How can I improve my balance and voicing?

[Bob]

For just a melody with accompaniment.  Nothing contrapuntal.

Any good exercises or ideas?

[pianistimo]

pretend that the melody is an instrument?  like violin or voice.  and then, the piano part is the accompaniment which you don't want to overpower the melody line with. 

you probably are looking for a deeper answer.  these will come to you when you are at places like 'barnes and noble' researching a totally different subject.  you sit down with your mocha whatever and the muffin and become engrossed in something - and then a thought pops into your head.  you drop the drink and muffin and immediately go to the listening booths of the cd section and listen to glen gould for the 100000th time.  you listen to what he does in the goldberg variation aria.  it suddenly sinks in that he connects everything in the melody and the left hand is left to go 'chunk chunk.'

  forgetting the muffin and drink - you speedily drive home to try it.  it's so successful that you have to write a book upon the subject and voraceously write until 2 am about melodies and harmonies and how the melody is like a flower and the harmony lights upon it occasionally as a bee collecting honey - but the essense is the beauty of the flower.  the nectar collection is simply a sucking out of the melody by the harmony but, not taking so m uch that there is no sweetness left. 

[bearzinthehood]

Hmm, this place needs more emoticons.  I was thinking of something along the lines of:

[pianistimo]

how did you do that?  purple, too? 

[bearzinthehood]

Linked it from another website.

[pianistimo]

oh.  wish i could do that.  say...i happened to have a fleeting thought about the idea of the bee and the flower.  what if the bee was the melody.  you never quite know where it is going, it speeds up and slows down - and the flower is sort of static and stays where you expect it to be.  it is beautiful but doesn't make your eye follow it.  maybe this is a better interpretation?