Going Beethoven
My hands slid off the white polished keys while myriads of thoughts swirled through my almost brain-dead mind.
Ugh... The harmony doesn't even sound right. And the melody doesn't even bring out the soberness this piece is supposed to portray. And I've been working for numerous hours, countless days, and several weeks! And it's still not right. Maybe I should start over and change the key as a whole...
This sonata was definitely not going as expected. As I tried to recall how Beethoven and Grieg composed their successful works, I remembered the years it took to perfect a piece. Never would this be a masterwork. I raised my hand and started to scribble my messy scrawl over a new piece of paper. After playing my newly composed few measures, my arm hit the keys hard. It was still wrong, still bad, still not balanced. How did Grieg do it?
After fiddling around with a transposition in c minor, I felt the need to change the score. The harmonic keys embraced my fingers as I tried my newest attempt to outshine the melody. The purity of the sound… I loved this Bosendorfer piano, but sometimes I had driven myself too far that I had caused some deformities in it. My piano was by far my dearest possession as a musician, but sometimes music had driven me beyond my regular life. Just like this challenging piece in front of me.
But the c minor transposition didn't work. Neither did the e minor. My mind began to burn. I often experienced these feelings when composing, but never so strong like now. I was feeling fire. Yes, the extreme feelings of fire… the fire of music… the fire of Beethoven. My hand hammered the piano. I was going Beethoven.
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125,020 Literary Works • 672,861 Reviews
Although I didn't intend on leaving a review, I just wanted to read it over and hope you continued -because I loved it. It was really, I don't know, I want to say 'true'. I don't want to sound silly or anything, but the bottom line is that I enjoyed it. I look forward to what you submit next.
Hi! Thanks so much for your review! I really appreciate your comment.
Hi! GrapeNerd is here to try and review this wonderful piece of art. First off, I love your title! As most writers know, the title is one of the most important part of the story, so yeah, I really like your title. Second, I really love how you captured the reality of writing music. I play the piano as well, therefore I know the pains of trying to write music. Third, I love the ending! So perfect! Next, your grammar and spelling was amazing! I did not find any flaws! Needless to say, this is fabulous! Keep writing!
GrapeNerd
Hi! That's so cool that you play the piano too! Thanks for your comment and I appreciate your time.
Hey Schubert! I'm going to do a quick review. While I love flash fiction, it can be hard for me to review, but I'll give it my best shot. Looks like Alfred covered grammar, so I'm going to critique word choice, characterization, and story as a whole. Let's get into it!
Word Choice
I can't complain too much about your word choice. You use interesting words. But I would like to see more color in your description. Show us the ways you've hurt your piano with vivid detail. Are some of the keys sunken in where you pounded them? Is one leg scratched where you've kicked it as hard as you can?
Characterization
In flash fiction, you have to give us as much character as you can in as little time as possible. You did a great job with that. The only issue I had was, this sort of read like a journal entry. First person narration tends to lean that way if you aren't careful. Give us the feeling and raw emotion of a journal entry, but don't forget to show us the world you character is experiencing.
Story
All in all, you do a great job building up steam to that last paragraph. My only complaint is, the first few paragraphs weren't as interesting. They seemed sort of verbacious, and at times redundant. Other than that the story was enjoyable.
Great job Schubert, you have a nice piece here, just keep working on it! Good luck, and keep writing!
Hi! I appreciate your comment and I am looking forward to improve my writing. Your ideas are great!
Schubert! I love your username! Anyways, let me give a grammar, presentation and style review for this shot article!
No need to mention the title again, because it's already there at the top.
Beautifully presented line, but there are some things to rework with. First, your hands slid off the piano, so that means it quickly, but lucidly fell off. In that short second, no one can process, or at least give enough mention to say it, myriads of thoughts. So that's the first thing. Second, 'swirled through' is a phrase that produces the image of something moving fast while circling, and I'm sure those thoughts didn't just past through. Maybe what you're trying to say is that they were swirling inside or around your mind. Just thoughts
Okay, so one can only remember an action's duration if he did it, and I'm sure the speaker here haven't done that yet, so for the sake of clearing the little issues up, try to use 'remembered the years it took for them to perfect their pieces'.
I love this line! It's like the perfect use of metaphor. Anyways, the only thing I can see here is that you should omit 'harmonic'. The piano keys haven't made any harmonious sounds yet, so it would be better to describe them in terms not of sound.
Well, those are the things I can find in your piece! I hope I've helped ya! Good luck writing and always have fun
Yours indefinitely,
Alf
Hi! Thanks for the comment! It was really helpful and I appreciate your suggestions and time.