Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Composer's Lounge New composition: "View From A Window"

Hi,

Thought I'd share my latest effort with the good folk on this forum. It's a deliberate departure from my previous work, which has been almost exclusively jazz/blues for the last few years. Here, I've gone for a kind of 'modern romantic' style.

Comments welcome!

http://soundcloud.com/ben-crosland/view-from-a-window

I enjoyed that very much.
Your description fits the piece perfectly.

Lovely piece Ben. Thanks for sharing it here.

Thanks

Well done, Ben!

Lovely, relaxing, not too complicated – so I didn’t get lost,
and not too simple – so I didn’t get bored.

Really nice balance – as my Parisian evening draws to a close..

Thanks for sharing.. please post some more like this

PS
I really like your Blue Skies Boogie, too, although quite a different style

Thanks, Maharishi! I am going to try to compose more music in this genre. It could be a long time in the making, however, as ideas come when they come - I am not a trained composer, and have to rely almost entirely on inspiration, which can be very sporadic, unfortunately!

I really appreciate the encouragement, though

I like it very much. A nice, delicate, melodic piece very expressively and fluidly played.

The first bar or two had me starting to think this would be a simple little ditty, then the more interesting harmonies started and you had me. You've managed to combine enough harmonic and pianistic sophistication with some heartfelt tenderness and made it sound effortless. Very nice job.

That's delightful, young chap. It's almost a fast ragtime piece with the so-called "stride" feel in the left hand.

I enjoyed that. Thanks for posting. Keep up the good work.

Regards,

Sorry to resurrect this thread, but since I had so much positive feedback from you folks the first time round, I thought I'd share this with you.

http://soundcloud.com/ben-crosland/view-from-a-window-redux

Basically, I revisited this piece recently, as a student of mine wants to use it for her GCSE performance assessment. This meant having to score it for her, and then the inevitable tweaks started happening The net result is that large sections of the piece have been changed quite considerably from before, and I'm fairly certain that the changes are for the better.

I would, however, appreciate the critique of anyone willing to listen again - as I'm sure many of you know; any change in a composition can have a knock-on effect, both forward and backwards in time, and when you have so many subtly different versions floating around in your head, it can get a little cloudy as to which are the best solutions, sometimes!

Anyhow, I think this is working now, and there are no longer any moments in there where I'm thinking "That'll do", whereas before there were several (mostly in the LH part).

I will have a finished version of the score available soon. I plan to try and sell it on my website, eventually, but I'll be happy to part with a few copies beforehand, if you're interested in checking it out, and maybe helping proof-read it.

Thanks

Hi Ben

I recently came across your Get Set Jazz seies and wondered if you would be prepared to send me a copy of View From A Window as you mention in your posting. This is ideal for my teenage children who all play piano. I live in Nottingham now, but grew up in Warndon, Worcester, so it was really nice to discover some composition talent from "home".

Thanks

Ben I only vaguely recall the original. Is this version tamer? It's certainly a very nice piece, but I'm a fan of whacky and there's no whacky in this, only a few piquant moments. I like this piece, but based on my first post I think I may have liked the original better.

@fuzzball - I'd be more than happy to send you a copy, but I'll need a few of days to bring it up to scratch. I've been meaning to do it for some time now, so I'm glad for the motivation

@Steve - actually, I have only added more counterpoint and harmonic variation, so in that respect it is definitely not tamer. I did, however, play this version at a significantly more laid-back tempo than the original, and remember thinking at the time that it maybe wasn't optimal, but decided to just go with that take anyway. There was never any "whacky" in there, that's for sure

Anyway - thanks for the feedback!

I like this piece too Ben. I purchased your 'Blue Skies Boogie' and would buy this one as well....I can figure it out by ear but sight-reading is a lot easier...let me know when it's available....these are catchy, simple and what I hear as very sophisticated playing and arranging.

rada

Thanks, rada I'll let you know as soon as it's done!

We have Get Set Jazz 4-7. Unfortunately my kids had passed grade 5 by the time we discovered the books.

I have sent you a personal email via the musicgrove email address. I hope that is ok.