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snowy night

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I've been working on getting better at piano improvisation. Here's a short piece that I wrote. It was done in a single take with no planning ahead of time. I did make a few adjustments once I finished though, just to get rid of a few small errors.

EDIT to add some trailing silence in the end.

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Very beautiful

I honestly feel that your piano stuff is my most favourite and just beautiful, so really nice work on this tune its very nice indeed, I can see this used in a number of movies and games it has that quality that would be used in many things, keep up the beautiful piano stuff.

~X~

Well, to begin with, that name is really fitting imo.

I'm also really impressed that this is an improvisation, although, I would say it shows. The melodies are amazing, but every now and then you can hear a brake that is slightly too long. Of course, those brakes can help with portraying the emotion, but sometimes I'd say they are a bit out of place. Nothing you can do about it since it's an improv. (Well, except run the midi file through a program and edit a bit, but maybe you did that already. Too much editing would take away part of the beauty of an improvisation though!).
That climax was just perfect! And that you managed to play it with such emotion is just astounding.
I don't dare complain any more than that; my own improvisations are rarely this good, and the very few that are are not recorded -.-

Thank you for recommending this, I really did enjoy it!

5/5, 9/10!

P.s. Was that pause after the climax (1:42-1:47) intentional or not? Anyhow, it really suits the mood :D

johnfn responds:

Wow derp I forgot to respond to this entirely...

Anyway thanks for the review! Yeah it is a little messy... good job being the first one to catch some of my more subtle mistakes ;-) I *could* have fixed all the issues... but I feel like that would have taken away something of the rawness of the improv. (Also... I guess I'm just lazy.)

I think the pause was intentional. I actually can't remember, but listening to it now it fits pretty well, so gonna just say I did it on purpose :)

Thanks for the review!

Hey dude, the soft melody and how it goes really makes me remember and cherish moments I had in my past. The improvisation is really emotion provoking and subtle.

If it's not much to ask, I would like to ask your permission to use this song for a video of mine that I will submit to a contest, since (for now) it would totally fit on my theme of the movie. I would include this on my credits as your work, and leave a link to this page if I get to post it online after that.

Hope to hear from you soon.

johnfn responds:

Oh cool! Yeah, go ahead! If you ever release it online feel free to shoot me a link to it. I always like seeing where my stuff ends up. :)

Not every musician as the ability to improvise. However, this beautiful composition indicates that you have a talent I can only envy. Wonderful job at this improvisation. The climax that arcs from 1:14 to 1:36 was beautifully expressed.

At 2:11 it seems that you may have attempted to paint a harmony but changed your mind at the last second. It was the only time I felt the flow was not as smooth as the rest of the composition.

Other than that, marvelous work.

johnfn responds:

Ah, it's just a lot of practice. I used to be SO bad at this, let me tell you.

Glad you called out the climax, I got really excited when I played that haha.

Yeah 2:11 is an editing error! Bad playing. Thanks for the review :)

After reading first the comments about the ending, I was expecting it be...well different in a way that was bad. I have to comment that the very last chord was a little surprising but only because of your voice leading. I found it to be very satisfying though. Different strokes for different folks and so that is why I had to balance the critique on your ending by writing this.

The piece is in F Major even though it does have a "sad" tone to it. Perhaps it's because you seem to outline the minor third and sixth chord quite a bit, but if it helps anyone to understand why the last chord was chosen it's probably because it's the tonic chord. Something you would expect in a chord progression. Perhaps others would have wanted a more open-ended type ending to match the mystique that the piece seems to convey throughout.
I will say that I was surprised how you played the A in the melody right after the note E for the ending. Typically at the end, one would hear the E resolve a half-step up, but you changed it, and that is what I felt was most satisfying. The piece doesn't lose its integrity because you decided to resolve the progression to "home." Composers have used melody or bass lines to feign to the listener certain moods by using the ascending or descending melodic contour. Because the melody went down to an A instead of your expected F above it implies a certain meaning which I have understood it emotionally to mean a more somber approach opposed to the alternative that you could have chosen.

johnfn responds:

Ahhh, a music theory guy! Reading that was a delight!

I think the secret to the sadness comes from the 11th in the melody on top of the vi chord, it really adds an extra sophistication to the 6th, which is already pretty sad as is. The emphasis that the vi gets is probably why people want to end there. Still, glad the ending is getting some support haha

And yeah I really like descending to the third on top of a chord, sounds like home :)

Credits & Info

Artist

Listens
3,318
Faves:
17
Downloads
178
Votes
15
Score
4.56 / 5.00

Uploaded
Dec 10, 2013
8:36 PM EST
File Info
Song
2.3 MB
2 min 33 sec

Licensing Terms

Please contact me if you would like to use this in a project. We can discuss the details.