the classical idiom.


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## Op.123

violadude said:


> Ok, here I do have a book recommendation.
> 
> http://www.amazon.com/The-Classical-Style-Beethoven-Expanded/dp/0393317129
> 
> The Classical Style by Charles Rosen. This book gives a pretty good overview of what is involved in the classical style, for starters at least. There's a lot to it, a lot more than I would have thought 5 or so years ago, at least.


Thanks, I found a PDF version and have downloaded it, I will have a look through.


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## kostas papazafeiropoulos

can you please send me the link to the book?


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## Op.123

kostas papazafeiropoulos said:


> can you please send me the link to the book?


http://www.academia.edu/4668766/Charles_Rosen_-_The_Classical_Style

You'll have to sign up to get it but signing up is free.


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## Op.123

http://musescore.com/user/81525/scores/99047

This is an orchestral introduction for a piano concerto, I am going to _try_ to give it a specific form.

Please download as a MIDI before listening as it sounds better, IMO.


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## kostas papazafeiropoulos

\i got it thanks Morgan .


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## Op.123

kostas papazafeiropoulos said:


> \i got it thanks Morgan .


That's ok 

.............


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## Op.123

Burroughs said:


> http://musescore.com/user/81525/scores/99047
> 
> This is an orchestral introduction for a piano concerto, I am going to _try_ to give it a specific form.
> 
> Please download as a MIDI before listening as it sounds better, IMO.


Anyone have any thoughts?


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## helpmeplslol

At this point I've seen three strong recommendations to read The Classical Style, so I finally feel motivated enough to read it. Looking forward to it!


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## Op.123

helpmeplslol said:


> At this point I've seen three strong recommendations to read The Classical Style, so I finally feel motivated enough to read it. Looking forward to it!


Good, what I've read is good so far.


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## Mahlerian

helpmeplslol said:


> At this point I've seen three strong recommendations to read The Classical Style, so I finally feel motivated enough to read it. Looking forward to it!


It's an excellent book. Read it if you're at all interested.


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## PetrB

Burroughs said:


> Anyone have any thoughts?


You won't want to accept it, but I'm wanting you to back up to basic harmony, the study thereof, and try first very short and short-form pieces.

The "Big Concerto" "Big Symphony" attempts by so many at or near the beginning of composing, almost all, sound to me analogous to a child dressed up in far over-sized adult clothing, ie. they can not possibly fill the form out so that it looks either right or good. "Bad fit" "Ill suited" "Not anywhere near meeting the thought of the ambition," all come to mind.








You will not get anywhere near the scope or fluidity of writing to which it seems you aspire by going for the 'big piece,' the 'large orchestra' or any of the rest of it. You do have some good ear for a motif or tune, but continually going at it this way, whether hobby or more earnest ambition, will not have one piece much or any really improved over the last.

ADD: P.s. @ Burroughs. Thank you and congratulations for taking the comments well. The clichés of small steps before big steps, and walking before you can run, are very to the point here. Acting on that advice actually gets you toward where you would like to be more quickly than repeated stumbling and starting pieces you really can not / do not know how to finish


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## violadude

I think this new beginning has a much better sense of form. The ideas are presented in what so far is a much more coherent format.

However, there are still a lot of basic details you are overlooking that are making your material significantly weaker than it could be. This will be a long post. Probably longer than appropriate for this forum, but hopefully helpful. These are things that are simple details but are fundamental to making an affective piece and they’re things that a lot of new composers don’t really consider or overlook. I did when I was first starting too.

