# Piano Sonata No. 5 in E-flat major



## StevenOBrien

I. Andantissimo - Allegro
II. Larghetto
III. Allegro bruscamente

As usual, all feedback, criticism suggestions, comments and relentless bashings from music majors for writing tonal music in the twenty first century are most welcome .

Soundcloud:

__
https://soundcloud.com/stevenobrien%2Fsets
Score PDF: http://steven-obrien.net/Piano Sonata No 5 in E-flat major.pdf
Sibelius File: http://steven-obrien.net/Piano Sonata No 5 in E-flat major.sib

I hope you all enjoy it! I look forward to hearing your thoughts.
-Steven


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## hreichgott

Oh man. That went from more-Beethoven-than-Beethoven chordal stuff to almost Shostakovich-like dark humor. You have quite an imagination. Enjoying it a lot so far. Looks like it suits the piano more easily than some of those Preludes too.


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## pluhagr

Steven, 
I don't know if you play piano, but some of the things in this piece are just irrational and cannot be played. First off, you have many chords which have more than 4 notes over a huge interval. These are impossible. I also counted a chord cluster with eight tones. How is that supposed to be played. You also have crescendos over long notes. The piano cannot crescendo over a held note and decrescendos are implied on long notes. You also have so many huge leaps which are quite difficult. That nonuplet that you have is a bit ridiculous. Make it three triplets. You also have a lot of parts where the right hand holds a chord while there is a second voice below it, most of these sections are unplayable. You have so many staccatissimos as well which seems to be a bit much. I also felt that it was rather disconnected and fragmented. You have many little bits and licks which you have put together and I see no relationship between them. Lastly. Your key change after the repeat sign is written very badly. You need to change the sharps into flats or else it simply doesn't make sense. I don't know if you have done reading on how to modulate but it might help to read some more. I see a lot of good ideas in here but your technique for writing for the piano is not good. You need to write for the instrument and what it can do. Right now you are writing for midi and what it can do.


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## hreichgott

I disagree with a lot of pluhagr's comments above, particularly the idea that the "bits" in here are unrelated to each other, but I'll leave that for Steven to address.

I do have some more specific suggestions to follow up on pluhagr's piano vs. midi thing, which I think is a reasonable criticism. Steven, I think you do have piano in mind (and I know you play enough to test stuff out.) But certain devices you use frequently are "idiomatic" for midi, sound good on midi and compensate nicely for midi's weaknesses, for example huge dense blocked chords, hyper-fast tempos, and hammer-like attack. Certain things sound bad on midi, for example long singing melody lines, which you do not often write. I wonder if some of your choices in regard to those particulars might be inadvertently geared toward making a good midi sound. For example, a piano sounds resonant and full when playing an octave in the LH and a three-note chord in the RH, especially if the chord is in open position. (In fast music, a 3-note chord spaced over a 10th in open position is almost indistinguishable from a 5-note chord spaced over a 10th in closed position, while being much easier to play.) But midi, and many digital pianos, sound sparse and wimpy when voiced that way, so maybe that's causing you to add more notes/write chords in closed position to compensate for midi sparseness. 

So maybe take a step back and try out some stuff on piano -- piano piano, not a digital -- and you may find that the piano's superior singing tones, rich sound and large variety of tone color might give you some other choices.

This is certainly a big step forward from the Preludes, and it's got to be difficult but I don't think it's unplayable. I haven't tried to play it yet though...


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## Forte

I agree with hreichgott in that you probably want longer melodic lines, and thus it would be very beneficial to use the piano to experiment. However, I want to address the so-called "impossible" chords. They can all be played if they are rolled, including the parts where a chord is "held" while there is a melodic line under it (the holding of the chord can be implied).

Alkan _Grande Sonate 'Les Quatre Ages'_ 2nd movement:









Crescendos on sustained notes are technically impossible on the piano, but Beethoven wrote them anyway. It's the idea that counts, really (use your imagination!), and also, it is possible to create the illusion of a crescendo on a sustained note by using the pedal relatively late after the note is struck - this is even more effective when the music goes on after a group of rests.

Some of the figurations might be uncomfortable to play, but Beethoven wrote even more uncomfortable things (see: octave glissandos, two trills in the same hand, counterpoint with stretches more than an octave, highly awkward figurations esp. in Op. 101, 106, _Diabelli Variations_, the list goes on), and none of them are impossible.

Btw, I love the barbaric quality to some of this, it just needs more melodic material. The contrasts in dynamics are very frequent, which I believe makes this piece pretty dramatic.


