Saxophone solo piece

Wrote this very short piece for soprano saxophone almost a year ago. Enjoy.

I recommend you go to this site rather than listen to the midi rendering which is AWFUL.

Christopher Sahar - A Love Unrequited

Revised pdf is below

Solo sax has GOT to be hard to write for. I was surprised by the lyricism of the microparts - I assume that the rhythms are meant with a heavy dose of swing, or is it less jazzy and more serial?

How did you get the notes and rhythms? This length and tonality really lend themselves to serialization.

Interesting, but I'm not sure of the connection of the title and music...

Cool

Well, the note values with a little swing. I consider this to be played as a cross between jazz and serialism.

The note values and rhythmn really were done by ear and then using typical variation treatments that are used in serialism - retrograde, diminuition, augmentation. I did not consciously aim to write a serial piece. Rather the first idea (notes and rhythmn) I had a rough idea in my inner ear and then I played with its motives and the rhythmns.

Note, the pdf says multiphonics, disregard that. I had the misimpression then that you could just ask someone to improvise it but the piece would sound overly busy with mph even if indicated.

As for the title, the rising 6th and its fall depict the unrequited love one yearns for an object and the middle section depicts the subject losing hope before taking one last dramatic effort to express this love outwardly (depsite the indifference of the object). In the end, the subjects is unsuccessful, quietly resigned to holding onto this love that is never returned. It reflected my feelings about music in general at the time. I am a bit more optimistic now.

PS. I look at your piece you listed in the next few days. Just remind me if you don't get a review from me by Monday.

The score needs work. The correct name of the instrument is "Bb Soprano Saxophone" and it should *never* appear next to the first staff, it should appear at the top left of the page (opposite the composer's name).

The music spacing is poor and cramped, using fewer measures per system would help. Of greater concern are the un-beamed 16th and 8th notes, which make the music difficult to read. The single 16th and 32nd rests break up the music and again, make it difficult to read. In measure 9, use two sextuplets for the first two beats, not 4 triplets. Once again, you're making the part more difficult to read for little reason.

Your notation is insufficient in the sections where you have indicated "Multiphonics". It is not enough to say "multiphonics go here," you need to indicate which multiphonics, the notes they are comprised of, and indicate the suggested fingerings directly onto the score.

flint

First, thanks for the comments.

Second, on my sibelius score I deleted the multiphonics indication but again I posted an old pdf which had it. See my response to ferk. My apologies for the confusion. BTW, awaiting to hear the best fingerings for the multiphonics on my clarinet piece.

Third - totally agree about readability - esp the sextuplets. I think the problem is my meter is incorrect. I'll experiment.


AGain here is the link to a performance on sax

http://www.compositiontoday.com/soun...shop/sahar.asp

UPDATE - Much cleaner and simpler score. Thank you flint again -- I was a very bad composer to post the old sloppy score -- have learned alot in the past year.

AH, much better. The only other things I would suggest changing is removing all the brackets for tuplets (they're redundant), and making sure that the tuplet number is always on the beam side of the group (like in measure 7, beat 3).

Oh, and you do not need to indent the first measure so far.

Thanks again. Agree about indent but I couldn't figure out how to remove it after I moved the sopr sax name to the correct place in sib. Don't know if this is your style. From what I heard not -- more tonal. By the way, you had a piece -- afanfarish piece for band and a nice tuba solo. Ever think of turning into a Tuba concerto?