Miniature suite

This is a suite of miniatures for various instrumentations.

I. Thoughts (for Clarinet and Piano)

II. Stasis (Miniature for Violoncello and Piano)

III. Rapdity (Piano Solo; note, rendering cuts off the ending and doesn't hold it long enough.)

IV. Homo Homini Lupus (Miniature for baritone [voice] and piano)

Miniature suite

Pretty sweet. I liked those 'frantic' outcries in m3 and 5. Those were some scary thoughts maybe? The ending was a bit les satisfying to me (just a bit), but maybe if it were to die out with a large rallentando, morendo even to a just audible sound it would fit my expectation better. You've made me curious to the other miniatures!

whoops to fast with the reply. I was talking about the I. Thoughts (for Clarinet and Piano)

Edited August 4, 201015 yr by royreintjes

Pretty sweet. I liked those 'frantic' outcries in m3 and 5. Those were some scary thoughts maybe? The ending was a bit les satisfying to me (just a bit), but maybe if it were to die out with a large rallentando, morendo even to a just audible sound it would fit my expectation better. You've made me curious to the other miniatures!

whoops to fast with the reply. I was talking about the I. Thoughts (for Clarinet and Piano)

Yes, I saw that. I'll probably add that actually. I wanted it to sort of die out softly but the rendering doesn't play it correctly.

Four interesting works, I particularly like the cello miniature. Only issue I have right now would be the notation issues I mentioned on shoutbox.

Well done.

Very miniature. Some of the shortest pieces I've encountered.

What were thinking about, for performance? In some ways it's great to have such short and simple pieces, which would require little or no rehearsal, so it might be real easy to find people willing to play them. But also, by scoring them all for different instrumentation, with piano as the only shared instrument, you make it hard to find all the different players which would be needed to present all the movements.

I really like the material in these, especially the cello + piano piece, and I wish you developed these more because I like them so much. Not convinced of them as miniatures, except for the one for clarinet + piano; it seems to me that they were cut off early, when it would've been more "natural" sounding to continue and develop the material more. I don't know if this your intention or not, the "cut off early" feel, because in a concert setting, as a part of a longer program, stuff like that can work.

In particularly, I have a hard time understanding the vocal piece, not sure why, might just be my stupidity. I have a craving for a traditional rit. at the end of the piano solo, which would make it feel more conclusive, but it would be a little predictable, and perhaps not stylistic.

I'm sure Thingeh already told you about the notation problems, so I won't wasted your time with that.

The audio is extremely soft, at least for me, and I needed to grab some headphone in order to hear it well without turned the volume up too much. Not really that important, but I thought I'd mention it.

I like the vocal piece a whole lotttt. The rest were kind of eh, mainly because your rhythms are so square. It's something that for me personally is sort of a turn-off in your work - a freer sense of rhythm would go a long way for the other three pieces, imo (particularly for the fast runs in the cello/piano piece since everything else about it is so good).

Back to the vocal piece since I like it. I don't know what the x's stand for here, but I like the actual pitches there, hah. The brevity and aggressiveness combined give it sort of a confrontational feel (to the listener), imo. I think it's sort of useless to write a bunch of miniatures for entirely separate ensembles and group them together in a suite, especially when the pieces are so short, though - I think the baritone piece itself would work very well in a larger set of vocal music.

Sorry this is so short; I'm sort of scatterbrained right now :<.

The X notations stand for sprechstimme, I should write that in the score. In regards to the rhythm, I think it's sort of cliche that rhythm is an integral part of modern writing. I mean, don't get me wrong - it's important, but there are other factors I think that can be explored a lot more (not that I really did any exploration in any of these pieces). I am working on a piece now, however, that will explore rhythm (since everyone is complaining about my poor use of rhythm up to this points).

That's not an excuse to write awkward and blocky rhythms where it doesn't work :/

That's not an excuse to write awkward and blocky rhythms where it doesn't work :/

Give an example. I haven't heard anything awkward rhythm wise in these pieces.

Give an example. I haven't heard anything awkward rhythm wise in these pieces.

The runs in the cello piece strike me as "awkward." I forgot to mention that that piece vaguely reminds me of Messiaen, btwwww.

The rhythmic content in the clarinet piece is sort of monotonous and boring and square, which is more what I mean when I say "awkward" than "awkward to play," which none of this is.

The other two are fine for me.

Give an example. I haven't heard anything awkward rhythm wise in these pieces.

The runs in the cello piece strike me as "awkward." I forgot to mention that that piece vaguely reminds me of Messiaen, btwwww.

The rhythmic content in the clarinet piece is sort of monotonous and boring and square, which is more what I mean when I say "awkward" than "awkward to play," which none of this is.

The other two are fine for me.

The runs in the cello piece strike me as "awkward." I forgot to mention that that piece vaguely reminds me of Messiaen, btwwww.

The rhythmic content in the clarinet piece is sort of monotonous and boring and square, which is more what I mean when I say "awkward" than "awkward to play," which none of this is.

The other two are fine for me.

On the cello piece: Interesting, I actually added the runs last cause I didn't care for the way those two passages looked. I tinkered with the notes for a long while as well. The final result, I really liked. It provided, for me at least, a nice contrast from the rather 'blocky' material of the proceeding measures.

Clarinet Mini: The clarinet part is very important in the overall texture of the miniature. If you notice, the clarinet and piano both share the two 'motives'. My goal there was to make it to wear neither could function without the other. If you just heard the clarinet part solo, something would be missing - same with the piano part. I suppose that lends itself to the awkwardness you felt? I'll tinker with it some, but I don't really see a need to really change any of the material in the clarinet part (I could, however, add some embellishments to make it just a tad bit more soloistic.)

I actually felt, to be honest, that the Baritone miniature was the weakest of the set. The quasi-serial nature of the miniature was largely to blame. I wanted to do a lot more than I allowed myself to do, really. I felt, also, that the baritone part was rather weak - and the entire miniature, really, could be done without the voice to much greater effect.

On the cello piece: Interesting, I actually added the runs last cause I didn't care for the way those two passages looked. I tinkered with the notes for a long while as well. The final result, I really liked. It provided, for me at least, a nice contrast from the rather 'blocky' material of the proceeding measures.

Clarinet Mini: The clarinet part is very important in the overall texture of the miniature. If you notice, the clarinet and piano both share the two 'motives'. My goal there was to make it to wear neither could function without the other. If you just heard the clarinet part solo, something would be missing - same with the piano part. I suppose that lends itself to the awkwardness you felt? I'll tinker with it some, but I don't really see a need to really change any of the material in the clarinet part (I could, however, add some embellishments to make it just a tad bit more soloistic.)

I thought the addition of runs itself was fine; it was the rhythmic embellishments within those runs that I didn't care for. My qualms with the clarinet piece have nothing to do with any of that - less interplay or more solistic writing for the clarinet isn't something I was thinking about; I jut disliked the squareness, har. But if you like it, keep it by all means. I didn't write it, soooo it's all up to you hohoh.