My Piano Album (Your Reviews Wanted)

[nakulanb]

https://on.soundcloud.com/8hNwo

I'd love any and all thoughts.

[relm1]

Has a dreamy, summer quality to it but a bit too repetitive and missing development.  Without a sense of structure, it is difficult to sense passing time.  Sometimes this is good – some music is long, but you don't feel it because it is always moving somewhere.  In contrast, some music is short but feels long because you can't tell where it is going.  Generally, structure in your music will help give it a sense of forward motion – there is a beginning, and it develops through the middle and reaches a satisfying and hopefully well earned conclusion.  A good test for this is just listen to a few seconds of a very taut work – a Beethoven sonata for example.  In a few seconds you can tell where you are in the piece – is it the start, the middle, near the climax at the end?  Generally, he's using established form which does have a primary idea, but also a contrasting idea.  These two ideas might be in conflict and through a development section (exploring the material and expanding on it harmonically, rhythmically, melodically) the piece reaches maximum tension before you get a grand version of the primary idea (the recapitulation) and maybe here, the contrasting theme is now supporting or somehow there has been a transformation.  Obviously, you don't need to do something like that plus I don't think it would fit your approach but there are elements from that you can borrow that help give your music more structure and a sense of forward motion.  Good luck!

[nakulanb]

Thanks for the thoughtful response!  I feel the steady dynamics, repetition and piece lengths make it meditative.

[nakulanb]

I'm expressing stillness, like chanting ohm, and that is the opposite of trying to convey motion.  I think that's why I love Satie so much, there isn't a lot of forward motion in it; it is still.

[relm1]

Thanks for the thoughtful response!  I feel the steady dynamics, repetition and piece lengths make it meditative.

Keep in mind that meditative pieces have structure too!  For example, this meditative Debussy piece has very strong structure and is worth studying it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yh36PaE-Pf0

Don't underestimate structure. 

[nakulanb]

It has a simple pop structure of ababca or something along those lines.

[nakulanb]

I don't find that Debussy or most Classical meditative, at least the way I'd like it to be.  The melodies are often too complex as well as the rhythms, and the dynamic fluctuations also provoke the stillness I want to achieve.