A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of judging the Pianist magazine Composing Competition. I’ve done this really fun ‘job’ for the past five years alongside my superb colleagues and fellow judges, owner of The Piano Shop Kent, Nigel Scaife, Presto Music’s Product Manager, Matthew Ash, and, of course, Pianist magazine editor, Erica Worth. This event has become a favourite yearly ‘meet up’ for us. Held in London, we play our suggested winning pieces (or rather Matt usually does the honours as he’s a whizz sight-reader!) and enjoy talking through the entries, discussing what has made a good composition. Perhaps, more importantly, it also raises so many interesting questions surrounding writing music for the piano.

The winner receives a Kawai digital piano and has their piece published in the magazine and recorded by Pianist’s resident pianist Chenyin Li, so it’s quite a big deal for those who do well and want to get their music ‘heard’.

Pianist receives many entries for this competition every year, a group of which are apportioned to each judge. We then play through them at home, forwarding two or three each for the ‘final’ stage, at our meeting. There are multiple criteria to consider when writing music for any ‘educational’ setting and Pianist magazine does fall into this category.  

I wanted to write a little about this in order to encourage more pianists to write their own music and, at the same time, to also think clearly about for whom they are specifically writing.

Composing a piece for any publication means setting limitations on bar numbers and pagination, or typesetting. It can also be important for music publishers, too, and if composing for piano exams, with a view to entering a piece for an exam syllabus, one is certainly constrained by the length of the piece, as less advanced students are not expected to play longer pieces until around Grade 7 or 8 level.

For me, this is crucial, and it’s one that I adhere to when writing my elementary piece for Pianist magazine in every issue. My piece must be between 16-22 bars in length, tonal, not move around the keyboard too much, and be written in a fairly ‘easy’ key, or one without too many sharps or flats! This is synonymous with a Grade 1 or 2 level piece for ‘beginner’ students, which is what we are aiming for in the beginner section of the magazine.

Writing to a brief can be demanding, but, when you get used to it, it can also be quite liberating. For those who fancy submitting a piece for next year’s competition, here are a few suggestions:

1.

Consider that Pianist magazine is essentially an ‘educational’ publication. It’s intended for piano students of all levels, but as your piece will be published in the magazine, somewhere between two to four pages (of A4 size) is probably all that will be assigned to the winner’s piece. Whilst there is a 64 bar limit in the current rules and regulations, in reality that can be quite a long piece if bars are stretched with many notes. Therefore, think short and sweet; 32 bars is a maximum, in my opinion.

2.

Those performing your piece will probably be of an intermediate adult amateur level, which is the general readership of the magazine. Complex note passages, key signatures, and especially tricky rhythmic metres, can be off-putting for readers. Whereas a piece with an attractive melodic line, simplistic harmonies, yet with some kind of ‘twist’, is most likely what we are looking for. Again, less is more.

3.

Think about the structure of your piece before you start writing it. If you’ve written a lovely tune, you might want to ‘repeat’ it again nearer the end of the piece. For this, it’s worth investigating Ternary form or an A-B-A format, where you will state your ‘tune’ at the beginning (section A), deviate a little in the middle (section B), returning to your theme (the second section A) at the end. This is just one example – there are many different musical structures for you to discover and enjoy using.

4.

Once you’ve established the key of your piece, try to resist changing it. Lots of key changes tend to disrupt the flow of the music and are more difficult for pianists to negotiate. The same goes for numerous time signature changes as well.

5.

Whilst a small amount of chromaticism is a nice touch in any piece – and is necessary to add interest – writing in a very dissonant or atonal style is generally not in keeping with educational music and poses a real ‘sight-reading’ challenge for many pianists. As your aim should be for pianists to enjoy your piece, it’s wise to avoid more complex tonalities.

6.

Colour and imagination, with a view to producing an ‘emotional’ response from readers and players, should ideally be what composers are aiming for. Some might like to write a ‘story’ for their piece, or base it around a favourite poem, fictional tale, or event. When writing in this context, good music often follows.

7.

Try to find a pianist to play through your piece if you are not able to do so yourself. Competition entries are so often generated by computer software (which is really useful and necessary), and it’s clear that competitors haven’t really considered keyboard demographics or what really ‘works’ when playing the piano. Don’t be caught out here.

8.

One other vital criteria: you must not be a professionally published composer to enter Pianist magazine’s competition. We screen every entry to make sure this is the case!

At the end of our session, we decided on what we might consider the ‘perfect’ piece for our competition: To A Wild Rose by American composer Edward MacDowell came out on top. It’s around Grade 5 piano exam level, has an enduring tune which is repeated with just enough harmonic interest and variation, is fairly straight forward to play, and allows the pianist to use their expressivity to the full: you can hear it, played by Pianist’s resident pianist Chenyin Li, by clicking on the link below.

If you decide to enter for the 2027 Pianist magazine Composing Competition, you might play through this charming little piece. We look forward to hearing and playing your entry.

Find out more about the Pianist magazine Composing Competition by clicking here.

Top image: Shutterstock