An Overflow for String Quartet

Hey Everyone!

A new string quartet. It was a strange journey to get to where the piece is now. Everything I was writing was just crap, and was feeling so down. So I grabbed my manuscript book and went to a practice room and started writing at the piano. After that all day I kept writing and I just had this overflow of ideas and then the piece was finished in a 3 days or something like that.

The good news is it was selected to be performed by one of the string quartet at BSA, so hopefully I'll be getting another recording!!

Enjoy!!
Comments are welcome!

Thanks,
Scott

Audio: An Overflow for String Quartet 94 - Putfile.com

Scott

String Quatets are one of my favorite styles of music and I am glad to see you composing one. I think as a composer you can learn the most about music by doing this.


When you have 4 instruments of the same timbre, IMO, the most important thing, you unfortunately left out.

What makes and breaks a string quartet is the dynamics, followed closely by the tempo. In a String quartet, these are the 2 variables that have to be changed and altered extensively throughout the performance. You have the music here and it sounds great, but without the 2 major aspects being altered, it looses its appeal quickly.

I am not cutting down your music, just encouraging you to take it to the next level.

If you go to a performance by worldclass String players, you will see what I mean about the importance of the dynamics. It is an ever changing landscape that decides the overall feel of the piece. I hope you revisit this before the competition and add the needed variations in the sounds. Become the sculpter and shape the music into the masterpiece that you hear in your head. This can be the hardest part of composing, yet can also be the most rewarding. Become the conductor.



Ron

Thanks Ron for listening!!!

OF COURSE I will add dynamics, I knew how important they would be not just for string quartets, but for my piece in particular. I'm actually working on them now.
I'll post a new score up later, with some more changes.

Thanks again Ron, and stay tuned!

Scott.

Hey Everyone!
Made a few changes, added dynamics
Check it out!
I would love some feedback!

Scott,

I wasn't sure what to make of this. On the one hand, the harmonic movement was great, it swelled and it was intricate. I love the title too, very fitting. It reminded me of Ravel a bit. On the other hand, it seemed so...random. It was like one of those pieces...either a 5 year old wrote it or a composition professor. It really depends on the interpretation. I'm sure, however, with a real live performance, this piece would do much better.

Nice work,
Nico

Thanks Nico, hopefully I'll be getting a live performance of this one too. We'll see.
Thanks again.

Hmmm. I've only just finished writing my first composition for String Quartet, so I'm not hugely qualified to review this, but having listened to this the whole way through I think it's fair that I make some comments.

Like Nicola, I'm not quite sure what to say about this. It's certainly not unpleasant, and I enjoyed it. Unlike Nicola however, I'm not convinced by the harmonic movement at all. In fact, I think that was by far its weakest aspect - the slow, interweaving melodies are crying out for harmonic pivots and suspensions. I kept hoping that the bassline would break its fetters and move into a new key. . . but it didn't. The lovely chromatic moment you expose in the first few systems was never exploited, despite being by far the most memorable moment in the piece, and the wonderful scalic passages were frequently weakened by having conjunct bass movement.

I think perhaps I've been listening to too much Corelli. Certainly, reading this, I think I've been too harsh. It would be a beautiful second movement, or Adagio, but I think it needs a little more contrast. Yes. I think that's it - it's beautiful, relaxing and transcendent, but too monochrome. Then again, I have a poor attention span.

The title was utterly appropriate, and I wish you all the best with the competition.

umm thanks I guess.

Hi

At the moment I'm working on a string quartet myself, and I'm finding it very difficult, so I want to congratulate you on writing such a pleasant, well-constructed piece.

Unfortunately I'm going to have to agree with some of what's been said above and say that I feel that this piece needs much more harmonic variation. This is something I have a lot of trouble with myself, so I can understand what you've done, but in simple terms, this piece just needs more notes not in the key signature. With out them, sections like bars 73-97 feel like they are going nowhere, where they have the potential to be very gripping, and while the opening is very nice, the highlight is the idea in bar 4-5 as while the harmonic variation sticks out, its presence adds to the piece.

I hate to add a bit of negativity, because I overall enjoyed this piece, but I feel you need to do a bit of work to stop the listener falling into boredom.