Clockwork Dances

Hi everyone! I decided the other day that the 12-tone technique would be quite fun to play around with, so I decided to write something for an odd combination of oboe, solo viola, contrabassoon, snare drum and piano :D. Naturally it sounded a bit odd, but it also kind of reminded me of some windup clockwork doll trying to dance (that could just be me). Opinions and thoughts and criticism would be nice, I've never done atonal 12-tone writing before but it was quite fun. :DEdit: for some reason it has come up as poem setting and neo-classicism and I can't get rid of the description... I don't think it fits either of the descriptors

Clockwork Dances

It Sounds good, The S.D triils are cool

Ha the snare rolls should should actually be notated as tremolos, that unless you're going to go for a very subtle effect of the snare switching between locations on the head with slightly different sounds, in which case you'd have to specify those locations and would probably want incorporate that kind of element more thoroughly into the whole piece. You're probably not going for that effect.

I liked this piece quite a bit - it seems you've taken a very loose approach to Schoenberg's technique - which is fine, it just doesn't sound 12-tone, and in fact has pretty cool tonal moments. I particularly liked the moment around 54 with the Cbasson and soft rim clicks.

You've written a very difficult oboe part though - it is not easy to switch registers on oboe, even having a bunch of leaps in a row like you have is very difficult. Of course a good oboe player CAN do it, but even a lot of college level players have trouble with stuff like this. It's actually not the whole thing now that I look at the score, just really m. 33 through 37. Yeah, REALLY HARD. Especially m. 36 won't really come out.

I think it would be better if you made actual chords instead of the clusters - they feel a little out of place. Dissonant chords, sure, but chords - sometimes a chord with a few 7ths and 2nds can be more of a stab than a cluster anyway.

You DEFINITELY should make this a multi-movement work though, cause I really like it actually. One thing I don't like though, is the title, which I find much less interesting than the music, and kinda degrades the work somewhat.

Thank you, that point about the oboe is really good to know, I'm not a woodwind player so I don't know these things. And I had no idea that a trill on a snare drum doesn't strictly mean a roll, that's really good to know too! I kind of agree about the title, I'm no good with names but the system of course demands a title and 'A short piece for a mixed ensemble' kind of seems like the cheap way out!

It wasn't cheap way out for Schoenberg or Webern.

Ah ha, very true! I hadn't thought of that! Maybe I should ponder some similarly ambiguous title

I'm not usually one for dissonance or atonality, but I enjoyed the quirky-ness and sporadic style!