String Quartet mov. 1

This piece has a lot of firsts in it for me. It is my first complete attempt at Sonata-Allegro form, writing with pencil and paper exclusively, experimenting with harmonies, writing something longer than 2 and a half minutes, and it's fast. I started it mid-October and finished about a month ago. It soon took on an extra-musical meaning that I plan to perpetuate through the rest of the quartet. Stay tuned. thanks for the listen!

String Quartet mov. 1

I must say, I think this is perhaps the first work I've heard of yours - so, I don't know much about your background as a composer or your knowledge of string writing (so, if I seem a little too harsh, please keep that in mind.)

As a movement, I felt that this piece was quite haphazard. I was able to delineate a few motives and seen minimal development of your ideas, but I felt that this was more the result of chaos as opposed to logical development (hence, the word haphazard.) There were a few passages that I felt interrupted the flow of the piece - and not in a good way.

First, let me start with the overall score. Pizzicato passages must be marked pizz. or pizzicato. On this same note, pizzicato double and quadruple stops need to be well thought out. The string player has many things to concentrate on when he/she is playing there instrument. Making sure that your stops are placed in accordance with the passage is highly important. If a string player is performing a passage in 3rd or 1st position and you have them execute a double stop that does not fit in that position but requires rapid movement to a higher or lower position will result in an intonation problem. Also, quadruple pizzicato stops are not something that should be used often in a piece without proper space to allow the performer to execute them (also note that these stops will not sound as a chord but instead will have a rolled effect from either bottom up or top down - this is often marked based on what you, the composer, prefer but is not necessary.) Also, the cello passage at mm. 37 - 38 presents problems due to the speed at which your piece is set. Expect intonation problems at that tempo (hopefully, an astute cellist will rehearse that passage well.)

Structurally, I'm not exactly sure what your going for. Is this sonata allegro? Through-composed? What structure are you working with here? From my perspective it is difficult to ascertain the structure do to the nature of the movements flow. There are passages which break up the flow and passages which don't propel the music into the next section/portion/idea. For example, mm 28 - 30. You prepare one thing in measure 27 but you break the flow to return to the scalar passage. Again, you do the same mm 40 - 42. Was this intentional?

A few good things I notice: you have a very good propensity for the handling of chromaticism in your melodic lines. This is quite admirable I think and lends itself well to your musical language in this piece. Also, your use of motives and what I like to call 'germs' is quite impressive. While I was unable to ascertain the overall structure of the movement, I was able to identify your thematic material quite well AND I did get a sense of what you were going for.

I hope I didn't seem overly harsh, I just see talent here and feel that a good critique was in order. Hope you polish this piece up and post more of it for us. It's got a lot of good potential to it.

Jawoodruff made many fine points though I don't consider the piece as haphazard. I think it is just lack of practice writing for strings. Also you tend to rely heavily on the middle voices for your textures sometimes and I think this is what makes the piece sound unclear. Concentrating too often in one tessitura dulls the profile of your motives and development.

Also, rhythmically get a little too caught up in continuous accented quarters without meaning so - some of it is the way you handle your voicings. You have these great 2 or 3 part chromatic lines but the bass diminished their flow with slight squarish voice leading. Be sure to pay attention to what notes the cello is supporting and see if it matches you intention.

I agree with jawoodruff that overall a ton of great ideas and CONTRASTING textures (love the alternations with pizz and arco passages and how you vary it), excellent ear for melody, harmony and fine imagination for motivic ideas. And despite my earlier comments you show some cool counterpoint in this piece.

My advice - keep our comments in mind as you write another movement. I suggest a SLOW movement.

Wow, thank both of you very much for taking the time to comment. First I'd like to appologize for not give back ground info before post, as I was in a bit of a time crunch yesturday. (I'll be editting the description after this post.)

I'd also like to appologize for the very rough score. Due to some technical difficulties, I haven't been able to add finer details (like pizz.), and as a string player myself it bugs me. I also intentionally made notes in the stops open strings as to make them easier, though the ones at m.130 might be unplayable . I haven't tried yet.

For measures around 27 and 41, yes it was intentional. The abruptness of it as well as the somewhat different nature of the scalar passage was what I was going for. Kind of like a subtle, second personality. I was trying to suggest in a way a hidden motive (not sure if that is the right word yet.) If you notice it repeats itself a few times within the piece, always more chromatic/dissonant, but then end of the piece is all scales (with the motives thrown in); however, they are very much straight forward and within the prescribed key.