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## StevenOBrien

> First off, you have many chords which have more than 4 notes over a huge interval. These are impossible.


They can all be rolled though, if the pianist's hand isn't large enough.



> I also counted a chord cluster with eight tones. How is that supposed to be played.


They're all white notes. You slam the keyboard with your palm. 



> The piano cannot crescendo over a held note and decrescendos are implied on long notes.


Oh, I know, but I like to think that if you make a good musician believe they can achieve the impossible, they'll be able to do it on some level. It's hard to explain, and I know it sounds ridiculous, but those meaningless crescendos are meant to be there. The pianist needs to feel it.



> That nonuplet that you have is a bit ridiculous. Make it three triplets.


Yeah, I'm not sure about this either. I wanted to make it clear that it really needs to be "leant into", and it really needs to flow as one long shaped phrase and not be counted as "123 123 123". I was worried that a slur alone wouldn't emphasize this enough. Three triplets would probably be easier to read though.



> You have many little bits and licks which you have put together and I see no relationship between them.


Every phrase is an evolution of what came before it. I don't plan everything out consciously to the point of "OMG, and this will be the main motif and everything will be interconnected!", because I don't think that leads to natural sounding music. I think this section is a good example of how the music grows from itself: 






> Your key change after the repeat sign is written very badly. You need to change the sharps into flats or else it simply doesn't make sense.


Which movement? I'm really bad at the theoretical side of things.



> You need to write for the instrument and what it can do. Right now you are writing for midi and what it can do.


I think you're probably right. I often feel like the limitations of instruments/performers are in the way of what I want to write. I don't know how to resolve this though.

Thanks for your feedback, pluhagr. I really appreciate you taking the time to listen and comment!



> Looks like it suits the piano more easily than some of those Preludes too.


Interesting. I was worried that it might actually be getting worse, but I'm glad you think otherwise!



> Certain things sound bad on midi, for example long singing melody lines, which you do not often write.


I think you're partially right, but the main reason that I don't often do this is because I feel like I'm being extremely lazy when I write them, due to the short space of time it takes to write them out. I need the complexity I add to the music to feel like I've done a decent amount of work. It's funny, this sonata was actually originally meant to be an exercise in writing simpler music that depended less on complexity and more on pure music, inspired by Schubert's later sonatas. This is why the intro is so simple compared to the rest of the piece. It just sort of... spiralled out of control after about a minute. 



> So maybe take a step back and try out some stuff on piano -- piano piano, not a digital -- and you may find that the piano's superior singing tones, rich sound and large variety of tone color might give you some other choices.


I've tried to do this, because I know that it's a better way of doing things, but I don't enjoy playing enough to be able to get any work done this way. The instantaneous feedback from MIDI composition is what makes composition fun for me. I'll try to figure something out.



> it is possible to create the illusion of a crescendo on a sustained note by using the pedal relatively late after the note is struck - this is even more effective when the music goes on after a group of rests.


Interesting. I didn't know this.



> Btw, I love the barbaric quality to some of this, it just needs more melodic material.


Could you elaborate a little on what you mean?

Thank you so much for the feedback, everyone. I really appreciate you all taking the time to listen.


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## rarevinyllibrary

I jumped off at 4 ' 33" 
sorry.


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## Ramako

I enjoyed it.

1st movement: I had the bizarre experience of enjoying the exposition considerably more second time round than first, which I'm putting down to probably not enjoying the introduction, and getting into it more after that.

2nd movement: This is where it got more interesting to me. I really liked the introduction, and when the 'fugue subject' started in g minor, I thought "this is excellent - he's really got something going here!". But then... Somehow you just didn't pull it off for me. What sounded like the answer came in in D flat, which I felt really didn't work. And then A flat? The second movement starts off slow: that tune coming in at a faster tempo indicates 'something's going to happen', but the tritone entrance of the answering subject just prevents the 'go', I feel, that the music wants at that stage. It makes it veer off in a different direction. I don't know whether you wanted a fugue or not, or consider that section a fugue, but ignoring the pedantries of the word itself, it is a contrapuntal section. The effect of a second entrance of a theme in a contrapuntal setting makes it matter what interval it comes in at. Consider the contrapuntal sections in the development sections of Schubert's unfinished (I think both of them) where all the entrances are in the tonic. The effect is one of tonal stasis. Your entrance at the tritone is the opposite, which could be desirable, but I felt wasn't at that stage: it seemed to me to want a momentum that the tritone does not give (at least with that harmonic language). Of course, I suppose following that with standard intervals would not have suited the previous chromatic nature of the piece, but this is irrelevant.

