Music for Four Strings

I started off trying to write a short and simple piece that was just exciting to listen to, trying to avoid my usual tendency to focus too much on form, but I ended up making one of the most formalist pieces I've written, with all kinds of fiddly pitch relationships...Additionally, I ended up writing things that are POSSIBLE, but extremely awkward for an extended period of time... Good thing it'll probably never be performed! (And if it is, I'll probably modify certain parts to make them more comfortable/possible.)I appreciate any comments, positive/negative/critical/passive/aggressive/indifferent/drowsy/elated/bored/upset/whatever!Later edit: I added a poll about the repeats, and would appreciate it if you voted in it, even if you feel like you have nothing else to say about the piece.

Music for Four Strings

Alright, I don't mean to sound like a jerk, since this is your first uploaded piece and all, but this was <i>really</i> bad. The first half of the piece was just plain grating, with chaotic, repetitive notes and a poor-quality sound font. I've only listened to a couple of other formalist pieces and, while they are chaotic, there is something musical about them. This piece just felt like noise.

After the first half though, it got a little better and actually introduced a melody, but it wasn't long until it devolved into more random notes and ear-piercing chromatic scales. The end was pretty good though, and while the harmonies were repetitive and somewhat uninspired it certainly wasn't bad. I think it would be best if you started a new piece, focused on the ideas you had towards the end and expanded upon them. As it is though, I'd have to rate it 2.5/10.

The repetitve quarter-note section was 1) out of range for any violinist and 2) far from anything very good... the fun in minimalism comes from building up slight changes to produce something completely different. There's none of that there. The more modern sections were a bit painful, it sounded much too aleatoric and incohesive for me. Sorry, I really didn't appreciate this work. :(

Lol. What's non-musical about a bit of noise?

I addressed the part of your post that I could; I uploaded another version of the piece using the Sibelius 6 samples. I prefer the default MIDI sounds, for various reasons, so they're both available.

Edit: ParanoidFreak: It's out of a commonly played range, but it's entirely possible to play notes that high. None of it was aleatoric, each pitch was either part of a key in relation to the opening, or a tone row which was based around all the various keys used.

Alright, I don't mean to sound like a jerk, since this is your first uploaded piece and all, but this was <i>really</i> bad. The first half of the piece was just plain grating, with chaotic, repetitive notes and a poor-quality sound font. I've only listened to a couple of other formalist pieces and, while they are chaotic, there is something musical about them. This piece just felt like noise.

Lol...I'd like to take this time to point out that he meant "formalistic" as in "with an emphasis on form/method/structure," etc., instead of the Soviet term "formalistic" applied to works that the authorities saw as too "challenging" for the public to listen to. Formalism in that sense isn't anything resembling a genre, it's just a "bad word" Soviets used during the Stalinist period.

In the proper sense, "formalism" (placing an emphasis on the above mentioned characterestics) has nothing to do with "chaos" or chaotic sound, so I don't know what you're talking about. Also, no one cares abouts sound fonts.

Anyway. Last Life, I think what you have from the "Grave" section on is some of the better work I've encountered on this site. I like it a lot; what comes before, not as much. I don't know if you have plans to keep working on this piece or not, but I think the material from the grave could easily work as a movement of a larger piece. It's very beautiful and transparent, and retains some of the clarity and concentration even when the music returns to the more agitated part around 10:25 (I've lost my place in the score, hah). I enjoyed the sort of spare style, good stuff.

So, this is a monsterpiece! I feel I do not have the knowlegde to analyse all its aspects, but I liked the way you traveled many keys, but structurally omitting the keys with 3 accidentals.

It is well structured, although I disliked all the repeats. It is giving an unwanted classical feeling of boredom (IMO) so sorry for that :) I did like the initial neoclassical theme. I found it in a nicely cynical way a pleasant deconstruction of something Haydnesque.

I think you are really pushing the limits of what is possible and what is not. I agree that this will be extremely awkward for an extended period of time.

I wonder if people can tell the difference between a sffffz in ms 94 and a sfffz in ms 95.

(I listened to the Sibelius 6 Sounds version.) This is an impressive piece! While I don't have the compositional knowledge or experience to perform efficient/accurate analysis, I could sense that there is a certain deliberate purpose grounding each section, perhaps most apparent in their textural consistency and steadfast adherance to the originating idea. Even the repeats, which lengthens the piece quite a bit, seem to fit well within the overall form.

