Finally, a Little Waltz!

I pulled up the Little Waltz “Delicately,” threw out those cluttered measures of sixteenth notes that were definitely not delicate, and continued from there.

I’m still not sure that the piece completely reflects the title, but it’s better than it was. The point is that our Lichtenbergian Precept of GESTALT gave me permission — nay, a directive — to scrap what wasn’t working and to replace it with something that did. Maybe. (Even after finishing it, I continued to fiddle with individual notes and patterns, exporting a “final” version no fewer than three times. I may keep doing that.)

And then the ABORTIVE ATTEMPTS > GESTALT > SUCCESSIVE APPROXIMATION started over and onward I slogged.

To repeat: The reason I’m sharing this with you is that none of us are Mozart. I’m not even trained as a composer beyond basic musical knowledge — but I do it anyway and so can you, whether it’s composing or writing or gardening or whatever. Am I any good at it? Unimportant. It doesn’t matter. As I used to say about doing Shakespeare’s plays with community theatre actors, “So what if we fail? It’s not like anyone is going to lose a million dollars on this. The worst that can happen is there might be some bored old ladies in Newnan, Georgia.” [Ed. note: We did not fail.]

Anyway, “Delicately” is at least pretty, and I wish MuseScore had human playback settings like Finale. As it is, you can hear the notes, but the music is something an actual human will have to provide.

SIDEBAR: As an illustration of what I mean, listen to Prelude No. 2 (no fugue) in its Finale version and in its premiere performance by the goddess Maila Springfield of Valdosta State University. The difference is a revelation. (Score here.)

In other words, a real pianist could do wonders with those arpeggios and with some tenuto over the quarter notes in the right hand.

7. Delicately | score [pdf]

You should definitely download it and play it.

Onward — maybe another Little Waltz, to keep it simple while my fingers are still learning how to input notes without screwing up notes I’ve already input. I DON’T UNDERSTAND YOUR WORKFLOW, MUSESCORE. AT LEAST GIVE ME A KEYBOARD SHORTCUT TO SKIP TO THE LAST NOTE IN THE SCORE SO THAT WHEN I CLICK ON THE QUARTER NOTE TOOL IT DOESN’T CHANGE THE NOTE 20 MEASURES BACK THAT JUST HAPPENS TO BE STILL SELECTED. Thank you for your attention to this.