3rd movement: this of course led straight off from the second. In an excellent little book 'the composer and his art', the author, Gordon Jacob, cautions against using fast sections in slow movements, because they may, unless handled carefully, diminish the contrast with the faster movements. Now here I don't think you handled the faster sections in the slow movement carefully, but instead dealt with the problem by putting slow sections in the last movement, creating a sense of a run-on pair. The strong links between the last movement and the first kept the whole thing unified. I must say, about half-way through this movement, I was thinking "I feel like the music has a lot of explaining to do at this stage. I doubt he'll manage to pull off something a subtle as this though..." But you did manage it... Just! In all, well done!


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## StevenOBrien

rarevinyllibrary said:


> I jumped off at 4 ' 33"
> sorry.


Not sure if you're making a joke about Cage's composition =P.



> I enjoyed it.






> 1st movement: I had the bizarre experience of enjoying the exposition considerably more second time round than first, which I'm putting down to probably not enjoying the introduction, and getting into it more after that.


Yeah, I'm honestly not sure about the introduction either, but everything else grows from it, and I felt I'd end up breaking the music if I replaced it with something else. I'm kinda stuck with it. I'm hoping that it will end up sounding a lot more interesting when it's actually played by a human.



> 2nd movement: This is where it got more interesting to me. I really liked the introduction, and when the 'fugue subject' started in g minor, I thought "this is excellent - he's really got something going here!". But then... Somehow you just didn't pull it off for me. What sounded like the answer came in in D flat, which I felt really didn't work. And then A flat? The second movement starts off slow: that tune coming in at a faster tempo indicates 'something's going to happen', but the tritone entrance of the answering subject just prevents the 'go', I feel, that the music wants at that stage. It makes it veer off in a different direction. I don't know whether you wanted a fugue or not, or consider that section a fugue, but ignoring the pedantries of the word itself, it is a contrapuntal section. The effect of a second entrance of a theme in a contrapuntal setting makes it matter what interval it comes in at. Consider the contrapuntal sections in the development sections of Schubert's unfinished (I think both of them) where all the entrances are in the tonic. The effect is one of tonal stasis. Your entrance at the tritone is the opposite, which could be desirable, but I felt wasn't at that stage: it seemed to me to want a momentum that the tritone does not give (at least with that harmonic language). Of course, I suppose following that with standard intervals would not have suited the previous chromatic nature of the piece, but this is irrelevant.


I'd consider it a fugue (I'm just not sure if it's a good one!). I feel that the harmonic movement in it works well for a slow movement, even though it is pretty bizarre. It's not really meant to go anywhere. To me it's just meant to feel like an exploration of the same idea in different situations, like you're sitting down and imagining permutations of an idea in your mind. Maybe it's a matter of listening through it a few more times to see if you can become more used to it?



> 3rd movement: this of course led straight off from the second. In an excellent little book 'the composer and his art', the author, Gordon Jacob, cautions against using fast sections in slow movements, because they may, unless handled carefully, diminish the contrast with the faster movements. Now here I don't think you handled the faster sections in the slow movement carefully, but instead dealt with the problem by putting slow sections in the last movement, creating a sense of a run-on pair. The strong links between the last movement and the first kept the whole thing unified. I must say, about half-way through this movement, I was thinking "I feel like the music has a lot of explaining to do at this stage. I doubt he'll manage to pull off something a subtle as this though..." But you did manage it... Just! In all, well done!


Thanks! Again, like the introduction, the slow part in the exposition is another part I'm not fond of, but it spawns the second theme and the beginning of the development, which I'm extremely happy with. It does get in the way of the in the drive of the piece, but I just... didn't think it was something I could get rid of. I might look at this part again.

Thank you for your excellent feedback, Ramako!


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## Kieran

I enjoyed it Steven, have listened to it a few times with my cloth layman's ears and I find it to be brilliant in parts, actually, but cohesive as a whole.

Well done!


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## Forte

By "more melodic material", I was just referring to what the previous poster said about longer melodic lines which would be more appropriate on the piano and less appropriate on MIDI.


