(3) String Orchestra pieces

Hi, I would really appreciate some tips. I'm self taught, and am craving some constructive criticism. I registered to the site in hopes of some help - so upon completing my most recent piece, I decided it was time for some opinions.

So, here are my latest 3 - they are all of considerable length, so I would really appreciate it if anyone took the time, :P

Strings in Ebm No. 8

mp3 - Strings in Ebm No. 8.mp3 - File Shared from Box.net - Free Online File Storage

pdf - Strings in Ebm No. 8c.pdf - File Shared from Box.net - Free Online File Storage

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Strings in Fm No. 7

mp3 - Strings in Fm No. 7.mp3 - File Shared from Box.net - Free Online File Storage

pdf - Strings in Fm No 7.pdf - File Shared from Box.net - Free Online File Storage

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Strings in Gm No. 6

mp3 - Strings in Gm No. 6.mp3 - File Shared from Box.net - Free Online File Storage

pdf - Strings in Gm No. 5.pdf - File Shared from Box.net - Free Online File Storage

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hey, welcome here. I hope to give you some advise. I do not intend to be harsh; I hope you get it...

First of all. They are of considerable length indeed, and I have to confess, I did not take the time to listen to the first one (i.e. no 8). So if i'm wrong because I didn't listen your piece through you may ignore my comments :)

You expose a lot of themes, and afterward repeat them. I looked in the score, and at first glance It looked like an exact copy of previous measures. Your Ideas are good, and interesting, but you lost my attention by not developing your thoughts, and just went on...

Another issue might be the use of the sections. You need to consider if it is played in divisi or not. You write a lot of octaves, which is when used sparingly an nice effect. I'd recommend use less high octaves, and clarify whether its played in divisi or unisono.

I liked some of your harmonic progression. But again lost my interest by plain repeating them...

Maybe try a simple melody with an solid bass, you're music has a lot of unrest which gets tiresome after a while.

Hope this helped you.

Thanks a lot!

Any other fundamental problems?

They are of quite considerable length! Perhaps a little too long? :( Don't get me wrong though, your music is quite impressive, and I enjoyed listening to it (I've only listened to the first one so far). There is indeed a certain amount of progression and development, which is also good. But, the bridges between these developments truly are too long, and one would have to have the musical patience of a saint to stick around to find out what those are. Perhaps you could stretch out your piece, and put completely different themes in the middle of each gap created, and allow your piece to develop from one theme to the next quicker and more apparently. Then, simply cut your piece into various movements (I'm thinking about 10 movements, judging from the extreme length of the piece). I definitely think you should take the effort to do that, because you've obviously put a boatload of effort into this, and you're very close to constructing a masterpiece of epic proportions...

Hi, I was hoping for a little more help. Anybody?

you get often more help by commenting on the works of others.

I see you have 4 posts now, of which 3 on this thread. I suggest you to participate. Return the favor :D

I sincerely hope not to be overtly harsh - so if I get that tone, please bear with me:

8: Sound wise: I think you have good ideas and the piece sounds very interesting - could easily see this becoming looped into Techno work.

8: part wise: Your string writing for strings doesn't quite take into account the technicalities of the instrument. Just from the viola part itself, I can see clearly that you're not to familiar with the instruments themselves (reference: measure 72 in the viola part). When composing for strings you HAVE to keep in mind that the musicians will not be able to execute vast jumps of the type you have written for them - especially at this tempo. Compositionally, I would consider this to be more than a sketch than an actual composition. Your ideas are all over the place. You bring in more material and hardly work on taking your previous material to any place of interest. I would suggest using brevity of idea. Focus on an idea and then expand upon it. Take it to new regions and see what you can do with it - the best pieces, one must note, are often contain very simple ideas.

7: Again, you have to remember the limitations for the instruments you are composing for. Asking a violinist to do a quadruple stop completely on the A or E strings is impossible. Asking the second violinist to do a full chord quadruple stop spaced a third apart is impossible as well. Having rapid octave double stops is possible but shouldn't be done for many measures (think of the poor violists hands). Also, the same thing as mentioned above should be considered. Both pieces present quite a lot of material with very little connection.

That said, its fascinating that you have the stamina to compose a movement of 93 pages! My chief recommendation for you is that you study and learn the ins and outs of this craft. Learn instrumentation and study some scores to see how others work - you'll improve a lot!

Good work though and keep composing!

You're right; I've almost finished a newer piece, tried to have more continuity. Hopefully you can tell me if it came out better

Yeah, I didn't go back and fix those quad-stops/instrumentation...but, I won't do it that way anymore. :)

Thanks for the tips, I will focus on these areas definitely.

hi,

number 8, the only one i had enough time to listen to. i have no queries about the lenght, after all its your piece, just make sure that the content is exciting enough to keep the listeners concentration sustained.

i strongly disagree with the use of repeats, as in repeat bar lines, that i thought was unnecessary, i agree aboput the large jumps between notes, just think about the instrument!

the slides, when they came in were interesting, exciting and new! (something had to be!)but after a while became very, very boring!

didn't mean to be rude but that's my opinion. lots of good ideas, just work on the execution.