As for the overall piece, this is my first real attempt at a large form, sonata-allegro. I'd expect this area to be questionable. Harmonically, I went with the idea that if you continue to add flats to a system, you eventually will go full circle. So in theory, the furthest flat you can be is one sharp above from where you started. This is all a far cry way from most of the stuff I've written before this. I think that motive development was probably the weakest part of this piece. I'd also like to mention that this was completely written away from the computer, which is completely new for me.

I hope this made things more clear. Thank you Jawoodruff, and no, I don't you were to harsh. I appretiate it. It means my stuff was worth your time!

Thanks Chris, for taking a listen. I will keep in mind what both of you have said. To be honest I wasn't thinking too much on texture when I wrote this, nor the quarter note rythm. Thanks for a mention of the counterpoint, I actually kept an eye out for it, most of the time. And yes, I do have a slow movement planned, I'm working out the ideas now. I should be a little more along the lines of the slow movement from my piano quartet, but with a barrowed theme.

Thank you both very much.

I am bumping because I have posted a polished score as well as a new, and I think better, rendering of the movement.

This is very interesting work! I'm afraid I cannot give you as thorough a review as Woodruff, but I can say that I agree with him on the count of it's slight haphazardness: but I do not think the haphazardness affects this piece so much. Also, I was thinking to myself as I listened to this piece "Sounds sort of like there's a subtle theme going on underneath this one", and then I read your comment that you were going for a "hidden motive", and the fact I was able to pick up on that, in a sense, means you did your job well. But I do think that more structure would benefit the piece, at least at first. If you have a more traditional, structured beginning, and then move on to this piece, it will make your "hidden motive" more powerful in a musical sense, I believe, as the piece progresses. Just a thought.

Thanks for sharing, this was good to listen to!

Thanks for listening. It is cool that you were able to pick up on some subtle ideas. And I would agree on the points mentioned with structure; I think it is one of my least famaliar, and weaker, aspects of my writing in general. As for haphazard, in my mind it is almost a positive statement, as the piece itself wasn't really meant to be all that "stable", but I am not sure if that is at all what you mean by haphazard.

Thanks again for listening!

What I meant by haphazard, and let me explain as best I can, is in reference to the overall feel of the movement as a whole. You jump from idea to idea quite rapidly with little preparation. This is a common thing that many of us encounter as we work at learning how to solidify our ideas. In listening to the moment again, almost a month after posting my first post, I still hear the haphazardness within your movement. Does this detract in any way from your ideas? No. Does this aide your ideas in coming to full fruition? No. As you compose more and more works, you will most likely look back at this work and see the same thing that I, myself, see in it - lots of ideas. It's a good work and you should relish in the fact the movement is finished! I certainly relish in listening to it!

okay, That clears a lot of things up for me. Thank you for taking the time to expound on that.

And I definitely relish in this piece, for me it is a major jump from what I have been able to do previous. I definitely plan on using what sucess I have acheived here as a spring board into learning even more.

With this piece you said you are experimenting with new harmonies and to be honest there is a lot more experimenting you can do there isn't enough crunch really yet.

Also your string writing seems to be a bit restrictive because it seems the cello stays bass and violin I stays high you can realy play around with the range of these instruments also you didn't use any modern technique like snap pizz. balailaika pizz. scordatura, sul point, col legno and the list goes on.

Experiment more you could make a really clever piece of music.

Thanks for listening, and you seem new, so welcome!

I agree, there is much more I could do. I should also clarify that it was new territory for me, prior to this my harmonic language consisted of the notes within the scale, with only an accidental once in a blue moon (the second movement of this is along those lines.)

I also have to agree with you on my use of the instruments, it is a little bland range wise. Though, for this piece I didn't really envision too much modern playing (I will agree, snap pizz. could have fit in nicely.); this was meant to be somewhat straight forward.

Thanks again for listening.

Im not too good at reviewing since im not so good that good at composingtheory and counterpoint. But it gets a little too random for my taste concerning melody and harmony. The ear gets a little tired after a wile, maby it was the intention, so ill give you 7/10.