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## bagpipers

pluhagr said:


> Steven,
> I don't know if you play piano, but some of the things in this piece are just irrational and cannot be played. First off, you have many chords which have more than 4 notes over a huge interval. These are impossible. I also counted a chord cluster with eight tones. How is that supposed to be played. You also have crescendos over long notes. The piano cannot crescendo over a held note and decrescendos are implied on long notes. You also have so many huge leaps which are quite difficult. That nonuplet that you have is a bit ridiculous. Make it three triplets. You also have a lot of parts where the right hand holds a chord while there is a second voice below it, most of these sections are unplayable. You have so many staccatissimos as well which seems to be a bit much. I also felt that it was rather disconnected and fragmented. You have many little bits and licks which you have put together and I see no relationship between them. Lastly. Your key change after the repeat sign is written very badly. You need to change the sharps into flats or else it simply doesn't make sense. I don't know if you have done reading on how to modulate but it might help to read some more. I see a lot of good ideas in here but your technique for writing for the piano is not good. You need to write for the instrument and what it can do. Right now you are writing for midi and what it can do.


you could always rearange as a violin sonata.the violin could fill in to grab notes in difficult chords and a violin can crescendo in held notes even if the tempo is slow.even better make it a simple piano trio


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## bagpipers

StevenOBrien said:


> They can all be rolled though, if the pianist's hand isn't large enough.
> 
> They're all white notes. You slam the keyboard with your palm.
> 
> Oh, I know, but I like to think that if you make a good musician believe they can achieve the impossible, they'll be able to do it on some level. It's hard to explain, and I know it sounds ridiculous, but those meaningless crescendos are meant to be there. The pianist needs to feel it.
> 
> Yeah, I'm not sure about this either. I wanted to make it clear that it really needs to be "leant into", and it really needs to flow as one long shaped phrase and not be counted as "123 123 123". I was worried that a slur alone wouldn't emphasize this enough. Three triplets would probably be easier to read though.
> 
> Every phrase is an evolution of what came before it. I don't plan everything out consciously to the point of "OMG, and this will be the main motif and everything will be interconnected!", because I don't think that leads to natural sounding music. I think this section is a good example of how the music grows from itself:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Which movement? I'm really bad at the theoretical side of things.
> 
> I think you're probably right. I often feel like the limitations of instruments/performers are in the way of what I want to write. I don't know how to resolve this though.
> 
> Thanks for your feedback, pluhagr. I really appreciate you taking the time to listen and comment!
> 
> Interesting. I was worried that it might actually be getting worse, but I'm glad you think otherwise!
> 
> I think you're partially right, but the main reason that I don't often do this is because I feel like I'm being extremely lazy when I write them, due to the short space of time it takes to write them out. I need the complexity I add to the music to feel like I've done a decent amount of work. It's funny, this sonata was actually originally meant to be an exercise in writing simpler music that depended less on complexity and more on pure music, inspired by Schubert's later sonatas. This is why the intro is so simple compared to the rest of the piece. It just sort of... spiralled out of control after about a minute.
> 
> I've tried to do this, because I know that it's a better way of doing things, but I don't enjoy playing enough to be able to get any work done this way. The instantaneous feedback from MIDI composition is what makes composition fun for me. I'll try to figure something out.
> 
> Interesting. I didn't know this.
> 
> Could you elaborate a little on what you mean?
> 
> Thank you so much for the feedback, everyone. I really appreciate you all taking the time to listen.


you may be right about hand size.i have tiny hands and that is why i only play bartok because he had small hands and the stretches i can make and what he could make and what he wrote are indentical.
like in the piece "Bagpipers" he never stretches beyond an octave.but your hands may fit your pieces

musicly speaking; even in its short few opening measures the theme is presented to repetitively,more variation is needed even in the first 5 ten measures.also the first FFF is to blunt.but other wise good listening and you have promising talent as a composer


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## Bas

I wonder if Liszt himself could have played it


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## moody

That's quite a piece of work you've turned out there Steven---great stuff !!


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## Pennypacker

I won't comment on the obvious technical problems. As bagpipers said, this could be arranged for two or three pianos. The problem with this kind of software music is the one Heather addressed. Good piano writing isn't only about how it fits under the fingers, but also its abilities in terms of sound. All those triads in the bass would sound awful on the piano. And good dissonance can be achieved not only by putting a whole lot of notes together. 

As for the music itself, I think the contrast between the delicate classical parts and the raging and hammering parts worked very well in the first and third parts, but not in the second. Some parts were just way too long and cliche (e.g measures 109-124, 141-157). 

Anyway, it was really interesting and enjoyable. Some parts made me wanna just jump out of my chair and start dancing like an idiot.


