Dialogues For Solo Violin

There I was.... laughing maliciously at the pathetic midi beeps of my sequencer. I had just completed the first movement(My first multi-movement work ever!) for a piece for solo violin.

Let me explain.....

Two things happened to set the seed for this work.

1)A friend of mine is an amazing violinist. She is a very close friend of mine and is leaving for europe at the end of august. She asked me to compose something for her. She can do some pretty insane stuff on the violin. Stuff her and I have never seen in printed music before, for starters she can reach over two octaves in some registers. I took advantage of this in a very high passage after the climax.

2)I was at a party once having a pretty miserable time. There was pretty much nobody there to talk to so I was just kind of wandering around, filling up my beer at the keg when it ran low, pretty lame.... I happened to wander downstairs and discovered to my delight... A WORKING FENDER RHODES!... along with a bass, bass amp, and a drum kit.

"Booyah!" I exclaimed. I proceeded to rock out so hard(Just improvising) that pretty soon I had a crowd of people around me cheering me on. Some musicians sat in and jammed with me... we had the place going.

Now, I spent half the party wandering around and didn't spark until I found an instrument. That got me to thinking that since I'm so socially awkward, maybe I was given some kind of musical gift in exchange.

Awk!

Don't call it a gift. That sounds pretencious.

Call it a desire.

Anyway..... those are my two points.

I have three movements planned so far......

I - Lament and Enthusiasm

II - Argument and Violence

III - Whispers

They will most likely be very difficult to play.

I have been influenced a lot by Bartok's development of melody through rhythm and the harmonies of Arvo Part's tintinabulation technique(And of course there is always John Corigliano's massive Chaconne looming over my shoulder).

The ending of this movement.... on a major seventh... eh... I'm not so sure right now... but it is late and I like it right now. That's what's important.

I would appreciate any comments on continuity. Do I stray to far? Not enough? Anything else you can think of is great too.

Chow cats.

I don't understand how your party adventure comes into as realted to this piece, it sparked a "desire:... to write music??? this can't be your first piece...

in terms of continuity, I think you did a good job seeing as how there are slow and fast parts of the piece, but there is a gradual transition into them. After measure 57 however, the piece changed, is that where the lament turned to enthusiam? If not where?

Wow, your friend must be pretty amazing to play this, some of this is REALLY hard! My favorite part starts at measure 70. I'm going that I did like the ending I think the last chord goes well with the piece. I can't wait to hear argument and shouting match.

It's probably my fifth or sixth piece but the party adventure was me just realizing that music is my best form of communication so I decided to write a piece about how much I enjoy it as a means of human contact.

Titles are fickle, this one might change yet.... don't read to much into it in that respect. The change at measure 57 is a sort of a transmogrification of the main theme.

Thanks for the comments though. I appreciate you taking the time to listen.

And yes.... she is very amazing :wub:

Hmm. It's hard for me to review this piece, because it'll take me several more listens to come close to understanding it. (As soon as you leave the tonal realm, I'm a fish out of water.)

That said, how sure are you that what you've written is playable? I hope you're actually consulting a good violinist - y'know, it wouldn't be good to spring a piece on someone that turns out to be physically impossible. But if you're absolutely sure it's playable, then I think it sounds fine.

All I can say is that I would love to hear this performed. You leave so much room for interpretations and stylistic differences. And the solo violin repertoire, after all, could use some enhancement in the current age of brass and woodwind solos galore.

There were a few spots that sounded awkward, but I KNOW that was solely because of the MIDI. A good violinist will shape certain phrases to perfection, I know. The only real bone I have to pick with this piece is that sometimes the texture gets a little to thick for the instrument. You certainly have a fine grasp of the violin, but places such as measure 51 are very neat but are, unfortunately, impossible to play. A violinist cannot hold on to a note on the E string and then grab two notes below. This spot could certainly be played if the tie were broken, but the effect of one string sustaining over a busier line below is so cool that I would just cut out the D string note and have the A string play the moving line underneath the sustained notes.

Altogether this was a great piece of modern (yet still distinctly tonal) music. Keep at it!

I know what you mean about that in 51. The G will be broken, but I think I will tie it together with a dotted slur so that the violinist knows to try and get them as seamless as possible. You know? That's the sort of thing

I'll be consulting this violinist about. I'm serious when I say she's good. She's actually really really really good.

It's wierd... some people describe my music as tonal and some not. I'm curious as to why that is.....

Is that it?

I'm gonna PM some people...

Interesting piece. But it is extremely difficult to imagine how it will sound with real instrument. Therefore I am having trouble commenting on it.

But I can tell you that this is a very interesting piece and perhaps will be a very enjoyable on a concert.

This is fantastic! Not my usual cup of tea, so I can't really speak in particulars, but I liked what I heard very much. It all made perfect musical sense to me. The way you build up the intensity is electrifying.

For a non-player, you have a pretty good grasp of the violin's potential and you aren't afraid to take advantage of it. This piece is certainly difficult, but a really competent player would not only be able to make it work, but probably would love the challenge in a worthy vehicle, which this certainly is.

Technically: I concur with Reese about measure 51 and similar spots. Your proposed suggestion to the performer is a good one. The triple stops of E to octave Ds in measure 60 could only be done by the performer playing the E 1st finger on the D string, then instantly shifting up to third position to play the octave Ds...it couldn't be done cleanly, but maybe that's OK with you. The long-distance double stops in measure 80, 82 and 83 are completely impossible as far as I can see - a 10th is possible in the upper register, but not this. You might bring the lower notes up an octave, or the upper note down.

Great work, Chris. Good luck with the other movements.

[EDIT] I just noticed that you mentioned that your friend can reach nearly 2 octaves. She must have huge and very strong hands. If you think she can do it, more power to you!

Oooo... good find in measure 60. I'm actually looking for excuses to thin out the texture a bit and first on the chopping block is scraggy like this that's actually impossible to play :innocent:

I know there's a few in there... I have yet to do a final read through... I'm taking a break from it right now.

P.S.

Thanks so much for taking the time to comment.

I rarely listen to music with a view of "understanding" it.

The problem here is midi - it cannot distinguish the various bow-strokes or dynamics. Live performance would change the sound dramatically.

I can hear it better from the score. I imagine it would difficult for anyone other than a virtuoso to bring off. This must be for a particular performer.

I thought the accompaniment wore a bit - that demisemi-quaver (1/32 note?) figure. I thought it had gone around 3.30 but no, here it comes again.

The change at around 4.06 was therefore welcome. But then again, that figure at 5.30.

It's interesting. But it would be something to hear an actual performance. Record it when you get one, won't you?

:)

M

ps, I seem to remember this from an earlier post???

I may have mentioned it in passing in an earlier post.

Hmmm.... You find the 32nd note figure a bit tiring on the ears I guess eh? I partially agree. I no longer think that this movement is done. Some of the figures(Most notably the change you mentioned) need to be molested a little more in order to balance the piece out.

I'm also going to see what I can do about thinning the texture out a tad to make it more playablel.

Hmmm.... You find the 32nd note figure a bit tiring on the ears I guess eh? I partially agree. I no longer think that this movement is done. Some of the figures(Most notably the change you mentioned) need to be molested a little more in order to balance the piece out.

Even so, it may work well in live performance where expression would shape it better. Midi isn't a great help when it comes to expressive solos, hence looking at the score.

Yeah but I still think it needs to be molested some more.