'Cello and Piano Piece

Hey everyone, sorry I haven't posted on these boards for a while!

Anyway, here is the first movement of a four-movement work for 'cello and piano that I'm writing for a couple of friends. Each movement depicts a different scene that played out in my head as I wrote the piece. The first movement, "Mythical Rainforest With Birds," depicts a very bright, pastoral setting within a forest. A stream can be heard flowing in the distance, as well as quiet birdsong. Small "droplets" of brilliant white light float around, and the landscape and sky outside of the forest are pure and serene.

I have the concepts/images in my head for the other movements, which I will probably compose over the summer if I have time.

NOTE: The audio file is far from perfect. I'm still learning how to use EWQLSO and SONAR 8, so please don't judge the piece based on how the computer plays it.

Thanks for listening. :)

Sound: Forest.mp3

Score: Mythical Rainforest PDF3.pdf

Bump.

Would appreciate some critiques, please. Thanks a lot! :)

Tsk. Impatient, impatient.

Overall I liked it. It was pretty, and evocative of the kind of setting you were trying to portray. One thing is, are you sure your cellist can get those crazy-fast harmonics at 29? If they can, they have mad skills.

Another thing I didn't like so much were the titles, particularly "Flight, on the back of a Majestic Bird". Call me old-fashioned, but I still like those good old titles like "Sonata". I would like it better even if you just took out the comma and called it "Flight on the back of a Majestic Bird". That still makes sense.

And I really liked the ending, I thought it was a fascinating and unorthodox, but satisfying ending. But it also might be rather difficult to pull off convincingly, without leaving one player continuing after the other had stopped and looking like a fool.

Sorry to sound impatient! Not trying to come across that way at all.

I see what you mean about the harmonics. Are you a cellist yourself?

As for the titles, I guess I'm kind of a mystic (I see scenes and colors in my head as I write music; it's part of my technique), but since it seems a little cheesy I might shorten the titles to something like "Flight" or "Rainforest" or something along those lines.

Thanks!

This piece has some really nice elements to it, I really enjoyed reading through it and listening to it.

Has it ever been played through by musicians? On paper you have some really nice, unique ideas, however they may come through weakly/be almost unplayable when performed. If you haven't yet, definitely try to spend some time looking over it all with a cellist and their instrument, just to make sure everything sits well on the instrument. Then again, I'm not a cellist and maybe you are :P

Good work, definite potential here. How are the other movements coming along?

That's fairly normal. You're just lucky you don't see colours and scenes when you look at numbers and notes and letters...that gets annoying.

Haha! That happens to me as well! You?

Evan-

Gosh, I really like your melodies and scales in this, your harmonic language in this piece is like, exactly the kind of aesthetic I love. I love the "flight part" with the pattern in the left hand, AWESOME chord progression. As for the cello playability, I can't really comment, though the harmonics do look very difficult. Very great interplay of the piano and cello, I can't wait to hear this live. Who's playing it?

Evan-

Gosh, I really like your melodies and scales in this, your harmonic language in this piece is like, exactly the kind of aesthetic I love. I love the "flight part" with the pattern in the left hand, AWESOME chord progression. As for the cello playability, I can't really comment, though the harmonics do look very difficult. Very great interplay of the piano and cello, I can't wait to hear this live. Who's playing it?

Wow, thanks! Glad you liked it.

I wrote it for Morteza Rabii (you may have heard the name) and John Bond (a very talented pianist), and it will probably get performed some time next semester (hopefully I can finish the other movements by then).

By the way, I really liked your flute piece! Wish I could have heard it live. Are you getting anything performed on the May 7 Composers Guild concert?

I am a cellist. If you don't write G and B (so that there will be a A major chord) it's playable by flagolet-glissando. But of course that isn't the same. Think about it. You should rewrite it, because it's just not playable :) (You may have the question what level I play the cello: I play now the Brahms e-minor, and the Ligeti solo sonata)

I am a cellist. If you don't write G and B (so that there will be a A major chord) it's playable by flagolet-glissando. But of course that isn't the same. Think about it. You should rewrite it, because it's just not playable :) (You may have the question what level I play the cello: I play now the Brahms e-minor, and the Ligeti solo sonata)

Hmmm...OK. The idea was basically to have a "shimmery" effect in the background, so I suppose any kind of fast, liquid, high-range harmonics would do. Although perhaps I notated it incorrectly; I was trying to tell the player to play all of the overtones of the A string. Have I not written it the right way?