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## StevenOBrien

bagpipers said:


> you could always rearange as a violin sonata.the violin could fill in to grab notes in difficult chords and a violin can crescendo in held notes even if the tempo is slow.even better make it a simple piano trio


It's unfortunately not that simple. With this type of music, I have to truncate a lot of the music I'm writing so it will become "possible" at the very least to play. If I start adding more instruments and turn this into a chamber piece, I'll just end up adding more and more layers to it and end up writing extremely difficult parts for the accompanying instruments.

Even if I forced myself to just write it as a "Truncated Piano Sonata with accompanying violin", I don't know how I'd feel about adding a whole other instrument just to play a few notes here and there to make life easier for the pianist.



Pennypacker said:


> Some parts were just way too long and cliche (e.g measures 109-124, 141-157).


I agree. They don't fit well with the rest of the music. If I have a better idea of what to do for those parts, I'll happily get rid of them.

I'm kind of astonished that you managed to single those two sections out so precisely, because they were actually the last parts of the sonata I composed, and I pretty much had to force myself to do it in order to connect up the surrounding sections, just for the sake of getting the thing done. The sonata had been lying around for a month at that stage, with just a few missing patches. Usually if I leave a piece for too long, it will just end up not getting finished. I really didn't want that to happen with this one, so I hope the rest of the music justifies it =P.



Pennypacker said:


> Anyway, it was really interesting and enjoyable. Some parts made me wanna just jump out of my chair and start dancing like an idiot.




Thank you all for your feedback!


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## Yardrax

StevenOBrien said:


> Every phrase is an evolution of what came before it. I don't plan everything out consciously to the point of "OMG, and this will be the main motif and everything will be interconnected!", because I don't think that leads to natural sounding music.





> I think you're probably right. I often feel like the limitations of instruments/performers are in the way of what I want to write. I don't know how to resolve this though.





> I need the complexity I add to the music to feel like I've done a decent amount of work.





> I've tried to do this, because I know that it's a better way of doing things, but I don't enjoy playing enough to be able to get any work done this way. The instantaneous feedback from MIDI composition is what makes composition fun for me.





> It's unfortunately not that simple. With this type of music, I have to truncate a lot of the music I'm writing so it will become "possible" at the very least to play. If I start adding more instruments and turn this into a chamber piece, I'll just end up adding more and more layers to it and end up writing extremely difficult parts for the accompanying instruments.


I've only listened to the first few minutes of the piece so far, it's getting late here. What I want to address in this post is the attitude problem displayed in the above posts.

First, saying that you don't plan material beforehand because you're afraid of it sounding unnatural doesn't fly with me. Beethoven made dozens of sketches for his works, and the motivic coherence of a work like the 5th Symphony was definitely not the result of an accident. Maybe you don't think old Luigi wrote natural sounding music but personally I'll take his breathtaking formal coherence over someone's unstructured improvisations any day. Refusing to plan ahead may help you fit an idealised self-image of the inspired romantic composer but, in my view, it reflects a cavalier attitude towards the element of craft.

Second, don't make excuses for yourself. If you're writing for the MIDI, stop, turn off the computer, grab pencil and paper and start scribbling the old fashioned way. It worked for the greats writing hundreds of years before the invention of the personal computer, it can work for you.

Third, all your statements about difficulty seem to reveal a conflation of instrumental virtuosity and musical complexity which is, in my view, an extremely negative attitude. I suggest going back listening to Bach's Prelude in C from Book 1 of the WTC, such an incredibly simple piece to play, but such an incredible wealth of content in the voice-leading and harmony. And if that doesn't knock you straight, consider the following - You are not a well known composer, and players are not familiar with your pieces. A composer like Beethoven might display instances of incredibly awkward-to-play writing, but players are familiar with those pieces from listening to them multiple times already, and in some cases having already performed the pieces multiple times, since a composer like Beethoven is core repertoire. In addition to the advantage to of familiarity, there is also the fact that it is Beethoven. He has long proven his mettle as a composer, and any difficult passages will be accepted and taken in stride by performers either because they care deeply about his music or merely to satisfy the pre-existing audience which cares deeply about his music.

You, at the moment, are a nobody. Performers will not be familiar with your music through either listening to or playing it. It is unlikely that they will be happy wasting valuable rehearsal and practice time ironing out the unidiomatic writing of a no-name composer, and it is more likely that they will view such unidiomatic writing as the sign of a dilettante who doesn't really care about his craft than a mark of genius. On the other hand, if you write cool sounding parts that fit nicely on the performer's instruments, then they are more likely to care about you and your music, then you might get decent performances and a name for yourself, and then you might ask them to go a bit out of their comfort zones.