Like Voce, I particularly enjoyed the Grave. I also enjoyed the first two sections a lot (the "dissonant" tones in violin I in m. 16 is excellent--a lovely surprise). I did feel at times, though, that perhaps there could be more continuation/similarities between the different sections or that there could be fewer sections. Because in some ways each section is its own small piece, I found myself a bit overwhelmed by the sheer amount of material being explored one after another--a little like not having a moment to refresh my mind throughout the 18 minutes. For me, it would help my concentration if either the piece was pared down to its best materials or if the piece were broken into two or more movements with a satisfying conclusion to each. But then, I might just need to work on my concentration...!

I much enjoyed listening to this piece; the music feels fresh and smart. I look forward to hearing more of your work!

Voce: Unfortunately all the material in this piece is completely inter-related, so if the middle bit where extracted, I think it might make no sense on it's own. But thanks for the comment, and I'm glad you liked that section :)!

jrcramer: I added a poll so people can weigh in on the repeats, because I'm not completely sure of them myself. I think the point (of stacking the FFFFs up) is more rhetorical, the idea is getting louder, so the players should be playing it with more force, even if it doesn't sound louder.

smallercomma: I guess the relations between the sections aren't clear enough, because they are all derived from the opening and closing material, except for parts of the Grave perhaps.

Thanks for commenting!

is your music democratic? :P

Sounds like Shostakovich and/or Schoenberg! I actually liked it as a whole, and this isn't even my cup of tea! Nice job, man.

Definitely need to get rid of the repeats, though (except the first one, I liked it). The repeated quarter notes in the 2/4 section were not that bad, IMO, but it was way too much sound, and then repeated. :facepalm: Subtle changes are easier to listen for when the ears have to listen for them. Maybe make it a soft wall of sound rather than a brick wall.

Not my type of music, but I wouldn't mind listening to a group perform that, you've got some great, interesting things going on that keep me engaged. Lots of room for individuality, and yet it's strangely cohesive.

...oh. Couple other things. In the introductory statement, I don't think the "outside" notes in m. 14 and 16 are working for some reason: in 14 it turns the tonality into an odd diminished thing and in 16 it's strikingly discordant against the ostinato in the low voices. Strangely, it made me want to listen to it again, but I think it needs maybe something to make it sound less out of context.

Also I LOVE the 7/8+7/16 section, but the divisions of the beat in the 7/16 bars don't seem to be set up quite right. Feels like a mistake rather than a deliberate "skip" in time if you will. It's rare to see this time signature, but Revueltas' "Sensemaya" comes to mind, and Revueltas makes the material in the x/16 measures very deliberate and not sounding like a x/8 measure, so it doesn't feel like we're chopping up a beat for those strange measures.

Congrats again! Thanks for sharing.

Edit: ParanoidFreak: It's out of a commonly played range, but it's entirely possible to play notes that high. None of it was aleatoric, each pitch was either part of a key in relation to the opening, or a tone row which was based around all the various keys used.

I do understand that, and I'm a violinist myself (the high notes one could definitely squeak out, but it's a bit risky still...) Although I do stand by my comment. I think you misinterpreted what I meant by aleatoric... The music from the Grave onward is by no means bad (every single part is actually stunning in and of itself, actually), but I get the feeling that the musical developments aren't logical or expected, and that different, smaller, pieces of music are strung together aleatorically, even though I can relate each different section to the source material on various degrees of remoteness. (I wasn't referring to the compositional process, the score is much too complete for that :P ). The music seems to move forward and presents constantly shifting material, texture and mood without much unity or reference to previous sections to justify the whole piece as one work. The fact that you juxtapose very "safe" tonal moments with more modern moments exacerbates that as well.

On a purely section-by-section basis, I believe the modern (a word I dislike) bits of the Grave were very well-done and presented themselves as excellent pieces of music, but apart from the reprisal of the opening theme at the end, I find little material that ties the whole bundle together, so to speak. Breaking the work down into smaller, independent pieces would do much good in my opinion, even if it destroyed any inter-relation between sections (a theoretical relation that is not nearly strong enough to hold all 18 minutes of the piece together as a whole)...

jcramer: No. In the end I get to decide what happens to the piece. It's nice to have input though. And something's really fun about having a poll. I really like polls.

Johnbucket: Thanks for listening! The grave is based on a tone row, yes. I find it hard to articulate the overall form in terms of ABC etc. because all of the sections are really interconnected, but I did conceive of it as a symmetrical form. Something like what you have, or ABCDEDCBA, or maybe just A1 A2 A3 A4 A5 A6 A7 A8 A9. There's the continuous variation of thematic material, but also textural blocks a la Ferneyhough, which is what you're picking up on. The only real overarching form is THEME, DEVELOPMENT, THEME CLEANSED OF IT'S IMPURITIES (which were thoroughly explored, and thus expunged in the development sections).