First of all, without mentioning any specifics, you need to consider more carefully the contrast between tension and release, push and pull, completion and incompletion. This is pretty much one of the main driving forces (if not THE main driving force) of classical music and it is something that classical composers thought about a lot. There are musical phrases, gestures, key-relationships and chords that tend more towards completion (release) and there are those that tend more toward incompletion (tension). This is an aspect of music that is true on multiple levels and it is the fact that when we hear an incomplete musical figure, we long for it to be complete, that makes music compelling. The problem with a lot of this piece though is that you are using these complete and incomplete figures in ways that aren’t affective or don’t make a lot of sense, especially on the smaller levels of the musical construction. And in a way, it’s actually the smaller levels of musical construction that matter more because they are the levels that are going to be more immediate and perceptible to most people. For example, the layman isn’t really going to perceive the tension between the 1st theme being in the tonic key and the 2nd theme being in the dominant key unless their ears are sensitive to key relationships (either through training or because of some natural phenomenon). But that same tension on a smaller level (e.g. a V chord moving to a I chord) is something that almost everyone (at least in the Western World) can feel almost on a primal level. 

So, all that being said, allow me to point out some examples of this aspect of music that needs work in your piece.

The theme that you start the piece out with is a little awkward, strange and unmemorable and I can tell you why. It’s primarily because you’ve ended the first phrase with the same note you started on. In a unison melody, this act of moving away from the starting note and then coming back to it provides a sense of completion (it may not, if you had harmonized the phrase a certain way or implied it. But there is nothing in the first phrases that suggests or implies that the C in the 3rd measure is anything other than a return to the I chord). This completion is fine in and of itself, but the problem is that after the first phrase, you move on to a second phrase which is obviously meant to be a continuation of the melody started by the first phrase but you’ve already given the first phrase a sense of completion. So in a sense, the 2nd phrase of the melody is a consequent without an antecedent. 

In other words, since you gave the 1st phrase closure, you haven’t given us that sense of incompletion that makes us want a second a phrase. You haven’t justified a need for the second phrase and so when it does come and it sounds like the continuation of something already completed (as opposed to a new melody or a repeat of the melody) it is very un-compelling and we lose interest in it. 

I get the sense that this piece is modeled after Mozart’s 24th piano concerto (because of the c minor key and the unison opening), so I’d suggest studying the opening theme of that concerto. You’ll notice in the Mozart theme, he ends every single phrase within the melody with a harmony that begs to be resolved. This is what makes the melody a compelling one.By ending phrases with un-resolved harmonies the melody propels itself forward because of our expectation and longing for it to become resolved. That particular example (the Mozart 24 theme) is a particularly poignant one too, because he keeps thwarting the resolution by responding to an unresolved harmony with harmonies that are further, rather than closer to the tonic chord (the first diminished 7th harmony is the one based on F#, which acts as a substitution for V of V within c minor, but then the subsequent diminished chord, the one on E is further from c minor), so in that example Mozart is actually increasing our demand for completion as the theme goes on. 

Within the Classical Era style, the starting melody of Mozart’s c minor piano concerto is a particularly extreme example of this principle of ending phrases with unresolved harmonies so that the melody propels itself forward, but it’s an underlying principle that is present in nearly every classical era melody. I suggest studying also some other classical era melodies and looking at how each successive phrase always ends unresolved until the final phrase of the melody. Classical composers never (or at least almost never) close a phrase within a melody that is supposed to continue on because it sounds ineffective and makes the melody uncompelling and thus unmemorable.

Also, I’d personally advise against starting your melody with an unharmonized unison. In the context of Western tonal music there are two kinds of harmonies. There are actual harmonies and then there are implied harmonies. When you decide to write an all unison passage, what you are doing is you are working exclusively with implied harmony which is a lot more tricky to do than writing with actual harmony or a mixture of both. 

As a side note, the fact that I can say so much about just the first couple phrases of your piece is one of the reasons I think music is endlessly fascinating 

Anyway, I’ll move on now. Let’s talk about your modulation from c minor to E flat. I’m not sure if you know this, but the technique you used to do this is called “common chord modulation. This is when you use a chord that is present in two different keys as a pivot to connect them and modulate from one to the other. It’s one of the most common ways of modulating in this style. In your case of course, it is the E-flat chord that is the common chord (it’s III in c minor and I in E flat Major). The problem here though is that you skipped a step between the introduction of the common chord and the 2nd theme in the newly established key, you need to provide a strong cadence in E-flat and actually establish it as a new key before you move on to the 2nd theme.