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## StevenOBrien

Thanks for the comments, Yardrax.



Yardrax said:


> I've only listened to the first few minutes of the piece so far, it's getting late here. What I want to address in this post is the attitude problem displayed in the above posts.
> 
> First, saying that you don't plan material beforehand because you're afraid of it sounding unnatural doesn't fly with me. Beethoven made dozens of sketches for his works, and the motivic coherence of a work like the 5th Symphony was definitely not the result of an accident. Maybe you don't think old Luigi wrote natural sounding music but personally I'll take his breathtaking formal coherence over someone's unstructured improvisations any day. Refusing to plan ahead may help you fit an idealised self-image of the inspired romantic composer but, in my view, it reflects a cavalier attitude towards the element of craft.


I'm not _afraid_ of it sounding unnatural, I *know* from experience that it will sound unnatural if I extensively plan everything in advance. It's absolutely great that extensive planning worked for Beethoven, but it doesn't work for me. I am not Beethoven.



Yardrax said:


> Second, don't make excuses for yourself. If you're writing for the MIDI, stop, turn off the computer, grab pencil and paper and start scribbling the old fashioned way. It worked for the greats writing hundreds of years before the invention of the personal computer, it can work for you.


I write music to have fun, and writing things out on paper isn't fun for me. I need the instantaneous feedback and the editability to be able to work. MIDI writing has its problems, but I probably wouldn't be writing music at all if I didn't have it. Surely with more writing experience, such problems that arise with MIDI writing will go away?



Yardrax said:


> Third, all your statements about difficulty seem to reveal a conflation of instrumental virtuosity and musical complexity which is, in my view, an extremely negative attitude. I suggest going back listening to Bach's Prelude in C from Book 1 of the WTC, such an incredibly simple piece to play, but such an incredible wealth of content in the voice-leading and harmony. And if that doesn't knock you straight, consider the following - You are not a well known composer, and players are not familiar with your pieces. A composer like Beethoven might display instances of incredibly awkward-to-play writing, but players are familiar with those pieces from listening to them multiple times already, and in some cases having already performed the pieces multiple times, since a composer like Beethoven is core repertoire. In addition to the advantage to of familiarity, there is also the fact that it is Beethoven. He has long proven his mettle as a composer, and any difficult passages will be accepted and taken in stride by performers either because they care deeply about his music or merely to satisfy the pre-existing audience which cares deeply about his music.
> 
> You, at the moment, are a nobody. Performers will not be familiar with your music through either listening to or playing it. It is unlikely that they will be happy wasting valuable rehearsal and practice time ironing out the unidiomatic writing of a no-name composer, and it is more likely that they will view such unidiomatic writing as the sign of a dilettante who doesn't really care about his craft than a mark of genius. On the other hand, if you write cool sounding parts that fit nicely on the performer's instruments, then they are more likely to care about you and your music, then you might get decent performances and a name for yourself, and then you might ask them to go a bit out of their comfort zones.


I appreciate your advice, but honestly, I don't care. Writing classical music is not my career, it's a hobby. I do it to have fun, more than anything else. The fun of it all comes from writing the music, being satisfied with the finished product and sharing it with people. It's extremely touching and a hell of a lot of fun when somebody decides they want to take the time to learn your music and perform it, and it adds to the piece itself too. If nobody does, though, it's really not the end of the world.

I would like people to perform it, don't get me wrong (I wouldn't have made an effort to make it somewhat playable if I didn't care at all), but I don't have any interest in writing music to carefully cater to musicians looking for new music to perform. Even if I did, I really doubt there would be much interest in my style of writing, lack of any formal education, lack of connections etc.

You're certainly right in saying that it could be easier and simpler. Hopefully, with more experience, I will be able to write more with less. I think I am improving in that regard.


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## Kieran

Hey Steven,

You don't have to be like anyone who lived a few centuries ago - it's actually so much easier being yourself!

If your methods work for you - and evidently they do! - then carry on. I preferred the sonata to the preludes I heard on your soundstream - and I liked _them _a lot! But you seem further along the timeline with this, more ambition and scope and exciting changes of pace and colour. How long did this take to compose, as a matter of interest?

