| Composition Year | 1996-97 |
|---|---|
| Genre Categories | Preludes; For piano; Scores featuring the piano; For 1 player |
Contents |
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| Work Title | Prelude in C-sharp minor |
|---|---|
| Alternative. Title | |
| Composer | Shuey, Michael Gabriel Edouard |
| I-Catalogue NumberI-Cat. No. | IMS 10 |
| Key | C-sharp minor |
| Year/Date of CompositionY/D of Comp. | 1996-97 |
| Average DurationAvg. Duration | 4 minutes |
| Composer Time PeriodComp. Period | Modern |
| Piece Style | Romantic |
| Instrumentation | piano |
This piece was inspired by Chopin’s Fantasie Impromptu. While I knew I wouldn’t compose anything to that caliber, I wanted to make my own tribute to that piece by composing something with dazzling right-hand runs. So in effect, this piece was born out of trying to improve my right hand both from a composing and playing stand-point.
Composing this piece felt like a burden at times. I have painful memories of continually getting “stuck” in an endless loop of the main motif. This agony was dragged out for over 9-months, right from high-school into University. Getting out of the loop would take some growing in my music. My University education helped with that. One of the best decisions I felt I ever made was going to school at the University of Cincinnati. While I could have been accepted into slightly more prestigious engineering schools, I chose UC for 2 main reasons: 1) The mandatory internship co-op program which helped pay back college tuition and 2) The best-in class music school in the region. My father also saw the potential here. When visiting UC, we made sure to take a thorough walk through the College Conservatory of Music (CCM). I am grateful that he helped hunt down department heads in both the piano and composition departments.
Being accepted into taking music classes from CCM took special permission. Special permission meant an audition. I played for Dr. Robert Zierolf. I selected a Chopin prelude I felt I knew well (based on advice from my piano teacher), as well as this composition I was working on, which I was stuck on. He quite easily saw through my “unclean” upbringing in piano, even after playing my “cleanest” Chopin piece. He was, to my favor, intrigued by my compositions. He thought that work in both piano and composition was worthwhile and accepted me, much to my delight. From that point on I took 2-credit hour piano and 2-credit hour composition classes throughout college and never looked back. Personal music lessons from graduate students turned out to be both easy A’s and a wonderful escape from the drudgery of engineering. My first composition teacher, was music composition PhD student and classical guitarist Mark Volker. Mark pushed me to “just write”, and helped build up some embarrassingly lacking music theory. After a few months the help proved to be the cure to my musical creative impasse and break free from the do-loop. Each time I had an idea for where to go next, Mark gave encouraging feedback, and welcoming guidance. More than anything, he broke down my fear of putting pencil to paper, as up to this point I was still reliant on my piano teacher in highschool for assistance. Last I looked, Mark moved on to be the Coordinator of Composition and Assistant Professor of Music at the Belmont University School of Music.
The entire middle section to the end was written while at CCM. Like the Impromptu in G-minor I brought out a left-hand melody at the beginning of the calmer pause before making my way back to the main motif. More than two-thirds of the piece written was written in only one-third the time since beginning spent. I appreciated the growth and efficiency from my musical composition sessions, using theory and instinct to stitch together some of the sections and get it written down.
