So finally tried making a classical piano song. . .

[RoadRunner79]

I really like it. Get someone to play it live, which will give it even more character and I think your good. It has some nice change ups, that fit well together. I wish I had that talent?

[drfuzzy]

I have degrees in piano performance.  I like it.  Can I get a copy?
Elements of Bach in your primary section.  -- A tad repetitive, but if you play it live you can bring out the melody more and the triplets don't get grating.
Bits of Chopin in the middle.  You like your chromatics and flourishes!  Nice job.

[RoadRunner79]

I have degrees in piano performance.  I like it.  Can I get a copy?
Elements of Bach in your primary section.  -- A tad repetitive, but if you play it live you can bring out the melody more and the triplets don't get grating.
Bits of Chopin in the middle.  You like your chromatics and flourishes!  Nice job.

That was going to be my only criticism. The repetition at the beginning is a little long. Still cool, but I started to fear that the whole thing was just going to be that.

[Homeless Nutter]

I actually have a music degree, but I haven't really tried to write serious piano music since college.  To be honest, it was a LOT harder than I thought, both the composing and getting the darned composing software to look right (almost there) and sound right (MIDI will probably never be satisfying, I guess).  I think I'll have to pay some 10 year-old Korean kid to learn it, because it's a little too hard for me! [...]

Getting natural piano sound while using MIDI is quite tricky - any "real" instrument, really. It's almost impossible when using notation, which is designed to be interpreted and "humanized" by the performer. I imagine there might be plugins, which add some variation in velocity and timing, but I don't know for sure, especially that I have virtually no knowledge of Sibelius. I do know, however, that most modern sequencers have some options for adding human feel to programmed parts, as do some virtual instruments.

There are ways to do it manually - other than actually play it (perhaps at a lower speed and/or in small bits). It mainly comes down to using a good quality piano patch, with a lot of dynamic sample layers per key, and then slightly varying velocity of each note, in piano roll editor, so that consecutive notes don't play the exact same sample, at the exact same level, every time. Shifting the timing of each note by a small, but varied number of ticks (so that it's almost imperceivable) also helps to hide the machine-like feel.

It can be a lot of work, though, especially with classical music (or any music with lots of notes, as opposed to pop, or dance music, where most instrumental parts are a few bars long), unless you use randomization algorythms available in sequencers, which can often yield unpredictable (though - luckily - reversable) results. Either way - it needs a good ear and some practice. And at the end of the day - if you can get someone to play it on a MIDI keyboard, or better yet - record a performance on an accoustic instrument, it's usually preferable.

The tune itself sounds good to me, although I'm far from an expert on this kind of music.

[Little lunch]

Fucking brilliant.
Bennyboy, I have a new respect for you, sir.

[bennyboy]

I don't know shit about music but why would anything you just created qualify as classical?

I'm feeling the love! 

Classical technically means archaic, as in having Greek philosophical leanings-- especially being very formal.

In music, Classical technically refers to Haydn , Mozart, and early Beethoven.  This certainly wouldn't be a classical piece in that sense.

But my piece is classical in the sense that it's for piano, has for the most part traditional voice-leading, and a pretty simple ternary form in related keys.

[chimp3]

I don't know shit about music but why would anything you just created qualify as classical?

I'm feeling the love! 

Classical technically means archaic, as in having Greek philosophical leanings-- especially being very formal.

In music, Classical technically refers to Haydn , Mozart, and early Beethoven.  This certainly wouldn't be a classical piece in that sense.

But my piece is classical in the sense that it's for piano, has for the most part traditional voice-leading, and a pretty simple ternary form in related keys.

So.. you just wrote it  right!

[mlmooney89]

I like it!