:tiphat:


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## rarevinyllibrary

StevenOBrien said:


> Thanks for the comments, Yardrax.
> 
> It's absolutely great that extensive planning worked for Beethoven, but it doesn't work for me. I am not Beethoven.
> 
> Obviously not ,neither Schubert nor Liszt.I suggest the following title :the "hobby " sonata
> Do you know that some great composers of the 20 th Century were unable to play their music on piano (RAVEL )due to painful technical limitations ?
> my regards


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## StevenOBrien

Kieran said:


> Hey Steven,
> 
> You don't have to be like anyone who lived a few centuries ago - it's actually so much easier being yourself!
> 
> If your methods work for you - and evidently they do! - then carry on. I preferred the sonata to the preludes I heard on your soundstream - and I liked _them _a lot! But you seem further along the timeline with this, more ambition and scope and exciting changes of pace and colour. How long did this take to compose, as a matter of interest?
> 
> :tiphat:


3 months, kind of.

I wrote the introduction and the exposition of M1 on April 15th, half of M1's development, M2 up until about halfway through the fugue (bar 41) and M3 until a little bit into the development (bar 66) on April 16th.

The rest of it progressed much more slowly between then and July 17th when I finished the music itself. I only worked on it about once every one or two weeks during this time.

It took me until July 17th until now to get around to tidying up the score, make the video, etc.



rarevinyllibrary said:


> Obviously not ,neither Schubert nor Liszt.I suggest the following title :the "hobby " sonata


Love it .


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## Pennypacker

If you're writing just for fun, then great for you. The midi sound is actually pretty good (what program is that?), and you can enjoy it for what it is. But if you wish to have your pieces performed then I agree with Yardrax. I doubt any pianist would take upon him to learn this. In terms of technique there are works that are harder than this one, but good writing usually has a certain pattern that makes it easier for the fingers to follow the score. This piece is just too random in that aspect and it will take a LONG time to learn.


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## StevenOBrien

Pennypacker said:


> If you're writing just for fun, then great for you. The midi sound is actually pretty good (what program is that?), and you can enjoy it for what it is. But if you wish to have your pieces performed then I agree with Yardrax. I doubt any pianist would take upon him to learn this. In terms of technique there are works that are harder than this one, but good writing usually has a certain pattern that makes it easier for the fingers to follow the score. This piece is just too random in that aspect and it will take a LONG time to learn.


It's the Modern Upright from XLN Audio, which is a sampled Yamaha U3 (I think the sonata sounds better with the brighter tone and directness of an upright). Keep in mind though that I EQ it, pass the sound through several different reverbs (to simulate different microphone positions), run it through a tape simulator and a mastering plugin.

If you want more suggestions, I'd also recommend _anything_ from Imperfect Samples and Acousticsamples.

I'll be writing a few blogs outlining my DAW setup in the near future, and talking about what samples I use most often, if you're interested. Just keep an eye on my Twitter/Facebook and you'll see it in the coming weeks.


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## Pennypacker

Didn't understand a word you said.  I'm just a regular piano, paper & pencil guy, using MuseScore for notation. I guess I'll be more interested in this when I'll be writing chamber and symphonic stuff.


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## StevenOBrien

Pennypacker said:


> Didn't understand a word you said.  I'm just a regular piano, paper & pencil guy, using MuseScore for notation. I guess I'll be more interested in this when I'll be writing chamber and symphonic stuff.


Oh . http://www.xlnaudio.com/products/view/36


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## Mahlerian

You put a lot of contrasts in your music, which is good. Music needs contrast. But we need to be convinced that any outward contrast (in texture, in dynamics, in tempo) is related to the underlying elements of the piece: form, motivic development, and harmony. When I listen to this music, I hear those outward contrasts, but I don't always hear a reason for them, so I get lost trying to figure out on a musical level why this or that happened. I think that's what's leading a few people here to say it sounds thrown together, despite the connections between the moments. We can hear that they're related, but not necessarily that they are joined together as part of a continuous whole.


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## StevenOBrien

Mahlerian said:


> You put a lot of contrasts in your music, which is good. Music needs contrast. But we need to be convinced that any outward contrast (in texture, in dynamics, in tempo) is related to the underlying elements of the piece: form, motivic development, and harmony. When I listen to this music, I hear those outward contrasts, but I don't always hear a reason for them, so I get lost trying to figure out on a musical level why this or that happened. I think that's what's leading a few people here to say it sounds thrown together, despite the connections between the moments. We can hear that they're related, but not necessarily that they are joined together as part of a continuous whole.


