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Modal Piano Sketch

Discussion in 'Critique & Feedback' started by Kyle Judkins, Jul 9, 2019.

  1. #21 Alexander Schiborr, Jul 12, 2019
    Last edited: Jul 12, 2019
    Imo interesting Rhythm is inherently connected to good or even great composition. A lot of great motifs contain very distinctive rhythm and you can identify some of the themes even just tapping their rhythm. If you don´t considering paying attention to rhythm you dimiss a whole lot of importants parts of your motif. Just my opinion of course, you can dismiss that if you feel different. But from my view rhythm seems something often overlooked or even ignored by people..
     
    Rohann van Rensburg likes this.
  2. I agree 100%. However, I am just going to assume something is getting lost in translation with writing text on the net.

    This must be just a semantic confusion.

    How do you NOT have rhythm ? Even if everything is whole notes, thats a rhythm.
     
    Rohann van Rensburg likes this.
  3. Yes, but you know what I mean: Rhythmic Variations and to treat rhythm as a voice or character of your motif.. I mean you can do whole notes and there you have a rhythm as well, question could be: What makes an interesting rhythm. I wrote that in first line because he said that rhythm was less important in drafting phase and I don´t feel that this is good.
     
    Rohann van Rensburg likes this.
  4. Totally. All these things are like strings you can make connection from one thing to a grand theory of the universe.
    So many layers to this.

    Rhythm and contour are what I focus on the most for motifs. I think that is primarily what you are talking about.

    Now Rohann said
    which - if he meant it in the textbook way - refers to something else. This creates a distinction between "Surface" and more "middle-ground" structural listening.

    What makes an interesting rhythm (I'll offer a few books at the bottom) is really impossible to say outside of the "why" or what someone is trying to express.

    Let me first make sure there is clarity on "harmonic rhythm" before getting more philosophical.

    Take any of these 3 pieces. The surface rhythm is mostly the same note duration thru out. So the surface....is not that interesting.
    As I mentioned before here, a general principle is if one aspect of a piece is simple, then another can be complex as it does not tax the ear too much.
    Vice-versa: complex rhythms can have very simple harmonic ideas.








    practically speaking, I have opinionated here before that if one is looking to make living from playing an instrument,
    if one develops exceptional rhythm and sight reading abilities......you'll get work.


    So harmonic rhythm is different than "groove". Check out this guy....one string, and I love this tune.

     
  5. Yes, totally agreed. You know when looking at a lot famous pieces from repertoire but also film, there are so many great examples where you can tap down just the rhythm and there is good chance that people ca identify the theme simply because of its importance role and signifier for individuality conntected to the melodic and harmonic framework around it. It doesnt matter if you look at beethoven fatal knocking on the door signifier, or even in film like Williams Indiana Jones rhythm. I was having quite some talks with Dillon also about that and we both came to the conclusion that our rhythmic senses both need to be strenghten a lot in order to write also better themes. Especially for myself as I am not the best rhythmic dude out there, I was trying to focus on those things more lately.
     
    Rohann van Rensburg likes this.
  6. There is more rhythmic interest in my melody than some of the greats, and a very similiarly structured comparison would be starwars main title - which follows very closely to what I had there anyways

    long - long - steps down - long -steps down -long - step thingy.

    And mine has a little dotted rhythm in the middle of the figure, which kind of feels like a tumbling of rocks - kind of gains momentum. Don't think my melody stands up to the starwars main title, but it's an odd criticism to keep, unless you're entirely directing that criticism towards the entirely placeholder chords.

    and coincidently, the chords in my sketch are actually harmonic rhythm, but not the rhythm of the harmony. All my chords are doing is outlining when the chords change, and somewhat also the general energy level I'd like the area to have(hence the machine gunning, whole/half areas, and the quarter/half regions.
     
  7. More power to you man, just suggestions..nothing to worry about and good luck with everything on your music.
     
    Kyle Judkins likes this.
  8. Thank you! I mean I don't want to expect work from people, but you're continually generous with your time and so I assumed this was the case. I've been running into a bit of a composing crisis lately, having a hard time finding what inspires me to write for orchestra or piano and instead being more enamoured with guitar. Also sitting and wondering how invested I'd currently be in writing on piano/for orchestra if I could write on guitar the way I wanted to and if my time would be better spent there currently (at least for a while -- I feel like I have stuff I need to get "out" and artistic visions for that side of things). For whatever reason the two methods feel different, albeit obviously connected. Anyway...


    Should have clarified; I think I unintentionally opened up a can of worms. I was referring to the Batman video where she just mentions the chord structure being a placeholder, afterward fleshing out the tempo and rhythmic backing of the piece as a whole while maintaining the original melodic idea and rhythm (obviously building off of this too). Totally agree with you and Alex that rhythm is inseparable.



    Yes, I really enjoy taking say 1 or 2 measures and intentionally playing with durations to see what "affect" it create. I call this "highlighting". It's just like augmentation or diminution, but not in a block fashion.



    Do you mostly improvise, work on chops, learn and play pieces you like, etc? I find keeping up chops both on guitar and piano difficult, as when I write on piano I'm not really that capable of writing much on the technical side.


    While I don't work for clients, I do work sometimes with a "project" or idea in mind and it feels very different than writing personally. Glad to hear someone else bounces between both worlds though.
     
  9. #30 Rohann van Rensburg, Jul 12, 2019
    Last edited: Jul 12, 2019
    I love following what you and Dillon do because it feels like you guys are a few steps ahead of me (but the chasm doesn't feel quite as wide as between me and i.e. Rachmaninoff) and it's easy to learn from where you guys are at. I've been thinking the same lately. I agree that I really don't think the two are separable, but I often feel completely blank about what kind of rhythm to apply when writing something new and focus too much exclusively on note choice.

    Honestly, I think I need to learn to steal ideas better and more creatively.

    That sounds massive, by the way.

    As for guitar and riff writing (I'm kind of in two camps on guitar too -- fingerpicking/normal song structure and riff writing) I feel like it's an area that I'm weak in. I mean I listen to riffs like this, and while they're not that complicated, it's just so bang on (as well as the riff from 6:50 through to the solo riff). I still can't write anything remotely that groovy:
     
  10. :confused::eek:o_O


    That is not the mindset to have. It does not matter if your comment is true or false. Michael Jordan was the best NBA player ever
    and was constantly looking at how to improve.
     
  11. Much of this discussion has been conceptual and not directed at your piece specifically.
     

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