On the subject of notation: About the dynamics, I think that many parts of this are TOO LOUD, as with the ranges, and the general expressionistic climate, the unsettling extremeness of expression is important. The double sharps are there because they represent the crisis point in a process of sharpening which has been occurring over the course of the entire piece; the music can no longer hold together one aspect of it's form (the deterministic shifting of keys), because that very idea leads to the possibility of impossible musical situation of sharpness to the point where there is no music. In fact accidentals seem to take on a very important place in the drama of this piece.

In my experience, string players prefer ledger lines because they learn the hand positions related to those notes, rather on piano where it's simple a matter of moving your hand and playing with the same position.

Peter_W: The "outside" notes you mention, must be out of place, they are on of the most important elements in the entire piece, essential to the formal processes which take place. If they sounded "right" there would be no purpose for any of the other music, and the piece would be over after the first section which you mention. As for the section on "7", this might be because it is a hyper-metrically uneven phrase. Most pieces in such an odd-meter have even hyper-metrical structures, thus making it feel "right" to anyone able to feel the uneven beats on a regular metrical level. But such organization seems contradictory to me, and illogical, as the uneven, asymmetrical, structure should take place on all levels of the musical idea for it to truly represent that idea. Otherwise the idea is only half-alive, constantly being subjugated by traditionalist musical structures. In order to eliminate this element of asymmetricality from the opening idea, I had to fully expose it.

ParnoidFreak: I would certainly agree that the piece shows increasing linear fragmentation during the "Grave". But let me pose this question to you, does music have to have a linear logic to be successful? Are non-linear methods of organization invalid?

ParnoidFreak: I would certainly agree that the piece shows increasing linear fragmentation during the "Grave". But let me pose this question to you, does music have to have a linear logic to be successful? Are non-linear methods of organization invalid?

It does not. But the more non-linear and disconnected music is, the more thematic elements, motifs, particular moments have to be memorable to sustain interest... I hear fantastic ambiences and textures, but they are very atmospheric and the avoidance of repetition leaves me with vague feelings and memories of general textures, and nothing significant has stayed in my mind.

Verry creative.Like,like,like !

Very interesting work. I really liked the melody you opened with. Very innovative sounding with a fun rhythm, would have been cool if you threw some counterpoint in there, to keep it a bit more fresh. The second section seemed almost minimalist and had some really cool textures. You were smart to keep the intervals wide between the bass and viola here. Your atonal sections were pretty well written too. The Vivace section got on my nerves a bit though, seemed a bit too redundant without serving any real purpose. It just dragged out a bit too long for my taste. I felt the same way about the Maestoso section, and the transition (or should I say lack there of) at the end where you returned to the first section didn't really seem to fit. You should also be a bit more conscious of your dynamic markings. Remember all dynamics are relative. My rule with dynamics is to keep the Ps and Fs balanced, for instance I would never put in a fortississimo if I did not have AT LEAST a pianissimo. If you really want a section to come out with more volume, I would recommend using more descriptive texts to illustrate that to the performers (things like con brio, dolente, dolce, ect.). It comes out a bit more tastefully to the performers and the audience. Also, NEVER EVER EVER use double sharps or double flats, there is ALWAYS another way to write them. I can understand from a compositional standpoint why you would use them, but it will waste the precious time that a performer/ensemble will need in order to prepare a piece. I would check some of these tessituras, too i think that high D may be a bit too high even for a retuned viola.

ALL of that being said, this is a cool piece. Its kind of like a sampler of all of the twentieth century techniques and movements, and a lot of the extra notes you put in there (like the retuning of the violin, ect.) for the performers are really interesting ideas. You really seem to know how to express what you want to hear in the music in written form, which is an incredibly powerful tool for a composer. Great work, keep it up!

Okay, Eliot.

You have good ideas, but you MUST learn from somebody, who knows this music. I sent you an email, with one of my pieces.

And you have to learn more about strings. The harmonies are good, you have nice and interesting rhythms too. But this piece is unplayable for a real string quartet. Let's discuss about your music later, here or by e-mails, okay?

Marcell Magyari

Well it is unlikely (won't happen) to be ever performed by a real string quartet, so even if that were true, it is not a problem. I admit that some sections are close to impossible, but that doesn't bother me. If I were writing for an actual performance (which I knew was going to take place), I would write a completely different piece, which could be prepared in the allotted rehearsal time.

That being said, I would like to learn about this type of music, as I'm sure you have a great deal of knowledge which could help me tremendously.

Alexthomas: I agree with a lot of your advice. I will keep it in mind for the future. The viola "can" hit those notes, as you can play notes above the fingerboard. Most people can't do this with any accuracy though.