This is my first piece. I might expand on it, but it is what it is I guess.

http://musescore.com/joel_w/prelude#comments

Oh come on... you should've waited... It's Christmas...

Now, onto some comments.

1. It's VERY difficult to play it at that tempo, you know that, right? It's not an easy piece by any account.

2. About articulations and slurs... hmmm... It's rather tricky, so you have a point that you couldn't decide on what to do. Perhaps it's best of you left it as is.

For me personally I think that there's a lack of legato slurs... If the tempo was slower, I would've filled each page with slurs (every beat, or every bar, or every phrase or other), but since it's so fast it seems almost irrelevant to do something like that.

3. Dynamics: You want a whole prelude at mp|? It seems unfair to any kind of music 'sculpting' on could do. There's so many ups and downs and there is a sort of a repetition that you could take advantage of.

4. music and harmony wise I think that it works very much. Some bars are unexpected which makes it even more interesting. Overall it's short and never gets away from home, like you were scared to leave further than 5 feet, but as a short example of a prelude (that IS complete, I don't mind that it's short...), I think it simply works very well...

Thanks for posting, thanks for sharing and for the PM and very well done.

Merry Christmas also (it's already Christmas here in Greece)

Thanks, Nikolas. And merry Christmas to you too!

I will be the first to admit that my ability to place markings is horrible. How do I improve this? I took a theory class in my sophomore year of high school but my training stopped there.

Well,

The thing is that you need to 'picture' in your head (or play it anyhow) and see what it is you're doing. How is it that you're phrasing it? Are you doing it per bar, per phrase (every 2 bars for example), or in some other way, that will shape your music in more detail? For example you could be phrasing the first beat of each bar together, thus making it a bit more like a waltz (sort of), or you could be doing other things...

Then you also need to consider the direction (musically) of your music. Is there a section that's the culprit of the whole prelude? Is there a special section that means 'more' for you than the rest of the music? Is there the place where the audience will go "AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHh.... THERE IT IS!!!!" and so on...? Or perhaps it's something that you can hum along and thus shape it according to what you're humming or whistling or other.

Hope this helps a tiny bit...

I have edited the score a bit. Click that same link to view it. It doesn't look very nice IMO (I partially blame MuseScore), but it sounds more like what I'm hearing in my head. (of course it's MIDI.. how good could it be..)

If you have any tips about cleaning up the score without compromising the intent, that would be really cool.

I think it's very good and has interesting passing notes. But I don't think it is a convincing prelude. I think it's a very convincing waltz!

Thanks. I think it sounds much to busy to be a waltz, and to be honest a waltz wasn't what I had in mind at all. It is what it is. Perhaps I should just give names to my pieces instead!

Joel,

I like what you have done so far. If I disregard the final (pp) measure, this is just BEGGING for a contrasting "B" section -- that smooth and legato portion that Nikolas is looking for - dotted half-notes, dotted half-notes tied over the bar lines, halfs, and flowing quarters, with the same underlying, quick 3/4. And then, a recapitulation, almost verbatim of your original "A" section.

Presto changeo = prelude!
Ed