Interesting. Very thought provoking criticism.

Do you by any chance have any reading material to suggest to me on this matter?


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## Mahlerian

StevenOBrien said:


> Interesting. Very thought provoking criticism.
> 
> Do you by any chance have any reading material to suggest to me on this matter?


Only that you read scores that you personally love and try to pay attention to what you think works about them. Also, read scores for works you don't necessarily appreciate and try to understand what is attractive about them to others.

The main thing is trying to develop a good sense for what works, and the only way to really do that is practice! Keep at it!


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## StevenOBrien

Mahlerian said:


> Only that you read scores that you personally love and try to pay attention to what you think works about them. Also, read scores for works you don't necessarily appreciate and try to understand what is attractive about them to others.
> 
> The main thing is trying to develop a good sense for what works, and the only way to really do that is practice! Keep at it!


I do, every single day, and I don't really understand your comment entirely, which is why I'd like to hear more thoughts about it.

When composing, I use my senses to tell when contrast is required and when previous material needs to be either developed or moved on from. The reason is always "Because if I continue on like this, the listener's interest (the benchmark being my own) will be lost, and I need to give them something new and appropriately different to keep their (my) interest.". Is that not a valid musical reason? Do you think I should be concerned about something else?


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## Mahlerian

It may just be that your sense and mine do not align. Different people are attracted to different things. What I hear as a break in syntax may be perfectly acceptable in your own personal musical grammar.

My only other suggestion would be to not become so attached to a section that you can't discard it if you feel, at all, that it isn't working. You were talking about the introduction to the first movement not fitting with the rest, but you were reluctant to discard it because you had developed everything out of it. That's great, but the listener doesn't necessarily need it, do they? The connections between the various parts should still be clear even if that introduction, like a sketch, was not itself used.

I understand that you've been working on this for a while, and believe me, it shows compared to some other compositions people post that were put together in a matter of minutes. But that doesn't mean it couldn't benefit from revision. Remember, even masters will turn to their works, sometimes the products of years' labor, and tweak them after the fact.


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## StevenOBrien

Mahlerian said:


> It may just be that your sense and mine do not align. Different people are attracted to different things. What I hear as a break in syntax may be perfectly acceptable in your own personal musical grammar.
> 
> My only other suggestion would be to not become so attached to a section that you can't discard it if you feel, at all, that it isn't working. You were talking about the introduction to the first movement not fitting with the rest, but you were reluctant to discard it because you had developed everything out of it. That's great, but the listener doesn't necessarily need it, do they? The connections between the various parts should still be clear even if that introduction, like a sketch, was not itself used.
> 
> I understand that you've been working on this for a while, and believe me, it shows compared to some other compositions people post that were put together in a matter of minutes. But that doesn't mean it couldn't benefit from revision. Remember, even masters will turn to their works, sometimes the products of years' labor, and tweak them after the fact.


Well, from what I've seen from your posts, we're both avid listeners of Mozart, whose musical grammar I respect more than anyone else's and try to take from as much as possible, so I'm interested to hear more from you about this.

If you have the time, would you be able to point out some examples from the sonata of these breaks in syntax and explain why? I'm not asking you to point out every single occurrence, but I'd like to understand what you're talking about a little more .

You give very good advice on not holding onto sections. It's advice I would give myself, but following it myself is not so easy for some reason. I will try to, though.


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## ricardo_jvc6

When I listen to this song, I think the world is ending into a bizzare *cluster----* because of the clusters being played so fast and the fast-tempos which is likely impossible to play. You need a hell of pianist to play this! I think Liszt, would start as wreck in dam and then outwards the end he would ended it fantastically! That is the way I see it... Not bad for a Sonata, the contrast needs to feel the emotions correctly. I think it lacks the purpose of what it is supposed to be played on. Music is supposed to be fun to play but don't overdo or abuse since it turns out to be awfully ridiculous or considerably stupid, I once created songs like these, which were my first since I loved to do experiments. It was fun but not professional, because It doesn't sound real. The Computer is doing but not the player, how can you be certain if this piece will be correctly played in your way but not in the way of the pianist. I think this song has all the potential to be some sort of esque Beethoven mixed considerably ammount of times with John Cage. Try to read some books about Composition in Harmony, because I think it is bit errant to do. You great potential and I can't wait to see your next song.

This makes me party hard and dance. "Harlem Shake".


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## Op.123

Very fun to listen to.


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