Cadences are very important in the classical style as they provide a structural backbone of Classical Era Sonata Form (their importance in the structure of sonata form was diminished in the Romantic Era). If you continue reading Charles Rosen’s book, you’ll most certainly read a lot about those. But in the case of your piece, to provide the missing cadence you’ll probably want some sort of motion from D-E flat to occur and you’ll want to provide a strong cadential chord progression. The most common or standard one in the classical Era is a I6/4-V-I progression. That is, a tonic chord with the 5th in the bass (2nd inversion), a root position dominant chord (so then, the bass between the first and second chords of the sequence either doesn’t move or jumps an octave) and then a root position tonic chord (tonic and dominant within the context of the new key you are attempting to establish, of course). 

Aside from the lack of a cadence, I see two other things I would reconsider about the 2nd theme and these are the last two examples I will mention. 

First off, I have to mention to you that bass movement is very important in classical music. The bass is the only voice which, depending on what degree of the chord it’s given, can change the harmonic function of the chord. Therefore, the note you give the bass should never be an arbitrary decision or based on whatever notes are left once you’ve written the upper parts. So, with that in mind, take a look at the bassoon part. The lowest note of that bassoon configuration is consistently the lowest note in any given bar and that means it's probably going to be perceived as the bass of the melody, which means the bass of this melody is going to be perceived as a pedal tone on the fifth of E flat and this is going to make the entire melody sound odd and unstable, when I believe your intent is to establish a stable secondary theme (as would be the intent of any good classical era composer). Also, look at the sort of “secondary bass” in the violas and cellos, there are some weird bass notes there as well. Even if we ignore the implied pedal point in the bassoon, the melody still starts off with a second inversion tonic, which is unstable and creates tension that should be resolved. Also, in the 2nd bar of the melody, the bass note is F when the melody in that bar outlines an E-flat major chord, I’m not sure what that is about.

But ya, pay more attention to bass movement and remember that unstable bass notes are going to create tension that needs resolving (usually in a specific manner too based on the style you are writing in). A good rule of thumb for classical style melodies is to keep all I chords in root position for the first presentation of the melody. 

The next thing that is a little bit odd about your secondary theme is, again, the phrasing. Not the harmonic or melodic phrasing this time, but the rhythmic phrasing. Generally, classical era melodies are written in phrases made of 2 or 4 bars but you have phrases made of 3 bars. This isn’t inherently against some sort of classical era “rule” I guess, but phrase groups of 3 bars tend to sound a little unbalanced and therefore, unstable. This is why you probably don’t want your secondary melody to be grouped in phrases of 3 bars. In fact, composers in the classical era sometimes move to 3 bar phrases specifically because they want to increase tension and instability, often in the developmental or transitional sections of the piece. So just be aware of that.

And finally, you have lots of octave doublings in this piece, which isn’t nessicarily a bad thing, but I would urge you to fill out your harmonies a little more. 

Phew! Hope this helped


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## Op.123

violadude said:


