So Scottish (Piano Sketch)

In the first section of the piece I felt like the bass could been more interesting. It mostly felt like long notes. The bass line should have the same care as the melody although maybe it shouldn't take as much attention to it self as a melody. At around 1:16 it becomes more interesting. Also the melody seems to only be in the right hand would be nice to have it in the bass sometimes to have more variety in what range the melody is played. I like how you foreshadow the ending at 2:11

 

This is everything I think a tune should have, 1 established a pattern, 2. Guides the listener from A to B. And 3. repurposed material. Good job.

 

Orchestrate with the piano. What if the piece opens with the theme in the left hand, without accompaniment? Then half way through the initial statement, some sort of open chord on a couple accents? Or maybe a trill? The current opening seems unrelated... like you're about to embark on a Billy Joel cover or something.

The droning is an excellent incorporation of indigenous instruments (bag pipes). Good move there. Play with it more. And think about other musical devices inherent in ethnic music like call/response in the the different ranges of the piano, or inserting some grace notes. A solid pianist can also handle thirds in the melody pretty easily... do some of those. Mess with the duple rhythm as well... and break up the phrases so they don't all end on the down beats.

More dynamics as well. Soft... loud... needs contrast from section to section. It will help bring out different colors of the instrument.

 

I just dug up this old thing... A few years ago I used to play the youtube cover game, where a pop artist would drop a song, and in less than 5 hours I needed to have a cover of it written, filmed, and uploaded in order to get subs/views. I could get a few thousand each time I did it before the BIG youtubers would come in with their 100k+ subs and put me in the bottom of the search results.

Check out what I would do though. Listen how the melody is played in different registers... sometimes in the left hand, sometimes in the right. Listen to the dynamic contrast... or how accompaniment patterns transition from section to section. Or how I slowed down the "altro." This is "orchestrating" for the piano... and even though it's a stupid little melody/pop song, intelligent orchestrating can give it some additional interest. (and if I had a week or a month to do an arrangement of this melody, I could have all kinds of counter melodies, rhythmic fake outs, reharmonizations, and fun stuff... plus I'd probably play it a LOT better lol...)

Lastly, figure out ways to be able to do three or more things at once using only two hands. You will hear around 1:45 arpeggios in the right hand, and the left hand playing whole note chords and the melody all at the same time. Making textures like this creates a lot of interest.