Clarinet Concerto!

Hey everyone! This my concerto for clarinet!
I'm a string player, but I love the clarinet and my friend Bridget is amazing at it, so I decided to write this for her. I love the first two movements, but the third one was a hastily put together in exhaustion. So any comments on how to improve this would be wonderful!

You should always post midi and pdf files for those of us that dont have Finale.
I would really love to hear it.

ummm, how exactly do you do that???
I mean, I can use finale and everything, but I'm not exactly high-tech.

to record you stuff in finale, go to "save as" and there should be an option that says "audio file" - click that, and it will save it as a .WAV file, which, if you have Itunes or an equivalent program, you can convert to an MP3. To get a PDF you'll have to download a PDF converter program which you can find for free if you look around. Then, you have to upload them. You'll probably need a separate site, like soundclick or box.net.

ahhhhh thanks!!!

it was very nice.
lol. you've got that clarinet in the ceiling. lol.

the ending... it just... stops... resolve it, finish the piece... unless you like that, then by all means...

keep it up dude..

*Cant wait for the Mp3 and PDF to come out, is very excited, cause hes high on coffee and being very random now. =X* HAHA

Okay, I reviewed the piece... your clarinet part is not unacceptably high (well, except perhaps the last system - high B!), but the tessitura is almost without exception completely within the clarino and altissimo registers. It's not impossible, but it is tiring to both the player and audience. You're ignoring the entire lower half of the instrument... like writing a viola concerto solely on the D and A strings.

At m.64-71 in the solo part, this is not idiomatic writing for wind instruments. Repetitive rhythmic and harmonic writing works best for percussion and string instruments. For wind instruments, this type of writing is just tiring (and tiresome). If you really want repeated arpeggiated figures, I recommend giving to the strings instead (like you did at m.111-134).

Of greater concern to me is the lack of harmonic movement... large periods where the harmony changes far too infrequently, which as a consequence make the piece dull and uninteresting. When the entire orchestra is playing whole notes for bars and bars at a time, you're losing the audiences interest - because there's nothing to listen to! Even when you add the arpeggiated string figures, you're not increasing the interest level simply because there's still nothing to listen to; your writing is far too two-dimensional in this work. There's no counter-melody and no harmonic action. Your work is (a) foreground and (b) background, and consequently, dull.

Your horn and trumpet parts are poor. You are treating the horns as a soprano instrument, not an alto, and frequently the horn notes are above the trumpets. This is extremely poor technique. I recommend that you read and take part in the Orchestration Masterclass thread to understand how to effectively write for brass.

I encourage you to do some reading and think about revision. Good luck!

hey there!

Alrighty, so I have some comments after listening/reading your piece. I'm a clarinetist, so hopefully I can give you some good feedback.

1) I would have to agree with flint about some of the upper-register writing. The clarinet sounds scratchy and forced when playing anywhere above a C above the staff. You wont see any writing for clarinet like at measure 32, where you have it up in that tessitura range. It's a killer height for a clarinetist, and those spots are usually reached at the end of runs leading up to them. There are some exceptions however, such as the Poulenc sonata where he goes up in that range quite often, but it isn't even for extended periods of time, and is usually just for flourishes and whatnot. giving a long, extended melody up there is a deathwish for your audience .

2) I'll disagree with flint about the repetitive 16th notes at 64. Writing like this is seen constantly in older music, such as in the Hayden concerto for clarinet. However, they're not tongued - they're slurred . Being a string player by nature, you might not have any experience with a wind instrument....so imagine for every note you write, your tongue has to hit the mouthpiece...which makes those 16th note runs very unpleasant. Slurring them, however, in groups of 4, (or even slur two/tongue two, like in the Weber concertino runs) is much easier for the musician, and will sound better too!

3) I found it hard to catch the main themes in the piece overall. I felt like the entire thing was pretty static in terms of where the chords went. It wasn't very interesting, and certainly could display the clarinet better.

I say try and rework it! I think it has potential . Also, explore the lower register of the clarinet - Anything below a middle C sounds very rich and dark, providing a great sonority for various types of music. I suggest listening to the Poulenc sonata, mozart concerto, copland concerto, and hell even the stravinsky's three pieces and Weber concertos - you'll see a vast usage of the clarinet's registers and techniques

Hope that helped!