> I think this new beginning has a much better sense of form. The ideas are presented in what so far is a much more coherent format.
> 
> However, there are still a lot of basic details you are overlooking that are making your material significantly weaker than it could be. This will be a long post. Probably longer than appropriate for this forum, but hopefully helpful. These are things that are simple details but are fundamental to making an affective piece and they're things that a lot of new composers don't really consider or overlook. I did when I was first starting too.
> 
> First of all, without mentioning any specifics, you need to consider more carefully the contrast between tension and release, push and pull, completion and incompletion. This is pretty much one of the main driving forces (if not THE main driving force) of classical music and it is something that classical composers thought about a lot. There are musical phrases, gestures, key-relationships and chords that tend more towards completion (release) and there are those that tend more toward incompletion (tension). This is an aspect of music that is true on multiple levels and it is the fact that when we hear an incomplete musical figure, we long for it to be complete, that makes music compelling. The problem with a lot of this piece though is that you are using these complete and incomplete figures in ways that aren't affective or don't make a lot of sense, especially on the smaller levels of the musical construction. And in a way, it's actually the smaller levels of musical construction that matter more because they are the levels that are going to be more immediate and perceptible to most people. For example, the layman isn't really going to perceive the tension between the 1st theme being in the tonic key and the 2nd theme being in the dominant key unless their ears are sensitive to key relationships (either through training or because of some natural phenomenon). But that same tension on a smaller level (e.g. a V chord moving to a I chord) is something that almost everyone (at least in the Western World) can feel almost on a primal level.
> 
> So, all that being said, allow me to point out some examples of this aspect of music that needs work in your piece.
> 
> The theme that you start the piece out with is a little awkward, strange and unmemorable and I can tell you why. It's primarily because you've ended the first phrase with the same note you started on. In a unison melody, this act of moving away from the starting note and then coming back to it provides a sense of completion (it may not, if you had harmonized the phrase a certain way or implied it. But there is nothing in the first phrases that suggests or implies that the C in the 3rd measure is anything other than a return to the I chord). This completion is fine in and of itself, but the problem is that after the first phrase, you move on to a second phrase which is obviously meant to be a continuation of the melody started by the first phrase but you've already given the first phrase a sense of completion. So in a sense, the 2nd phrase of the melody is a consequent without an antecedent.
> 
> In other words, since you gave the 1st phrase closure, you haven't given us that sense of incompletion that makes us want a second a phrase. You haven't justified a need for the second phrase and so when it does come and it sounds like the continuation of something already completed (as opposed to a new melody or a repeat of the melody) it is very un-compelling and we lose interest in it.
> 
> I get the sense that this piece is modeled after Mozart's 24th piano concerto (because of the c minor key and the unison opening), so I'd suggest studying the opening theme of that concerto. You'll notice in the Mozart theme, he ends every single phrase within the melody with a harmony that begs to be resolved. This is what makes the melody a compelling one.By ending phrases with un-resolved harmonies the melody propels itself forward because of our expectation and longing for it to become resolved. That particular example (the Mozart 24 theme) is a particularly poignant one too, because he keeps thwarting the resolution by responding to an unresolved harmony with harmonies that are further, rather than closer to the tonic chord (the first diminished 7th harmony is the one based on F#, which acts as a substitution for V of V within c minor, but then the subsequent diminished chord, the one on E is further from c minor), so in that example Mozart is actually increasing our demand for completion as the theme goes on.
> 
> Within the Classical Era style, the starting melody of Mozart's c minor piano concerto is a particularly extreme example of this principle of ending phrases with unresolved harmonies so that the melody propels itself forward, but it's an underlying principle that is present in nearly every classical era melody. I suggest studying also some other classical era melodies and looking at how each successive phrase always ends unresolved until the final phrase of the melody. Classical composers never (or at least almost never) close a phrase within a melody that is supposed to continue on because it sounds ineffective and makes the melody uncompelling and thus unmemorable.