[Minimalist]

Right, well I get what you're saying and I'm sorry it is ruined for you. But just saying that sometimes a more modern style acts as a gateway into classical music for anyone approaching from that modern direction. For instance, back in the day Robert Miles was very popular with young people... me included... a mixture of dance music and piano that has gone on to become standard 'lift music' fare in shopping centres ever since But from the perspective of a classical music only fan, like you, I doubt that would be appealing from what you've said... it certainly was repetitive... as dance music tends to be... so not a patch 'real' compositions... but still nonetheless a gateway into piano music. But at the end of the day, I don't know what else I can say other than you can't please everyone at the same time... but I get that if you've paid to see a show, and have certain expectations about it, then it makes sense that you should have 'right of way' as it were, and get what you've paid for... leaving anything experimental to perhaps free radio stations or whatever... so still a means to hook new listeners but not at the cost of whatever you pay to see a show.

Well, anyway.... what you wrote was far superior to Finding Rothko.  And to think it was your first try!






I could be wrong but it sounds as if the Kansas City Symphony is 3 morons with kazoos farting through them!

[bennyboy]

I have degrees in piano performance.  I like it.  Can I get a copy?
Elements of Bach in your primary section.  -- A tad repetitive, but if you play it live you can bring out the melody more and the triplets don't get grating.
Bits of Chopin in the middle.  You like your chromatics and flourishes!  Nice job.

Thanks so much.  I'm encouraged enough to comment about the style.

My "thing" is trying to use different genres as part of the musical vocabulary.  So some of the songs sound a little "off."  For example, the calmato  section sounds more like Debussy-- it feels a little out of context put right next to idiomatic Chopin writing.  And there are only a couple parts where there are actual chords with runs in parallel 3rds-- that's meant to be a little hint at Bach.

I think everyone was spot-on about the repetition in the first part.  It should be more pleasant with a proper performer, but it's also deliberately minimalistic-- when you finally get that Chopin bit, it's kind of "ahhh, finally something pleasant is happening." And this is where MIDI just fails horribly-- in a live performance, this part should be much more expressive-- tempo rubato and all that.

Anyway, thanks very much for your comments, I really got a lot of valuable feedback, and I feel really gratified right now!  Here's the score:

https://1drv.ms/b/s!AmUkXUwpI5Z2grleJ4N4w9N5cV92Vg

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Getting natural piano sound while using MIDI is quite tricky - any "real" instrument, really. It's almost impossible when using notation, which is designed to be interpreted and "humanized" by the performer. I imagine there might be plugins, which add some variation in velocity and timing, but I don't know for sure, especially that I have virtually no knowledge of Sibelius. I do know, however, that most modern sequencers have some options for adding human feel to programmed parts, as do some virtual instruments.

Yeah the actual performance is actually a WIP.  I'm pretty good at hand-editing notes to sound natural.  But this song has a LOT of notes!  I think it would take me about as much time to learn to play the piece, as to program it to sound played.  That doesn't mean it would be worth trying-- but yeah. . . it could very easily take more time to sequence it as it took me to write it.

I've done it in the past with violin, and it was MUCH easier just because of the reduced volume of notes you have to deal with.

Luckily for me, I live in Korea right now, and a local piano school director has found a top-notch student who wants to try and play it. Hopefully in a couple months, I'll have a live concert performance to link, and then I can die happy!

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I don’t know much about classical, but I thought that was pretty awesome!  Can you actually play that on a piano?

Thanks you so much!

I can play about 80% of it right now, with a fair amount of warm-up and if I'm having a good day mentally.  I'm thinking of recording it in parts and editing them together maybe, or cheating and playing them slowly and adjusting the volume by hand in MIDI.

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I'm no expert on classical music... my musical tastes are pretty much pick 'n' mix but I do like some of it, and where piano music is concerned I like Richard Clayderman and Rachmaninov... but that's about all I know. I thought your piece was pretty cool and reminds me much more of Rachmaninov than Clayderman... not just cos it's fast but also had a Rach feel about it at points. That's about all a philistine like me can say really ... well done for doing it anyway

To me, the Rach 2 and Rach 3 concertos are the pinnacle of piano writing.  You might get different, but I can't conceive of anything being better!