I've been struggling with accompaniment for a long time now. In fact, I'm told that's one of my biggest problems. I already know what block chords, arpeggios, and alberti basses are and I've studied some piano music for ideas, but I still don't really understand how to make good piano accompaniment. Everytime I try to accompany a melody, the result sounds silly or ineffective.

All I can say is that you have to mix and match harmonic and melodic chords in your song. Otherwise, it get's pretty boring. What do you know about chords and dissonance?

All I can say is that you have to mix and match harmonic and melodic chords in your song. Otherwise, it get's pretty boring. What do you know about chords and dissonance?

Well, I'm pretty well aware of harmony and tonality. My problem is primarily texture rather than harmony. I'm trying improve the way I handle the left hand stuff in composition, basically, like whether to use arpeggios, block chords, etc. and what specifically to use.

I remember this Liszt quote which he said that, while playing the piano, do not think you have two hands with five fingers each, but one hand with ten fingers. From most of your pieces I've heard so far, you relegate the left hand to a strictly auxillary role of harmonizing the melody, and fall into the trap of patternizing things too much. Quite a few pieces from past composers actually use the left-hand exclusive (ie, Scriabin's Prelude and Nocture for the Left-Hand, Ravel's Concerto for the Left-Hand, Rachmaninoff's 4th Piano Concerto) - many of them commissioned by the early 20th century pianist Paul Wittgenstein (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Wittgenstein), who had lost his right arm in the war. Check out a few of those pieces, or any piano piece by a noted composer, and try to see what they are trying to achieve with their "accompaniment".

Hmm, that's actually a very good point. I never really thought of that, but now that you mention it, that does seem to be the case. I'll keep that in mind as it really is an excellent point.