> 
> Also, I'd personally advise against starting your melody with an unharmonized unison. In the context of Western tonal music there are two kinds of harmonies. There are actual harmonies and then there are implied harmonies. When you decide to write an all unison passage, what you are doing is you are working exclusively with implied harmony which is a lot more tricky to do than writing with actual harmony or a mixture of both.
> 
> As a side note, the fact that I can say so much about just the first couple phrases of your piece is one of the reasons I think music is endlessly fascinating
> 
> Anyway, I'll move on now. Let's talk about your modulation from c minor to E flat. I'm not sure if you know this, but the technique you used to do this is called "common chord modulation. This is when you use a chord that is present in two different keys as a pivot to connect them and modulate from one to the other. It's one of the most common ways of modulating in this style. In your case of course, it is the E-flat chord that is the common chord (it's III in c minor and I in E flat Major). The problem here though is that you skipped a step between the introduction of the common chord and the 2nd theme in the newly established key, you need to provide a strong cadence in E-flat and actually establish it as a new key before you move on to the 2nd theme.
> 
> Cadences are very important in the classical style as they provide a structural backbone of Classical Era Sonata Form (their importance in the structure of sonata form was diminished in the Romantic Era). If you continue reading Charles Rosen's book, you'll most certainly read a lot about those. But in the case of your piece, to provide the missing cadence you'll probably want some sort of motion from D-E flat to occur and you'll want to provide a strong cadential chord progression. The most common or standard one in the classical Era is a I6/4-V-I progression. That is, a tonic chord with the 5th in the bass (2nd inversion), a root position dominant chord (so then, the bass between the first and second chords of the sequence either doesn't move or jumps an octave) and then a root position tonic chord (tonic and dominant within the context of the new key you are attempting to establish, of course).
> 
> Aside from the lack of a cadence, I see two other things I would reconsider about the 2nd theme and these are the last two examples I will mention.
> 
> First off, I have to mention to you that bass movement is very important in classical music. The bass is the only voice which, depending on what degree of the chord it's given, can change the harmonic function of the chord. Therefore, the note you give the bass should never be an arbitrary decision or based on whatever notes are left once you've written the upper parts. So, with that in mind, take a look at the bassoon part. The lowest note of that bassoon configuration is consistently the lowest note in any given bar and that means it's probably going to be perceived as the bass of the melody, which means the bass of this melody is going to be perceived as a pedal tone on the fifth of E flat and this is going to make the entire melody sound odd and unstable, when I believe your intent is to establish a stable secondary theme (as would be the intent of any good classical era composer). Also, look at the sort of "secondary bass" in the violas and cellos, there are some weird bass notes there as well. Even if we ignore the implied pedal point in the bassoon, the melody still starts off with a second inversion tonic, which is unstable and creates tension that should be resolved. Also, in the bar of the melody, the bass note is F when the melody in that bar outlines an E-flat major chord, I'm not sure what that is about.
> 
> But ya, pay more attention to bass movement and remember that unstable bass notes are going to create tension that needs resolving (usually in a specific manner too based on the style you are writing in). A good rule of thumb for classical style melodies is to keep all I chords in root position for the first presentation of the melody.
> 
> The next thing that is a little bit odd about your secondary theme is, again, the phrasing. Not the harmonic or melodic phrasing this time, but the rhythmic phrasing. Generally, classical era melodies are written in phrases made of 2 or 4 bars but you have phrases made of 3 bars. This isn't inherently against some sort of classical era "rule" I guess, but phrase groups of 3 bars tend to sound a little unbalanced and therefore, unstable. This is why you probably don't want your secondary melody to be grouped in phrases of 3 bars. In fact, composers in the classical era sometimes move to 3 bar phrases specifically because they want to increase tension and instability, often in the developmental or transitional sections of the piece. So just be aware of that.
> 
> And finally, you have lots of octave doublings in this piece, which isn't nessicarily a bad thing, but I would urge you to fill out your harmonies a little more.
> 
> Phew! Hope this helped


