Jarron.Carlson

P.S. The string quartet who performed this is named the Rosco String Quartet. They are excellent! Check out some of the recordings on their website!

Hello, all! Here is a single movement work I wrote for string quartet. I entered this into a call for scores that a professional string quartet hosted. Out of it, I got this recording (along with 200 dollars)! Let me know what you think! Feedback always welcome!

I'd love to take part as well! Especially in the first week. Bartok's forms always fascinate me. HIs compositions always hold together so well, but I don't always understand why.

Hello Hemio! I like this piece! Sounds like it would be so much fun to play! It also looks challenging. Jumpy chords can be difficult for the pianist, especially when hand position is quickly changing. I love the low octave theme and motifs you use all over this piece! I wish that they would become more developed as the piece goes on, though. It seems to me that it stays roughly the same the whole piece. You show us the theme in different textures or rhythms, but it never actually gets developed. Maybe if you get a chance to look at this composition again, you could think about this? Thanks for sharing this wonderful piano piece!

Hello, Hemio! Wonderful harmonies and colors you create with your writing here! And I agree with above replies: wonderful counterpoint and writing for all of the instruments. I also love all of the little motifs and melodies you have created. There is so much material here! I almost think you could make this piece into a much longer one using all of these ideas you have here. Something like Barber's Summer Music with lots of sections and ideas all woven together by little motifs. You've written some wonderful music, I just wish I heard more of it and heard you develop these themes further! Thank you for sharing!

Hello! I love your use of rhythm, especially in the opening and closing sections! I wish though that you could somehow spice up the middle section a little with the same kind of rhythmic vitality. I also love your theme that you use in the opening! I think you could find a way to weave little parts of this theme (motifs) into the second theme to help the piece hold together I little more clearly. Great work! It would sound great on an acoustic piano!

Hello Luderart! Thank you for sharing your music here! I really enjoy your use of harmonic progressions and how you hide the harmonies in the melody of the piece. Very creative. I always find that writing for solo instruments (especially strings and woodwinds) is very difficult. Both because you must create harmonic and melodic interest using (usually) just one line and because it can be challenging to create enough contrast to hold and audiences attention using just one instruments palette of colors and textures. One suggestion: In my opinion, I think you could more clearly define the phrases and phrase structure of this piece. This would help to give this piece a more sing-able melody that could push it in a good direction. Thank you also for posting a live recording of you playing this piece for us. I always love hearing people (especially when it is the composer themselves) play new music.

Hello, Seni-G! Thank you for sharing this (wonderfully poetic!!) music! I love your use of motifs and how creative you are with your harmonic language. Especially in the first movement, I really admire your use of more traditional harmonies how they slip into sonorities that are more modern-sounding. I do wish however, that you exposed us to more variety in texture in the first movement. I feel like most of the piece you stick to the feel of (for lack of a better word) intruding silences and pauses preceded by short melodic phrases. Maybe you were going for this feel throughout the whole movement, but I sort-of wish I got the chance to hear you develop your motivic ideas in a different kind of texture. Texture change can also be very effective for communicating different emotions to your audience (which I read was one of your goals in this piece and I feel like you're already doing well already, with your writing as it is :) ) I also enjoy your use of the instruments to produce different colors; the arctic color palette is very effective, in my opinion. The form of the piece so far is very well crafted, and I'm so excited that you've shared this with us. Is there any chance I can get my hands on the score to look at some more and follow along with as I listen? :)

Thank you! Music schools in most parts of the world are largely the same, in my experience (which I guess may be pretty limited...). Especially at conservatories and especially for composition students, so your opinion means a lot!

Thank you for your kind words about my music! :) I do agree that I could have done a better job maybe with my clarity in what I am trying to express. I was just trying to capture the overall message of the sonnet; which to me was: 'Life is not as fulfilling, lived alone'. I was just being careful not to belabor each individual moment in the text, so that the big picture came through more clearly. However, now that you mention it I may have missed a few opportunities to really bring meaning to the text. Perhaps when I get the chance to revisit this piece, I will look at these again, and see if I can find a way to create interaction between text and music more creatively. I wish I had more time for music lately, but I am so busy with college applications. This will be one of my college portfolio pieces, though. In response to my cut of the four lines in the middle: this composition was created on commission from the choir, and if I had used all of the lines, it would have been longer than the maximum time for the composition they requested. In the early stages of the piece, before they told me of a time constraint, I actually had a really cool idea for those lines. Thank you so much for taking the time to listen to my piece and write some feedback for me!

Thank you! Do you feel that I have developed my motivic ideas pretty well? That is something I sometimes am not as good at, and looking at your pieces on this forum, I think you're quite skilled at it.

I'm just not sure my ear fully understands what is happening when we suddenly slip between functional and non-functional harmony. If that makes sense?

I attend a music school called the Gifted Music School. It is a very good pre-college program for music and all of the faculty and students are very enthusiastic about contemporary music, so I have a lot of very good musicians at my disposal. I am a lucky guy. :)

Hi, @Rabbival507! Thank you for your feedback, I have professional players playing this piece for me, and after looking over it, they told me that it is definitely possible. I was aware that at some spots, there are extended periods without a breath, especially at the end of the second movement, however, it goes very fast there, and I can sing almost to the end with proper breath support. However, I was not aware that the bassoon gets louder in its higher range. Thank you for bringing this to my attention. I will write something else in case the bassoonist struggles with those parts.

Hi Jared, I really enjoy your piece! I love the clarinet part. Especially the fast arpeggios! They create an interesting texture. And I like the playing with the shifting moods, a lot! A couple things I noticed that would be very hard (which is okay, I just wanted to make sure you knew) were the jumpy piano chords in mm. 60 and again in mm. 230. It would be easier if the hand position didn't change so quickly, but you have to reconfigure your hand for each chord. It is possible, but it would take a *very* skilled pianist. Also: I read that you were paying more attention to developing melodic motifs and ideas rather than harmonic relationships in this piece, but I would still make certain that you stay within the same harmonic language most of the time. It can be confusing for listeners if your harmonies and progressions hop between eras of music. Tying together a piece with motifs is essential (and I feel you've done it very successfully), however its also essential that you establish a sound world and stick within it for the most part, in my opinion, at least. Thank you for sharing this piece of music with us! It's so much fun and I look forward to hearing the next two movements! Please note: I am just a student, so take my feedback with a grain of salt :)