Piano Sonata No 2

[Dr Peter Kalve]

First attempt at uploading this piece of mine using MidiNotate, so here goes....

<center><table border=1><tr><td>http://www.notation.com/discus/icons/attachment_icon.gifPiano Sonata No. 2
Piano Sonata No 2.not (http://www.notation.com/discus/messages/35939/Piano_Sonata_No_2-27744.not) (185.4 k)</td></tr></table></center>

The Second Piano Sonata was written for my wife's birthday in February 2005. It is a one movement piece, written in fluid, ambiguously tonal style.

[Sherry Crann (sherry)]

Howdy,

This was an interesting piece to listen to, given that you had already mentioned that it was written for your wife. She must be a very interesting and dynamic person http://www.notation.com/discus/clipart/happy.gif It is a very intriguing piece, with the varieties of movement and such, and I would be willing to bet (from the annotations that you have) that a live performance would be even more fascinating.

Did you compose this on keyboard and record it into Composer that way, or did you enter the notes using mouse or qwerty keyboard? I'm curious, because I see that the note velocities are all at 64, but this piece obviously is meant to be played with a lot of dynamic expression, which is probably a bit lost with all the note velocities the same. If you don't have a midi keyboard that has a "note velocity" feature with which you can record in note velocity changes, you can still edit those (if you're so inclined) with Composer by selecting the notes and then holding the "L" key (for "loudness") and using the Up/Down arrow keys to change the velocities.

Or if you play it mostly live for her, you may not be so worried about the MIDI performance here http://www.notation.com/discus/clipart/happy.gif What a lovely gift - it sounds like you are both blessed!

ttfn,
Sherry

[Mark Walsen (markwa)]

Hello Dr. Kalve,

As with your serialism vocal piece, I enjoyed seeing the amount of detail you put into the music annotations in this piano piece. I admire such dedication, as many of us, by the time we've entered the notes, get too lazy to annotate the score, even though that's where the score comes to life.

Sherry asks some good questions above about how you entered the notes. I'd be interested in also knowing about how your time was divided between adding the notes and adding the annotations.

I notice a lot of augmented 4th intervals in this piece, which serve to break down the tonality, which is then starkly contrasted by tonal sections. I happen to enjoy such aburpt changes in tonality as you employ.

Cheers
-- Mark

[Dr Peter Kalve]

Yep - those fourths were a key idea (oh noooo a pun) to the piece. I am so glad you both enjoyed it. Sherry is quite right about the tempi settings - my fault - I will go through the whole piece and try to get them set. But the piece is meant to be a really dynamic, even earthy sort of piece, so speed and articulation are very important. Most was composed on paper and at a piano, then rewritten using the mouse and pc.

Effectively I compose episodically, perhaps for an hour at a time, then play through the ideas. I try to create improvised bridge sections, and only after running through alternate ideas (usually scribbling a bit on paper too), do I begin to plan out the structure as a written map, and then compose properly. I tend to add accents, crescendos and diminuendos and other markings after playing through the completed piece - unless I feel I need to put something down before I forget!

---Peter

[markusman]

Hello Peter,

its me, Markus, your cousin.

My mail server is down at present. Therefore I try to reach you by this way. What about your making music? Unfortunately I didn't receive another song from you.

Now I can count myself to the group of Masters, too. When you have time, why not calling back?

Yours Markus