Thanks, I'll do a lot of editing later.


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## Op.123

violadude said:


> I think this new beginning has a much better sense of form. The ideas are presented in what so far is a much more coherent format.
> 
> However, there are still a lot of basic details you are overlooking that are making your material significantly weaker than it could be. This will be a long post. Probably longer than appropriate for this forum, but hopefully helpful. These are things that are simple details but are fundamental to making an affective piece and they're things that a lot of new composers don't really consider or overlook. I did when I was first starting too.
> 
> First of all, without mentioning any specifics, you need to consider more carefully the contrast between tension and release, push and pull, completion and incompletion. This is pretty much one of the main driving forces (if not THE main driving force) of classical music and it is something that classical composers thought about a lot. There are musical phrases, gestures, key-relationships and chords that tend more towards completion (release) and there are those that tend more toward incompletion (tension). This is an aspect of music that is true on multiple levels and it is the fact that when we hear an incomplete musical figure, we long for it to be complete, that makes music compelling. The problem with a lot of this piece though is that you are using these complete and incomplete figures in ways that aren't affective or don't make a lot of sense, especially on the smaller levels of the musical construction. And in a way, it's actually the smaller levels of musical construction that matter more because they are the levels that are going to be more immediate and perceptible to most people. For example, the layman isn't really going to perceive the tension between the 1st theme being in the tonic key and the 2nd theme being in the dominant key unless their ears are sensitive to key relationships (either through training or because of some natural phenomenon). But that same tension on a smaller level (e.g. a V chord moving to a I chord) is something that almost everyone (at least in the Western World) can feel almost on a primal level.
> 
> So, all that being said, allow me to point out some examples of this aspect of music that needs work in your piece.
> 
> The theme that you start the piece out with is a little awkward, strange and unmemorable and I can tell you why. It's primarily because you've ended the first phrase with the same note you started on. In a unison melody, this act of moving away from the starting note and then coming back to it provides a sense of completion (it may not, if you had harmonized the phrase a certain way or implied it. But there is nothing in the first phrases that suggests or implies that the C in the 3rd measure is anything other than a return to the I chord). This completion is fine in and of itself, but the problem is that after the first phrase, you move on to a second phrase which is obviously meant to be a continuation of the melody started by the first phrase but you've already given the first phrase a sense of completion. So in a sense, the 2nd phrase of the melody is a consequent without an antecedent.
> 
> In other words, since you gave the 1st phrase closure, you haven't given us that sense of incompletion that makes us want a second a phrase. You haven't justified a need for the second phrase and so when it does come and it sounds like the continuation of something already completed (as opposed to a new melody or a repeat of the melody) it is very un-compelling and we lose interest in it.
> 
> I get the sense that this piece is modeled after Mozart's 24th piano concerto (because of the c minor key and the unison opening), so I'd suggest studying the opening theme of that concerto. You'll notice in the Mozart theme, he ends every single phrase within the melody with a harmony that begs to be resolved. This is what makes the melody a compelling one.By ending phrases with un-resolved harmonies the melody propels itself forward because of our expectation and longing for it to become resolved. That particular example (the Mozart 24 theme) is a particularly poignant one too, because he keeps thwarting the resolution by responding to an unresolved harmony with harmonies that are further, rather than closer to the tonic chord (the first diminished 7th harmony is the one based on F#, which acts as a substitution for V of V within c minor, but then the subsequent diminished chord, the one on E is further from c minor), so in that example Mozart is actually increasing our demand for completion as the theme goes on.
> 
> Within the Classical Era style, the starting melody of Mozart's c minor piano concerto is a particularly extreme example of this principle of ending phrases with unresolved harmonies so that the melody propels itself forward, but it's an underlying principle that is present in nearly every classical era melody. I suggest studying also some other classical era melodies and looking at how each successive phrase always ends unresolved until the final phrase of the melody. Classical composers never (or at least almost never) close a phrase within a melody that is supposed to continue on because it sounds ineffective and makes the melody uncompelling and thus unmemorable.
> 
