Melodies, op.1 for violin/voice and piano

This is my first 'serious' composition, hence the "op." label. In case you were wondering, my definition of a 'serious' composition (with regard to myself only) consists of two qualities 1) Not an excercise or assignment 2) Written in a style I enjoy very much as a listener. At some point I'll have an actual recording, either from a recital I gave or a home made one. Right now I've only uploaded the first of my two Melodies, hopefully I'll have the other (which is slightly more chromatic) tomorrow.

Influence - Early Berg, especially "7 Early Songs" and opuses 1 and 2
- That Brahmsian (or Strauss?) bit in the middle
- Jazz, dig the coda?

Techniques - Occaisional tonal center (Ab/Fm)
- Chromatic counterpoint
- Quartal and whole-tone Harmony
- Tasty chord extensions

Other Notes - Originally intended as a vocal piece (no lyrics have been written), and eventually made its way into my violin recital. It could work well for both instruments. I left pedal markings out since I'm not great with working them out in Finale, also some of the slight 'push in pulls' in tempo are left out. Hopefully your sound library isn't as bad sounding as mine.

Any criticism is welcome!

Also, if anyone could tell me how to make this into a PDF and midi from my Mac, that would be great!

Steve: Sorry, I can't view this as I don't have Finale installed yet.
There are sticky threads in the technical help sub-fora related to making a PDF from a .mus.
It's generally good practice to post an mp3/midi plus some form of score.
(I'm not sure how to make midis on Macs.)

PDF and MIDI attached

The PDF doesn't work for me.
I quite like what you've got here. I'm a bit surprised, however, that you let your first opus be such a short work.
The harmony is pretty interesting throughout. My only suggestion is that the piece should maybe not be as variegated as it is, because of its short length.
Perhaps expand it, and there will be room for all the ideas you have here.
Good work.

Thanks for the review Daniel, i understand where your critique is coming from. I struggled with the idea of making more longwinded phrases at first but what i had grew on me, and i still feel some disconnect especially with the first half. The idea for the deceptive harmony at the transitions was planned though however. I'd definitely consider expanding it though. Also, I'm going to try to upload the second piece of the opus probably tonight. Hopefully this re-up of the pdf works.

No. 2 pdf and midi attached...and i do realize there are some spacing issues in the score, i couldn't find out how to fix it...

the opening section is quite pretty, interesting harmony and all, however, it's quite square.

the inner voices have lots of syncopation, but for some reason, your bassline is always landing splat square on the beat. I'd have liked to ahve seen a few more "off" rhythms for your bassline.

then suddenly you go all common practice on us (well, almost). Measures 15-26 could almost be part of some Rogers and Hammerstein musical.

By the way, those two measures of triplets in the piano... what happens to those? no more triplets afterwards? it creates an expectancy of that returning as a motif of sorts.

OK, measure 27, we return to crunchy harmony..

by the way, no, no, no, no, no! that is NOT how one notates tremolo on the piano.

then all of a sudden, measure 33 and that huge arp. in the piano... except the violin part doesn't really support what's happening in the accompaniment. WHY oh WHY are you telling us in advance that D natural is going to be our target note? that is more or less what is called a "harmonic appogiatura", and is considered an error in counterpoint for a reason: you are giving away the end of the cadence before the initial chord is even over.

The sad part is, that D natural is really the last note of your violin, (yeah, I know there's a B flat in there).... the only thing is you didn't PLAY the D natural that we are expecting at the end. A measure of rest or two, and your violin solo SHOULD be playing a D nat.

So, over all, lots of good ideas. Not the best execution of those ideas. Room for improvement.

care to comment on no.2 QC? I'll be back in a minute to respond to your comments

Originally Posted by Stevemc90

care to comment on no.2 QC? I'll be back in a minute to respond to your comments

can you post the .MUS file?

Originally Posted by QcCowboy

the opening section is quite pretty, interesting harmony and all, however, it's quite square.

the inner voices have lots of syncopation, but for some reason, your bassline is always landing splat square on the beat. I'd have liked to ahve seen a few more "off" rhythms for your bassline.

then suddenly you go all common practice on us (well, almost). Measures 15-26 could almost be part of some Rogers and Hammerstein musical.

By the way, those two measures of triplets in the piano... what happens to those? no more triplets afterwards? it creates an expectancy of that returning as a motif of sorts.

OK, measure 27, we return to crunchy harmony..

by the way, no, no, no, no, no! that is NOT how one notates tremolo on the piano.

then all of a sudden, measure 33 and that huge arp. in the piano... except the violin part doesn't really support what's happening in the accompaniment. WHY oh WHY are you telling us in advance that D natural is going to be our target note? that is more or less what is called a "harmonic appogiatura", and is considered an error in counterpoint for a reason: you are giving away the end of the cadence before the initial chord is even over.

The sad part is, that D natural is really the last note of your violin, (yeah, I know there's a B flat in there).... the only thing is you didn't PLAY the D natural that we are expecting at the end. A measure of rest or two, and your violin solo SHOULD be playing a D nat.

So, over all, lots of good ideas. Not the best execution of those ideas. Room for improvement.

Thanks for the review QC...
As for the opening, did you just mean the first couple measures? I can see why you think it's square, i'm still kind of iffy about it myself.
It's was supposed to a brief proclamation, the idea was inspired by the opening figure of Berg's op. 1. I am a bit confused about the syncopation issue you raised. It looks like there were fewer instances of syncopation (ties, dotted rhythms, etc.) in the middle voices, than in the bass line. If you could point out specifics that would be a great help. And yes the common practice part was intentional, although I'd argue more of it Brahmsian and R&H haha. Again, influenced by Berg (7 early songs), the transition from something more chromatic to diatonic. I definitely wanted something more longwinded there, what would you suggest I change? As for the triplets and their discontiuance, it was also intentional. M. 17 is supposed to almost repress them, than the soft and simple sweet harmony in 18. The measures after are a more pompous but romantic response to 18. Maybe it's a matter of preference, but again suggestions are welcome. How (in Finale) can I notate the tremolos correctly? I have to agree with you about the arpeggio, I should probably put something of the more virtuoso type there? And that D, I'm going to cut it, the cadence will definitely benefit from it. I am confused about the last bit you said. Are you saying I shouldn't have gone down to the B? I did that in coordinance with the D-Bb motive I already set up beforehand. I can't thank you enough for the review (after all you are THE maestro here)!