Viral Declamation

Vince -

Some excellent work there. Like others have said the articulations and rhythmic counterpoint was a treat. I do wish the second movement were expanded and the the third a bit more succinct. I would encourage you to go back to it after a rest. When you do I suggest strongly one notational change (aside from the ones suggested already)-

Halve the note values for the faster sections for easier reading. For the slow section keep the note values but make half note of fast section equal quarter note of slow section. The challenge of writing your piece is NOT get lost in the articulations and the telegraphic motives. BTW - such motivic material would be excellent for a fugato serving as bridge from the slower movement to the return of the faster section.

Also, the change into a more majorish tonality was welcomed (it happened about halfway or so).

All in all though some good work. You should workshop it with a quartet --- will increase your chances of getting it performed.

Composer:

its funny you mentioned changing the note values, because i debated that the entire time i wrote it, in fact, i would change it to longer note values if i ever reworked it (yet, i am reworking it now but im just adding 2nd violins and it will be for string orchestra not string quartet, but im too crunched with time to do it so meh). as far as the majorish change, well i just HAD to throw it in there, i thought it was a nice touch immersed in the chaos, im glad you caught it! Thanks for the review, ill be sure to post here when i finish redoing the score for the competition im entering this in. Thanks again!

*goes to listen to Composer's organ piece again :D *

Vince

One more suggestion (tiny one) -

Before adding anything, do my suggestion with note values for the end of the first section to the beginning of the second section. Then look at the notation away from the computer/keyboard and just conduct and sing the score (don't worry too much about pitch accuracy or exact conducting pattern, just make sure your beats are steady). I make a bet you will learn more about your piece from the score than at the computer/keyboard.

Hokay... here's a rundown of things that you need to fix:

First, I strongly urge you to double all the note values in the Andante non troppo (quarter=84) sections - keep it in 4/4 and make it quarter=168 instead. That move alone would greatly increase the readability and neatness of the score and parts.

If you decide to not do (1), you need to do a lot of clean up. Several things I see: single 16th's (almost a universal no-no unless the tempo is exceptionally slow) - use a staccato 8th note instead. In the same vein, any dotted rests in 4/4 should not be used.

A larger issue is that much of the time your beat pattern is obscured due to beaming issues and irregular phrasing. In 4/4 time, you should always be able to see where beat 2, 3, and 4 are (unless you're using extremely simple rhythms, like half notes) Here is an example, straight from your score (m.21)

Notice how you can't determine where beat 4 is... the dotted rhythms obscure the beat.

This is how it should look:

You can see each beat and the music is easier to read.

Now this is how much better it would look if you doubled the note values:

There's no mistaking how this is to be played. This is crystal clear, and even at fast speeds would be easy to both read and play.

I would recommend you go through your entire piece and re-enter all the notes to look like that final example. It would make the piece much more presentable, much easier to read, and it would give both the musicians and the judges and much more favorable impression of your work.

Thanks Flint for the feedback!

I do agree with the doubled note values, im going to do this right away, in fact i dont know why i wrote it the way i did in the first place. i also agree on the obscure rhythmic patterns, i have a bad habit of writing as a composer and not writing how the performer will see it. thank you very much for your time and input, i really appriciate it! its funny because i actually learn more about writing a good score then at school lol. YC university here i come.

thanks again Flint :)

Vince

Wow, I can't say anything technical, but I had to reply since this is the first time I actually return to a piece a few times. This is absolutely lovely, though I'm not really used to this kind of music. It's really awesome, without a doubt one of the best pieces ever posted on this site IMO. Congrats! :)

Very good and energetic , I loved the use of half-steps, and the pizzicato was good.

Steven and blm22: thanks for the appriciation guys! im glad you enjoyed this one!

This is VERY cool. Thanks for posting!

Very nice, a lot of energy, I agree its a bit long. (I like short pieces of music) but your theme is great, my only problem as a listener is I couldn't really distinguish a melody or something familiar to grasp on to. The end was a little abrupt.

Other than that, in your score, just in the 3 page I looked at there were 17 notes that string basses can't play, and you can take that from a string bass player.

Overall, I really liked it, you got a lot of sound and energy out of four instruments.

pianistboy and Skahead: Thank you very much for you comments, and thanks Ska for pointing out the bass notes and the tip for transposing it, I have done so.

A quick update on this piece: thanks to the reviews of Composerorganist and Flint (among others) I am painfully going back and doubling all of the note values to make the score look beautiful ( if possible). I have also been orchestrating this piece and hopefully will be done in a few days. The competition I am entering this in requires an orchestration, and I was going to do this for string orchestra, but at the last second changed my mind. Luckily the content is mostly there and tweeking orchestration isn't as big of a deal as I thought. I'll post the orchestral version before the 31st, so check it out if at all you are interested.

Once again, I thank everyone who has commented on this for your input. All advice (and critisms) are/were appriciated

Vince

UPDATED MP3 Viral Declamation.mp3 - File Shared from Box.net - Free Online File Storage

UPDATED SCORE is in the original post

Sorry people...I feel like a douche bag for bumping this, but I have finally reworked the score. If at all possible there are folks out there with notation knowledge advice would be appriciated. I have already submitted the final version, but any comments (especially concerning the score) would be helpful for me to grow as a composer. Again, thank you for all of the reviewers that posted comments on my piece, all the advice and critism was/is appriciated. :)

Vince

thatguy, hey!

