Two Dances - Music-Web Forums

fiziwig · #1 03-09-2007, 04:31 AM

I've decided to start a series of dances from around the world, and through time, from ancient to modern. My first two are a Spanish dance and a dance in the style of the American Civil War era. Next up I'm going to try a waltz. I also have in mind something very "modern" and atonal for my "psychotic" dance. A minuet shouldn't be too hard, but I'm not sure I'm up to doing a disco style piece. Then there's gavotte's, polkas, cakewalk, hornpipe, can-can, tarantella,... ah, so many dances, so little time.

Have a listen if you please: http://www.soundclick.com/garyshannon

Edited to add: Have uploaded my first shot at a traditional Viennese waltz as well.
Edited to add: Just uploaded my first tango. Now four dances in the series.

-gary

reith · #2 16-09-2007, 07:32 PM

Tango:

Very nice listen! Easy going and good balance between the parts.

Elf King:

Nice lively piece. The only problem it didn't come over as frantic in the Earl King sense. Possibly at the back of my mind I'm thinking about Schubert's Erlkoenig which is somewhat longer and has a bit of a build up. This piece was a little light but the harmonic scheme and thematic material were fine.

Waltz #1: Again, easy to listen to. Pleasant. I liked the scoring and contrasting middle theme. The sections balance nicely. Some variation in the background strings during the recap would be possible (a minor point because the piece is fairly short anyway) and the coda was good.

All accomplished and would sound nice live in the right setting.

I'll try and listen to the rest later.

cheers,
reith

fiziwig · #3 16-09-2007, 08:10 PM

Thank you for those observations. I'm just a beginner to composing, so I appreciate any honest criticism that will help me improve, even though this is just a hobby for me.

In Elf King I was trying not to copy Schubert in any way, but to set the cadence of the theme to fit the words (in German) of the poem. Yes, it is very short. But with my limited experience I haven't really learned how to develop an idea much past 3 to 4 minutes, at which point I seem to run out of ideas.

--gary