> Also, I'd personally advise against starting your melody with an unharmonized unison. In the context of Western tonal music there are two kinds of harmonies. There are actual harmonies and then there are implied harmonies. When you decide to write an all unison passage, what you are doing is you are working exclusively with implied harmony which is a lot more tricky to do than writing with actual harmony or a mixture of both.
> 
> As a side note, the fact that I can say so much about just the first couple phrases of your piece is one of the reasons I think music is endlessly fascinating
> 
> Anyway, I'll move on now. Let's talk about your modulation from c minor to E flat. I'm not sure if you know this, but the technique you used to do this is called "common chord modulation. This is when you use a chord that is present in two different keys as a pivot to connect them and modulate from one to the other. It's one of the most common ways of modulating in this style. In your case of course, it is the E-flat chord that is the common chord (it's III in c minor and I in E flat Major). The problem here though is that you skipped a step between the introduction of the common chord and the 2nd theme in the newly established key, you need to provide a strong cadence in E-flat and actually establish it as a new key before you move on to the 2nd theme.
> 
> Cadences are very important in the classical style as they provide a structural backbone of Classical Era Sonata Form (their importance in the structure of sonata form was diminished in the Romantic Era). If you continue reading Charles Rosen's book, you'll most certainly read a lot about those. But in the case of your piece, to provide the missing cadence you'll probably want some sort of motion from D-E flat to occur and you'll want to provide a strong cadential chord progression. The most common or standard one in the classical Era is a I6/4-V-I progression. That is, a tonic chord with the 5th in the bass (2nd inversion), a root position dominant chord (so then, the bass between the first and second chords of the sequence either doesn't move or jumps an octave) and then a root position tonic chord (tonic and dominant within the context of the new key you are attempting to establish, of course).
> 
> Aside from the lack of a cadence, I see two other things I would reconsider about the 2nd theme and these are the last two examples I will mention.
> 
> First off, I have to mention to you that bass movement is very important in classical music. The bass is the only voice which, depending on what degree of the chord it's given, can change the harmonic function of the chord. Therefore, the note you give the bass should never be an arbitrary decision or based on whatever notes are left once you've written the upper parts. So, with that in mind, take a look at the bassoon part. The lowest note of that bassoon configuration is consistently the lowest note in any given bar and that means it's probably going to be perceived as the bass of the melody, which means the bass of this melody is going to be perceived as a pedal tone on the fifth of E flat and this is going to make the entire melody sound odd and unstable, when I believe your intent is to establish a stable secondary theme (as would be the intent of any good classical era composer). Also, look at the sort of "secondary bass" in the violas and cellos, there are some weird bass notes there as well. Even if we ignore the implied pedal point in the bassoon, the melody still starts off with a second inversion tonic, which is unstable and creates tension that should be resolved. Also, in the 2nd bar of the melody, the bass note is F when the melody in that bar outlines an E-flat major chord, I'm not sure what that is about.
> 
> But ya, pay more attention to bass movement and remember that unstable bass notes are going to create tension that needs resolving (usually in a specific manner too based on the style you are writing in). A good rule of thumb for classical style melodies is to keep all I chords in root position for the first presentation of the melody.
> 
> The next thing that is a little bit odd about your secondary theme is, again, the phrasing. Not the harmonic or melodic phrasing this time, but the rhythmic phrasing. Generally, classical era melodies are written in phrases made of 2 or 4 bars but you have phrases made of 3 bars. This isn't inherently against some sort of classical era "rule" I guess, but phrase groups of 3 bars tend to sound a little unbalanced and therefore, unstable. This is why you probably don't want your secondary melody to be grouped in phrases of 3 bars. In fact, composers in the classical era sometimes move to 3 bar phrases specifically because they want to increase tension and instability, often in the developmental or transitional sections of the piece. So just be aware of that.
> 
> And finally, you have lots of octave doublings in this piece, which isn't nessicarily a bad thing, but I would urge you to fill out your harmonies a little more.
> 
> Phew! Hope this helped


I have made some changes, see what you think.

Thanks again


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## Op.123

http://musescore.com/user/81525/scores/99047

Made even more changes now

the 3 bar phrases for the pianos first the pianos entry (which I have changed.), are intentional


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