Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Composer's Lounge My first composition: So far away

Hi

I've been playing piano for about a year now and about 3 years before I took a break. I finally thought I'll try to write a piece. I wanted to write something that showcases the emotions that go through a person, when they go to meet someone they miss a lot, spend some time with them and have to return back. Let me know how I can improve and any other frank feedbacks.

Link to my blog

Hope you like it .

Cheers

Hi Mohan,

For a first composition that is very good, I liked the photo also - did you take it yourself. You asked for suggestions for how to make it better so here is what I noticed, in the first 50 seconds you establish an idea and develop it nicely. The next two minutes are so are less interesting for me because you switch to a second phrase and repeat it a few times with variations, then do the same for a third and fourth phrase - it would have been better to keep developing the initial theme. The last minute is really nice also.

@Chris: Thank you! I was looking for something exactly like that!
Did you feel the disconnect between the phases powerfully? Here is the justification I gave myself when I put in the different phases. The idea was borrowed from a movie called 5 centimeters per second (Its an anime). So the hero of the movie goes to meet his girlfriend, he meets her and then has to return. So I thought that the song should begin sad, move slowly to happy, increasing in tempo and in tone, and have a bit of a happy section in the middle and then pause, and return back to the sad section.

Now after having this idea, I started with the titanic melody, and noodled around it to get the opening melody. But I was lost at how I can make that melody itself evolve into the above story. So instead I just fit in different melody sections into the storyline and tried to make them gel as much as possible.

So my questions to you are
1) How does one "develop" a melody? Other than just playing what comes to the mind and fitting it in, is there standard methodologies with which you can develop a melody?
2) Is doing separate phrases and connecting them a bad idea? If so why? If not, what advice would you give to connect them smoothly.
3) Are there any literature for beginner composers to read and learn from other than general music theory.
4) This is a request to the moderators. Is it possible for us to have a repo of compositions by the excellent composers here, along with a brief note on how they composed, what was running in their head when they composed it and so on. I find a lot of My Composition threads, but I dont find any overall index which newbies like me would very much appreciate.

Thanks again for the feedback Chris .

PS: No the picture, was just a wallpaper. I thought it fit the theme very well.

Very nice, Mohan .

After reading your description, I was expecting the music to evolve into, perhaps, E major, for the 'meeting' part of the story, to convey an uplifting mood, then reverting to C# minor, for the parting, but that's just my view, as a complete amateur, so take no notice.
Keep on composing! It's the greatest feeling to know that you have created something that is unique

Rob

Oh, that was pretty, Mohan! I'm very impressed. I actually liked the second theme that started at 0:50... it communicated a sense of urgent longing, if that makes any sense. It was at the 1:30-2:00ish mark where it sounded a little too repetitive to me. But then the variation around 2:38 and later was very effective. I liked the abrupt let-off and then soft reprise at the end a lot, too; very reminiscent of Einaudi!

All this advice is worth exactly nothing, as I have no compositional background whatsoever. But I do listen to a lot of this style of music and know what I like--and I liked your piece.

Hi again Mohan,

There's nothing wrong with using different phrases as long as it's clear how they relate to one another and that when you put everything together it all feels like a unified composition. Contrasting sections can be very effective especially if the end of the first section foreshadows or otherwise prepares the listener for the next section. When I was listening to the middle two minutes I felt that there were several points where section X would be repeated and then be followed by section Y ( also repeated ) but it was not clear as a listener how section Y followed on from section X - section Y felt like it was more of a beginning of a piece than a continuation of what went before. Overall though I think you have done really well with this piece.

None needed. In fact, it's probably better since you're listening as a listener and not as a composer.

@ROB: I like what I'm hearing. But I'm a total amateur when it comes to music theory. I guess I'll have to spend more time with general music theory to learn how to "evolve".

@Monica: . Thank you Monica! Yes, the abrupt ending was a direct lift-off from Nefeli. I thought it fitted the theme very well. An urgent sense was exactly what I was trying to communicate. So I'm happy that the emotion is visible .

@Chris: That makes sense. I guess I'll have to listen to a lot more modern compositions and "learn" how to stitch pieces together.

@ewwiss: Totally agree. Especially for someone who I think has listened and played every Enuadi (Monica, i'm talking about u :P).

@all: Thanks for the wonderful encouragements. I'll definitely keep trying .