i have been working on a composition for a couple of hours, and am unsure if i should continue. unfortunatly due to my copy of sibelius not fully working i can only provide the score.



thanks for any advice in advance

Zac

Have you actually played this on the piano? The stretch in the left hand for the last chord in the left hand is beyond the capability of most pianists -- that takes a really large hand. The same is true for the first left hand chord in measure 5. The grace note run in measure 3 is awkward.

This sounds like something that was composed directly into Sibelius rather than on a piano and, as a result, doesn't actually work well on the piano.

As for whether or not you should continue -- that's entirely up to you. I have no idea what the inspiration behind the composition is so I can't speak to why you would continue or quit. If, however, you hope to have people play it on the piano, I think you need to reconsider what you have already written.

Ed

There's no way I can tell you whether to continue or not based on only 5 and a half measures. Tell us more about what kind of piece you want this to end up as, what other ideas you have for it, how you envision the rest of the piece, etc...

Just looking at what you have, yeah, there might be some promising ideas and things that can be done with what you've started, but it's way too skeletal and preliminary to know if you should continue on with it or not...

It sounds as though you are stuck. Instead of trying to write from start to finish, perhaps write the middle part now, where you want it to end up, and then fill in the space between the beginning and the middle.

Not all ideas are great, either. Do you think this is a great idea? Or are you keeping it because you spent some time on it? Don't be afraid to throw things away that aren't excellent, or aren't working for you at this time.

i nactually composed it on piano and then transfered it into sibelius. i think i'll let this one go, thanks for your help.

Zac

When I get stuck, I just add it to my "stuck - revisit" later file. It's around 75-80 pages and growing fast...

Actually, there's nothing unplayable about this score. The huge stretches are in fact overlapping the other, more comfortable hand, and excess notes can be transferred across the staff. As for the grace notes, I don't actually know what your intention is (grace notes and rubato'ed ornaments look similar).

But as Ed has hinted, I would suggest that you try this composition on the piano. In fact, I'd go further: don't use Sibelius at all for the moment. Just manuscript paper and pencil. Then, instead of experimentally clicking on staves on the screen, experiment on the real keyboard. Then if something pleases you, it will be because it sounds great and is playable! See if you can rekindle your inspiration by doing this.

Aside: my high school Maths teacher told our class that the first thing to achieving an A was to "throw away your calculator". I agreed with him totally, and similarly, I would urge anyone to make progress in piano composition to "throw away notation softwares". For piano composers, I personally think they're only used for notation (and JUST notation), not for composition. Sibelius can't be a better pianist than you are.

And I agree with Kreisler too: file "stuck" stuff together. More than once I have managed to put "stuck A" and "stuck B" together and create a great piece!

Keep going