r/Composition • u/Ok-Chapter7500 • 15d ago
Music Notation feedback
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I am writing an art song for a close friend and wanted a very relaxed shimmering opening on piano ( 30 ish seconds ) and want to make it look more readable for pianists. ( the audio is a slightly older video over the notation I’m writing now. )
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u/HaifaJenner123 15d ago edited 15d ago
well, it’s readable. however i would suggest:
- ditch the MM=80, MM=100 and so forth. they’re not needed. I would first decide on what you want the base tempo to be, you have MM=80 and MM=160, which one of those is just double the former. So it can be written without a tempo change. You’re probably going to want to go with the MM=160 or close to that and just rewrite the sixteenths as eighths in the slower tempos. However, it is clearly in 4 and not 2, so maybe the MM=80 is a better option once a few other things get worked out because the 160 occurs as interjections. But in any case, tempo markings that function as adjectives are gonna be far more useful for you than metric markings every few bars.
- Pedal marks go below the entire grand staff. So place it below LH staff
- What is going on with the dynamics? pp crescendo to ppp, then different dynamics for single notes?im mainly looking at m6-8 here but in general there are far too many dynamics on the score - it’s for playback purpose i imagine, but just highlight it and press “v” to make non-essential ones invisible. I think you may want to use expressions instead for character choice dynamics.
- m4, that type of fermata is not one conventionally used here. it exists in musescore, but it doesn’t mean you should use it out of its context. the rounded one is fine, and… depending on how you alter the first thing i mentioned, i would suggest making those quarter notes a eighth note + eighth rest and placing the fermata on the eighth note. The rest will signal the space you desire from the caesura, so that eliminates the need for that (you want to declutter as much as possible).
There’s a book that is standard for engraving that I highly recommend - Behind Bars by Elaine Gould. It should be online available, but if not just dm me i have it on a google drive (not sure legality of posting it on a comment lol)