Dreaming of

There's nothing jumping out in a bad way harmonically or in terms of the modulations, not that I can easily pick out from a few listens at least.

However, I wasn't particularly engaged by the piece, and I think that has to do with the performance. That might sound like the wrong thing to focus on, but compare it to writing a nice poem and then reciting it in a very monotonous tone. Your writing could be excellent, but the emotions are not going to land. I am not talking about the samples here but the expression. The current performance sounds very quantized, with the exception of one slight rubato somewhere near the start. In terms of dynamics, there's p at the start and end, and the rest of the piece is mf-ish. Combined, it makes for a fairly flat performance and therefore doesn't really land - at least not with me. Was the midi drawn in or quantized at some point? The title is "dreaming of", but I am not yet feeling the dreamy or yearning part, even though I can hear it is harmonically in the right world for that.

So if I had to give feedback, it would be to work out the performance. Spend a bit more time on where to stretch and where to squash (tempo-wise), where to rise and where to fall (dynamics-wise). Don't do it for me, don't do it for the sound, do it so you can discover how you are trying to say this piece.

My gut feeling is that by focusing on the expression you will be led to make a few changes here and there, particularly in the left hand. You're a little beat one heavy on the chords and you tend to play them outright, smack on the beat. By performing, you might roll into them more, or outline them a different way (maybe through a counterline rather than a block chord).

Just to be abundantly clear: I think there is a nice piece here, but the delivery needs a bit of work and I think that if you focus on the expression, you will automatically be led in certain directions that will help make the most of this piece.

 

I've been wanting to comment on this piece for a while but I've been struggling to try and put my thoughts into words. Will give it a shot though.

I think the main idea that you start off with is a good one. It's nice and simple and you can take it to a lot of places. However, I think that by the 50 second mark onwards you start to lose me with all your chord progressions. It's like you're trying to make it seem like the piece is moving along but it doesn't really feel like it has a sense of direction and it's quite frustrating, especially considering the idea starts off so simple. I think there are a lot more effective ways you could go about moving the melody forward that would be a lot more satisfying to listen to. I'm not sure if you've seen the course on structure, but in that class Mike tells 2 different stories. One of an apple which has a clear beginning, middle and end, and then a story about a prince. The prince story has a lot of stuff happening but you're left going "okay? then what? where is this going? what is this leading to?"

Also, at around 46 seconds when you start adding in the harmonies, I'm a little confused. When you lead up to it it sounds like you're about to continue your A theme but instead it kind of goes into a different direction. You have the same rhythmic pattern as before which is good, but the intervals and note directions go in a way that I wasn't expecting and was a little jarring considering how you set it up. So it's kind of the same idea but it's also not really the same idea. Let me know if that made any sense.

I would highly recommend sitting at the piano and transcribing the Back to the Future them and the theme for E.T. I've been doing that recently and once you see what's going on you'll kick yourself when you realise how simple the structure of those pieces are. I mean I've been transcribing the full orchestra for the BBTF theme with the omnimusic publishing book and there's so many times I went "copy, paste, transpose" in musescore as I'm transcribing, check the book and it's pretty much bang on minus 1 or 2 details. I started laughing while I was doing it, I couldn't believe how simple it was when you really break it down.

Also maybe try this little excersise, I'm sure Mike has mentioned these before. Try and see where you can take your main theme without changing the bass notes. Just use 1 bass note, see where you can develop your idea. You can move the melody notes around etc but not the bass note. It sounds limiting, but you will be surprised what you can do. Then, once you've done that, see what you can do by changing chords.

I tried improvising a few ideas on your melody just to give you some more ideas on where you could take this cause I do think you can do a lot with it.

https://u.pcloud.link/publink/show?code=XZNBBuVZLAIPsthrbHyBwz9hyuSknXAgCJB7

Hope this helps.

 

Hey Michael,

No problem at all haha as long as you think you learned something from it!

This is a huge improvement over the first version for sure! There are a few niggly things at the beggining that I think could be refined a little though, some of which I learned from when Mike gave me feedback on my own pieces in unleashed!

from 2:02 - 2:36 ish it starts to get a little bit clunky again. There's some nice ideas in there but it's all structured in a way that makes it all feel a bit mushy. Maybe if you spread these moments out in other places or cut a few of them.

When I have time, I'll try and record a video of the parts that I personally think aren't working just now and maybe some ideas on how to refine them a little better. It's all stuff I'm guilty of myself!

But good job on taking the time to refine it! I really mean it. You can start to see the statue form out of the marble!

 

Tried to record some feedback for you, hopefully it helps and isn't just rambling.

https://u.pcloud.link/publink/show?code=XZPfgfVZ8dbbRsOT7mB1Gq9XUarEKpvtUPKV

 

Still feeling like the 2 min mark onwards is feeling a bit clunky compared to the first half. Mike might be able to help more with this in unleashed if you choose to submit this piece.

What I would do just now is put this on the back burner for now and if you are up for a wee challenge, I would say try and make a new piece no longer than 2mins and make it as simple as you possibly can. It can be either a basic structure like AABA, a simpler chord progression etc but keep it really simple for now and try and take everything you've learned from this piece with you into the next one.

I'm thinking if you can get a short and sweet little piece that's a real ear worm then maybe it can develop into something more complex like I think you're trying to do with this one.

Let me know what you think.

 

Definitely agree with this. It will drive you crazy going over the same piece, trying to make it work and getting frustrated in the process. Start afresh with a blank piece of manuscript or maybe spend some time doing transcriptions and come back in a few months with a clear head. You may find that you end up persuing different ideas and don't feel the need to develop this further after all.

 

I'm probably not the best at analysing more complex pieces like the race since I can't write like that myself, but I wouldn't say that Mike deviates from the original melody very quickly. The first minute of the piece is essentially the same theme repurposed for an entire minute but it's undoubtedly the same idea, and as he is developing those themes as he is changing one aspect of the piece another aspect will stay the same which acts as an anchor point so the listener doesn't get completely lost. This could be rhythm, chords, orchestration etc. And he does come back to the same themes throughout the piece, so the first theme he introduces he brings back after the B theme so it's not just a random idea to start the piece off.

Not sure if I've explained that very well, I could aslo be wrong too.

I agree, it does get easy to try and show off a bit, but in order to show off we need to really master the basics before we can do the show off stuff successfully and that will take quite a while. And remember, basic doesn't mean it's bad! And sometimes the stuff that sounds complex is actually very basic! I used to think the Back to the Future score was super complex until I started studying it.

If you are looking to achieve something similar to the race have you done a transcription of it yet? I'm sure there's a class where the score is included. If that's the kind of thing you are aiming for then start transcribing that and figure it out on the piano. There you will figure out more about the structure of the piece and realise "okay so this part is the same as that part and the only thing that's changed is this" etc etc.