# Compose a Sonata within a month Challenge



## caters (Aug 2, 2018)

This is a challenge I am giving myself to write an entire piano sonata in a month. So far it is going good and yes I do have cadences in there. I have already gotten the exposition of the first movement down in 3 days. Since Mozart's birthday is in about a month from now, I figured I would go Mozart style with my sonata and dedicate it to Mozart. After all, he is the composer that influences me second most after Beethoven. And he is the composer that gave me that first inspiration to compose when I was 12 years old and a lot of my daily piano repertoire was Mozart pieces.

I asked a question yesterday on a different message board about how to make the dominant preparation not so boring and mentioned that I was composing a Mozart style sonata and I got all these responses:



> Change the dynamics, like have a slow creschendo if the recapitulation is loud





> Try dropping your passages by an octave before the recapitulation





> Have the right hand lead by itself into the recapitulation





> Increase the note speed, like if early on, you are just using 8th notes, use 16ths in the last few bars of dominant preparation





> Use chords other than dominant function chords like vi, bVI, IV, iv, and secondary dominants





> Make it short, can be as short as half a bar if it is in 4/4 time





> Have the recapitulation start in the subdominant instead of the tonic





> End the dominant preparation with a dominant chord followed by a pause





> Instead of a recapitulation to the first theme, start the recapitulation with the second theme


I asked that question because I find the dominant preparation often grinds my gears, even if it is easy for me to compose the rest of the development section. And I got all these responses from people who listen to a lot of Mozart sonatas. I only listen to a few usually, though I have been listening to them sequentially today and yesterday to try to figure out how often Mozart has the slow movement in a particular key relation and the tempo and time signature frequency for each movement.


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