Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Composer's Lounge What key should this piece be in for it to sound romantic?

Please click the link to listen to Romantic-sounding piece (No current title). What do you think the mood of the piece is? And in your opinions, what should the key signature be so that it sounds romantic?

Please note that I will not accept negative criticism of any kind. I am only looking for positive feedback that can help me achieve my goal with this piece.

Thank you very much.

I'm interested that you feel it's "romantic-sounding". Maybe a live performance would be more expressive.

It's definitely in A major, so your key-signature of 3 sharps is correct.

Oh, whoops! Was that negative criticism? You don't always get what you order round here :-)

Actually, dlee1001 is asking what key signature it should be in for it to sound romantic, not what key signature it is in. I was not able to understand the question since I don't think key signatures relate to romantic sound. Or did I misunderstand the question?

I definitely think key signature can lend itself to more/less romantic sounding pieces. It is in the key of A major ,perhaps A minor would make it sound romantic but it sounds like a march or a fanfare to me.

rada

This untitled piece is a derivative work of Romance-erzo no. 2, op. 1 and Romance-erzo no. 3, op. 1. The romance parts (romance in no. 2, and first romance in no. 3) of those two pieces sounded so romantic (especially in no. 2) that I decided to expand on them.

Exactly what measures in the untitled piece make it sound like a march or a fanfare? I didn't think about how it sounded like a march, but someone who listened to it did tell me that it sounded majestic, which is not the emotion I want depicted in this piece.

Db

If I change it to D-flat major, then the chord marked with the 8va on measure 25 will be out of range. So I tried to make it an octave lower, but it didn't sound too good.

How do you think G-flat major would change the mood of this piece?

Oh, sorry, didn't read the whole post and missed your score.
Yes, lower it to Gb by all means.

I lowered the key signature to G-flat major and it sounds a lot better and more romantic than before. Please check it out and see if it is better.

Technically that is a change in key signature, but it is also a change of mode from major to minor. I thought that the OP intended to keep the mode the same and simply change it say to A major, or D major, or Eb major (transposing it). I agree that a change of mode also creates a change of mood.

How can you achieve your goals if you are unprepared to accept criticism? Why even ask?

Sorry if I'm being dense.

Some of the cadences need to be more pronounced, I think. (such as the ending) I also think that going to a minor key somewhere, or using more flourishes and things of this nature could help you towards it sounding more romantic. It sounds nice though.

I think that A major or F# minor is an excellent key for this piece.

Haven't you ever heard of positive feedback, which is coincidentally what I had written in the original post? And besides, what I mean by negative criticism is negative comments that don't do any good (like "This piece sucks," "This isn't music," and the like). Try to read the posts carefully before you reply.

There is a thing called positive criticism, and an example of this is constructive criticism, which is essentially what I'm looking for. I'm not looking for posts that attack my composition; I compose for the pleasure of it and don't want to get harshly criticized by that. This might sound contradictory to what I said about wanting constructive criticism, but please bear in mind that it isn't contradictory, because harsh criticism is not constructive criticism at all; it's just criticism that does nothing to help improve something.

Thank you for your compliment. I appreciate it.

Since the link I posted is not the final version of my composition, it can't hurt to experiment and see what a minor key addition would sound like. Wouldn't the ideal minor key signature for something romantic be C-minor? If not, what would be the ideal minor key in this piece, which is now in G-flat major and not A-major like it used to be?

The cadence at the end is perfect authentic-V to I. But it's an arpeggiated V7 chord that leads to a solid I chord. Maybe that's why you say it could be better pronounced? Like maybe there needs to be some sort of "transition" from the arpeggiated chords to the final chord?

I did read it -- I guess we must use words differently. To me, postive feedback means "That's real nice". "This piece sucks" is not criticism at all, it is rudeness.

Criticism (as I understand it) is honest and informed comment. The problem is that one person's honesty is another person's rudeness, I guess.