Violin and Cello Duet No.1 (my first Duet)

Ok this is an arrangement of the Minuet No.1 for solo violin, It's rewritten with a cello and I made it a little longer

Hope you enjoy it

Notes: I need all the help I can get, so if you listen to it, Leave a comment please

When I opened this in Finale to look at the notes there were hundreds of measures, each note tied into multiple measures - Your tempo must have been set very fast. All in all almost impossible to read.

As for just listening - You jump from parallel harmonies to parallel unisons constantly. This gives it a very folky flavor, which IMO, probably won't garner it many favorable reviews in these forums - unless you've established that you understand the rules and are breaking them on purpose.

What the heck? The duet itself only has like 30 measures, I honestly don't know what went wrong. As for the Tempo, I set it at 90. Moderato


So is it a BAD thing that I go from Parallel Harmonies to Parallel Unisons? and what the heck does IMO mean? Well I'm glad at least 1 person listened to it. As for what you meant about rules, What rules?

What the heck? The duet itself only has like 30 measures, I honestly don't know what went wrong. As for the Tempo, I set it at 90. Moderato[/b]

Dunno - could be a problem on my end - in any case, I was unable to read your score.

So is it a BAD thing that I go from Parallel Harmonies to Parallel Unisons? and what the heck does IMO mean? Well I'm glad at least 1 person listened to it. As for what you meant about rules, What rules?

No, It isn't neccesarily BAD to do anything in music. But everything should have a reason.

IMO = In my opinion

As for RULES - They serve as valuable GUIDELINES for composers. Basically, we are talking about time honored rules of voiceleading that have been identified by studying the works of the masters.

I'll explain it very breifly: Early musicians started by writing unison lines - everybody singing or playing the same thing. Well, it didn't take too long to figure out that if two musicians played TWO different lines things would get interesting. It was soon discovered that if these two musicians played the same notes in succession at the octaves (parrallel octaves), it was pretty boring. As it turns out, parrallel fifths are also rather staid sounding (although any Power Chord rock musician worth his salt will argue that one).

But it's not all that bad. What DOES work is contrary motion. In other words, one voice goes up while the other goes down. Now that's interesting, even if they arrive at a unison or an octave.

Anyways, there are a number of these RULES that were codified over time and are used as a BENCHMARK by many musicians to identify good writing skills. Do composers break them? Sure. All the time BUT - They are usually broken in such a way that the effect is to provide some sort of interest. Many times, haveing established this effect, they CONSISTENTLY apply it. Good composers are very, very aware of just how and why they are breaking these rules.

Now remember how I mentioned rock musicians always playing parallel fifths? Well, guess what? Parallel fifths are the signature EFFECT of Rock and Roll. Remember how I mention that your peice had a folky quality to it? Well, I was simply relying on my understanding of the way folk musicians break these rules to create a STYLE, which by the way is perfectly ok. Do they know they are breaking the rules? Most don't - but that's ok - they're not trying to write classical or contemporary performance pieces.

Hope this helps.

Yes it does help ALOT.

I didn't mean to sound so angry in my last post. I don't really know how I came across like that.

IMO= In my Opinion
(I get it)

One goes up while the other goes down? I see I see now it makes sense

When you said rules I thought you were talking about something on the website
I see what you mean now.

So you think I could write a better piece if I were to go back to the roots of music like that?

Hey I have one more question I just noticed that my status thing, (Starving Musician, composer, that thing right below your name) just changed from Starving Musician to Composer, does that mean I've written enough pieces to be called a composer? or had enough posts?

lol it's a post counter thing.

lol That's pretty funny

Hey look at me I've done 30 posts, that must mean I'm a real composer! (not!)

I think it'd be cool if they had a thing like that except it counts your compositions and not your posts

I wasn't sure if you were angry or not - you never know with newbies - the internet is a funny thing that way - but I took no offense and am glad that your questions were sincere.

So you think I could write a better piece if I were to go back to the roots of music like that?

I wouldn't worry too much about them (the rules) at this point. What you should be doing is a lot of listening and playing of repertiore on your instrument. Bach, Mozart, Hayden, Beethoven. Especially Bach IMO.

I find that when I write, if I listen to what I write and suspect something is 'off', I then go and check the 'rules' to see why. Eventually, you learn to trust your ears. It certainly won't hurt for you to check for and be aware of parallelisms in your writing - and even at this stage - you can probably identify when you have parallel fifths and octaves.

Obviously studying the theory (roots) of anything is only going to help you. Why make mistakes when you can learn from the mistakes, and more importantly, successes of others?