Resound Infinity

I ran into this forum on accident, and was surprised to find a community of composers actually giving some worthwhile critiques of their peers.

I've never had any formal lessons in performance or composition (with the exception of a very basic theory class).

Resound Infinity

Techniques: Manifest Emerald Laminata, a 15m wide by 3m tall glass sculpture, as a score for three string sextets. That's all.

Time to Compose: The idea took a month to mature, and was implemented and refined over a week.

Structure: Directly derivative of the sclupture's structure. To my ear, around :45 a crescendo is initiated but never really fulfilled, finally resolved at 1:11. There are some other smaller themes, but that is the strongest.

Obstacles: Approximating a trio of string sextets (I had in mind: two basses, two cellos, viola and violin, with some variations between sextets on who bows and plays pizz.) on a computer.

Summary: A romantic string piece trapped in a twenty first century body.

I'm really looking forward to hearing any criticism from people who seem to have a more traditional background. I'm also looking forward to seeing more compositions in this section :mellow:

Wow this really beautiful. What a wonderful piece. Your description of it in terms of it's romantic leanings is apt. It reminds of Schoenberg's Verklarte Nacht--not in terms of harmony, but in terms of it's sweeping gestures.

My first instinct was to say that this would be fantastic film music, but I really think that it can stand alone, too.

It's definitely not atonal, but it's definintely not functionally tonal. How often does this vary from a diatonic collection? It sounds to me like it could nearly be all diatonic. Great use of it, though.

In terms of improvements, a couple things jump to my mind. I like the sculpture that you have used, but perhaps you have under-interpreted it. The sculpture has grooved surface. The grooves are quite small relative to the grander archs. This implies to me short rapid notes that move along longer archs and gestures. I'm not suggesting that you drastically alter the piece, but instead that you allow for a texture that deviates a bit more. Some rapid repetitive figurations that briefly erupt through the surface (albeit every so slightly) could make this piece even more dynamic than it already is. I don't mean any major themes or anything; I just mean perhaps repeating notes or oscillation between two pitches. The plucked bass notes work really great in the way that I am talking about, too.

I think this could give you varying texture, but it would still allow you to maintain the color, which might imply the statue a bit better. I may just be missing your interpretation a bit, though. Please let me know how you saw it.

Great work!

Thanks! I know Schoenberg for his atonal pieces, I hadn't heard "Verklarte Nacht" till now. Very interesting...

"would be fantastic film music..." Actually, it was fulfilling a commission for a soundtrack of a documentary on the sculpture :toothygrin:

"It sounds to me like it could nearly be all diatonic." Because some of the sculpture is very flat, you get big collections of minor seconds in there now and then -- which might lend to an atonal impression -- but it's all diatonic.

"The sculpture has grooved surface. The grooves are quite small relative to the grander archs. This implies to me short rapid notes that move along longer archs and gestures." A very astute observation. Just as the sculpture is a pair, so is this piece. For "Infinity" I've focused on the "grander" scale, but for the other one -- "Tree of Life" I focused more on the even, quick, percussive impression of the smaller scale. It's a downtempo sample-based piece instead a romantic string piece :( You can hear "Tree of Life" here. The only difference in "arrangement" is that the sculpture controls sample offset (essentially) instead of pitch.

The number of posts on this forum each day is amazing. I don't think I can keep up with everything going on... I'll definitely check this section now and then, though.