(nice avatar, btw)

Well, this piece was very dynamic and exciting. So go and get it performed.

(at a first glance, the score seems ok)

Hey Manos! Glad to see that you found your way back to YC. :) I hopefully will get a performance on this one someday. Thanks for teh comment mate!

Vince

Haha, thanks mate for the comment lol, I guess my study of Shostakovich scores is showing in this one :) . I also forgot to mention that the final version of this is for string orchestra, obviously not chamber music any more.

Vince

W...o...w. I can't comment technically but I love this piece. I wondered if a simple subito ff in the last bar would just make the ending a bit more final. But this is really amazing, I hope you win. Lol.

Thanks for the comment Terve, I agree the ending is abrupt. I've never been good with endings....if I don't plan it out before hand, I really don't know what to do with them. Good suggestion, I also thought that having a more cresendo-like part leading up to the ending would have done justice, but well, I just never bothered. The only thing I had in mind was that I wanted to split the ending 20 or so bars with the second theme from the A section (the circus like thing I had going on), but other then that, I just ended it the way I did. In the back of my mind, I plan to have more movements after this one, but meh, that's in the distant future. I'm glad you enjoyed this one as much as I enjoyed writing it. :) Thanks again!

Vince

I have never gotten around to listening to this until now... I have only watched the pages grow

It is very nice though, it shows that you put a lot of time into it. I enjoyed it.

it was a little to long for my tastes (lol, i replied to three threads while i listened to it.), for this "style", but other movements would probably add the variety that might make it a little easier for me to listen to.

I congradulate to on completing this, I look forward to the next of your endevours... :D

DC: I'm glad you took the time to listen to it man, thanks a bunch :)

Vince

I forgot the main things I was going to say about this, lol. I love then length and the structure, it seemed to flow very naturally without me thinking 'when is this gonna end' which would usually happen to me with a lesser piece of 8mins - probably partly to do with it being so thematically cohesive, and yet still varied enough to be consistently interesting/exciting. And I think while it is good stand-alone, because of its cohesion it would be excellent as a movement of a larger, more varied work. In this way it sorta reminds me of the movements in Bartok's Music for Strings and Percussion (at least I think that's what that work is called, I sadly had to give the CD back to its rightful owner :sadtears: so I might be wrong. It's certainly called 'Music for' something, and it has strings and percussion in it :P). So yeah, again, I love it.

WHY haven't I replied to this as well?

A great energetic piece, full of ideas, not long at all! I do see the connection of many towards Shosty, but in all honesty, although I can see it and hear it, it's not fair to you Vince! If I listen to more of your works I'll be able to tell more about you and your music, so keep working and keep posting.

Still this semi-modal tense and the continuous pedal point in the bass and violoncello mainly work great!

Score is really bad, but you already know that! ;) Make it better and then search for people to play this. There should be student groups, municpal ensembles around who would be willing to play SUCH A GREAT piece of music!

Well done Vince and thank you greatly for posting it and sharing

Terve: Thanks again for the encouraging words. I'm glad you found in thematically cohesive as in I tried really hard for this piece to be that way. Many times I feel like I'm composing but I wind up improving instead, so for this one I wanted to stick to a few themes and keep at it. I think I know what Bartok piece you are talking about but I can never remember the names nor am I able to classify his work in my brain database lol. Again, I thank you for your review. :)

Nikolas: I do love Shostakovich and admire his work. I felt like I was being original in this piece but since I'm so amazed with Shosty's work it seems like it shows more often then not. As for the score, well, that's something I need to continue to work on as I grow as a composer. The more people point out it's flaws the better I become, so hopefully you and others will catch all the errors in my notation in the future! I'm glad someone as experienced and skilled as a composer found my work appealing, Nikolas. Thanks for the comments!

Vince

Haha, thanks mate for the comment lol, I guess my study of Shostakovich scores is showing in this one :) . I also forgot to mention that the final version of this is for string orchestra, obviously not chamber music any more.

Vince

The all too common taa-ta-taa-taa that is ever-present in this style of music although not as much as usual. It just spends too much time in one key repeating the same thing. The little cello theme that comes in struck me as a good opportunity to introduce a little imitative counterpoint (which would be quite interesting in the sound world youve written this in) but it kind of flattened out to something else. Then there are a bunch of different ideas thrown in (including choral sounding bits) but it all seem a bit random yet static at the same time. And we're back to the jumpy stuff which is very same sounding. It's a complicated combination of different rythms yet sounds like the same pattern repeating over and over. The transitions are very sudden.

Having said that. It certainly sounds like you worked very hard at it and I can appreciate the effort. The result, I'm afraid, is not my cup of tea. They say one can't be all things to all people. You will have your fans and detractors no matter how amazing your music is or isn't.

I understand some people like my music, other don't. It's your opinion and that's ok. :) I've always had a problem with transitions, so hopefully as a grow and find my own voice I can remedy that issue. Thanks for taking the time to listen, I appriciate it!

Vince

I found the piece: Bartok's 'Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta'. The second movement (at least, I think, I can't quite remember if I've got the movements the right way round) is the one I was thinking of particularly in regards to your piece - about the same length, thematically cohesive (but varied in execution), similar thematic and harmonic ideas perhaps? Anyway, there's a good performance of it on youtube: YouTube - Bart