Good luck with that repertoire, those are difficult pieces for sure!

Thanks for the advice. :)

W

By the way, I really liked your flute piece! Wish I could have heard it live. Are you getting anything performed on the May 7 Composers Guild concert?

I'm setting a poem by W.S. Merwin that Nick Susi will play piano on and some undetermined soprano will sing - I need to finish it, and QUICKLY!

Hmmm...OK. The idea was basically to have a "shimmery" effect in the background, so I suppose any kind of fast, liquid, high-range harmonics would do. Although perhaps I notated it incorrectly; I was trying to tell the player to play all of the overtones of the A string. Have I not written it the right way?

The low A is not very practical unless you really want the (rather ugly) change from light harmonic sound to the brightness of the open 'A' string. Whilst the overall effect is reasonably practical even at the pianissimo dynamic specified, it will be hard for the cellist to pronounce clearly the top notes as they are spaced very close together at the top of the fingerboard. I suggest you remove the notes the other poster identifies as problematic - see Shostakovich Cello Sonata Mvt 2 for a good example of this type of effect. If you provide a separate cello part it might be helpful for the player to have the piano part as a cue so they know how long the effect lasts. It's difficult to count in aleatoric passages!

Other points - piano part looks fine but could really do with some phrase markings/slurs. Also don't expect pianists to take your pedal markings to the letter, especially the very long ones like b. 78-82 - the texture might become muddy. In addition, I feel that the lower register of the cello is rather neglected - I think you don't go below the E below middle C. The bottom of the cello is a rich colour which is very characteristic of the instrument.

Yes, Shostakovich is the best example for it. G and B aren't overtones on the A string. They are on the G string. Of course in high ranges there are only 'overtones' because we can't push it down, but these are the notes over F (above the staff) (F or F# is the last note which is pushable in the original way (each instrument has each range))

So AC#E on the A string :) and check Shostakovich

This is kind of a notation question - what's the name for the ad lib/boxed figures you use in both cello and piano for the repeated pattern?

maybe formula. but i am Hungarian, i just translated the Hungarian word to English :D so not sure

This is kind of a notation question - what's the name for the ad lib/boxed figures you use in both cello and piano for the repeated pattern?

It's called aleatoric music, although I'm not sure if that's what you meant. Do you mean the "real" name for it, or the name that Sibelius gives to it? I basically just went to the line tool and selected the box, and then resized it to encompass the entire measure, and then used the thick, squiggly line to cover the rest of the measures (just a bunch of click-and-drag). Did that answer your question? :P

It's called aleatoric music, although I'm not sure if that's what you meant. Do you mean the "real" name for it, or the name that Sibelius gives to it? I basically just went to the line tool and selected the box, and then resized it to encompass the entire measure, and then used the thick, squiggly line to cover the rest of the measures (just a bunch of click-and-drag). Did that answer your question? :P

Cool, sounds good - yeah, I knew it was aleatoric, but I didn't know the technical term for that notation so I could look for it in the Sibelius reference (I thought you were a Finale user! Glad to hear you're not anymore :whistling: ) Out of curiosity, what did you use to sequence this? Because it sounds much better than Sibelius GM playback!

Cool, sounds good - yeah, I knew it was aleatoric, but I didn't know the technical term for that notation so I could look for it in the Sibelius reference (I thought you were a Finale user! Glad to hear you're not anymore :whistling: ) Out of curiosity, what did you use to sequence this? Because it sounds much better than Sibelius GM playback!

Hehe, yeah I made the switch to Sibelius last semester. With Finale, it felt like I was drawing the music onto the page, but Sibelius feels more like a word processor; I can just type it in, so it is much faster!

I used a sample library I bought last semester called EastWest/Quantum Leap Symphonic Orchestra (EWQLSO) to get the sounds, and used a sequencer called SONAR 8 to do the editing. I'm still learning how to use them, though. I highly recommend it. :)