First of all, about the subtitle. This probably isn't what most people would think of as "beach music", but it is, in the sense that it could be played at a beach -- if you're willing to risk all that salt air ruining your piano. Otherwise, it probably doesn't make much sense, but it's mine, so I can call it whatever I want, and I'm getting tired of the "not a waltz" gag (by the way, this isn't one, either, despite being in 3/4).
There are two gaps here -- first, the almost eight month gap from my last posting. Again, it's not that I've been doing nothing, just that I didn't happen to finish anything during that time... well, except for this one, which has been finished for about a couple of months, which leads to the second gap.
My previous post was #18 in the Perenepsis series, and I'm skipping straight to 20 -- what's up with that? That's part of the reason for the time gap; I thought I'd be done with 19 before now, but there are still some things to be worked out in that one, and I now have three finished pieces that are being held up (#s 21 and 22 are also done). I remembered how long the gap between 3 and 4 was, and #5 (and maybe a couple others) ended up being done before #4, so this isn't just me posting out of order just because I can (which I've done before), I just happened to finish these and don't want to hold them up when I don't know how much longer #19 will take, especially considering that I might leave 19 alone and work on some other things for a while.
As for this piece itself. the three opening chords serve a specific purpose. The piece is based on a D7sus4 chord -- DACG (from bottom to top). It could be any of several modified chords of other keys, but in order to give it context, I followed the opening chord by Gm then A7, to make it clear that the key is D minor. The overall form is ABA, with the B section being kind of a development section and the second A a moderately ornamented repeat of the initial A section, except finishing back at Dm (without the 7th or 3rd, but with an added 4th) instead of Em as the first A section does . The A section itself is based on exploring the opening two-bar idea (after the intro chords) of quarter, dotted quarter, eighth, dotted half, a very simple little motif. I almost decided to go in another direction around the 3 minute mark at that Dm9 that resolves down to a plain Dm, but then realized that if I just went into a final cadence there I had something that was balanced nicely into thirds. Plus, by that point I had already started on #21, and wanted to finish this one. Also, although the piece is in 3/4 overall (but, as previously mentioned, not a waltz), each section, including the intro, is set off by ending in a bar of 5/4. Why? Because I liked the way it sounds that way.
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