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I was recently digging through some old files on Dropbox and came across a partially completed string quartet I'd written some years ago, and which I had completely forgotten about! This is from a crucial point of my development as a composer, and was more or less my first foray into contrapuntal vs. thematic development — so it's particularly interesting (to me, at least) to hear what I sounded like early in my musical journey! The first three movements were penned together over a decade ago, while the finale was left as barely a fragment. I took it upon myself to flesh out the fourth movement more recently, so it's going to sound decidedly more... advanced I guess lol. Still, I tried to keep it similar in style to the other movements. So here I'm presenting, for the first time ever, my first complete string quartet! (Insert wild applause.) I've included the score for these, as well, and would appreciate feedback if you notice anything I might have missed concerning notation or playability. Feel free to provide comment/criticism on the overall feeling of the quartet, of course! (Or just pick one or two of the movements to listen to, and maybe let me know which was your favorite.) As always, I hope you enjoy!

It really depends. Sometimes I start with one instrumentation and then change to another. Like my Weather Music Suite for instance, it started as a piano solo, then got up to a chamber ensemble of Piano + String Quartet + Flute, and then finally full orchestra. Or my Symphony no. 1, which was first conceived at the piano and became a full orchestra piece. I even have a PDF and MP3 I made of my second theme ideas for that symphony(which is mostly piano with commentary), eventually settled on the first one. However, often, I think of the instrumentation first, like I'll want to write say a woodwind quartet piece and then I'll write the musical material for said instrumentation. Kind of both? I'm obviously concerned with the musical material. But I also like experimenting with different instrument combinations, like I did for Flute and Cello or am doing for Flute Trio(as in a trio of flutes, not a trio with a single flute). Yes and no. Yes in that I'm satisfied with writing some or even a lot of repertoire for standard groups, but no in the sense that I wouldn't be satisfied if that's all I wrote. Yes, I've felt this several times, like with the Weather Music Suite I already mentioned. Yes. I don't know, I've never really done such a thing. Sometimes, especially if I'm trying to write a solo piece. Like Cello for instance. I have no problems really writing idiomatically for Cello as part of an ensemble, but solo Cello, I do have difficulties with. Underrated, I think the Woodwind Quartet is an underrated ensemble. Overrated, eh, I can't think of any. I don't think the orchestra and string quartet are overrated personally. Most challenging, definitely quartets, especially string quartet. Piano Trio also as that's essentially a quartet at minimum in terms of compositional density. Also any non-keyboard Solo, as with that, I have to think about how to get melody, bass, and figuration into a single line or maybe at most 2 lines outside of chords for strings. Least challenging, trios(those without piano anyway) and orchestra. Trio because I feel it's perfectly balanced in terms of instrumental roles, I never have to double roles with a trio. And orchestra because of all the instrumental colors. Just a couple years ago, I probably would have said Trio and Solo Piano, but ever since I've become comfortable writing for orchestra, it's become just as easy, maybe even easier than Solo Piano for me to compose for. Piano for solo, otherwise, not really, I compose about as much for orchestra as I do for chamber ensembles.

Thanks, Peter! Well, I guess the old adage "different strokes, different folks" applies here. While all 4 movements are in the G major modality, each (save the Allegretto) has a corresponding section repeated in a minor mode. (Keep in mind that these were composed before I'd even thought about mucking around with quartals and non-diatonic chords.) Since it was written most recently, the finale does feature quite a sizeable dose of quartal harmonies, and lends to a "darker"-sounding piece than the others. Nevertheless, they each return to a major modality, so I understand where you're coming from with your comment. I also think it's interesting that you don't find the finale very vivacious. But I guess the interpretation all depends on the listener's preferences! Thanks for taking the time to listen!

The biggest problem that specifically afflicts orchestral samples is that they have extremely-poor playability and lack of context between articulations. The first orchestral sample libraries were like this: simply broken up between staccato of an undefined length, pizzicato, and sustains with a very slow, non-adjustable attack. Two generations now of composers, specifically for film, have grown up only knowing these types of libraries and now they are the ones who also make them, and they make them to this same low standard that they are familiar with. There are basically no classically-oriented libraries as most composers who still write that sort of music do so with notation and for live instruments. The company "Musical Sampling" takes a step in the right direction by making sure they sample the short notes in performance context to the longs, but this is still the wrong approach. They need to take the same basic approach as sampling of other solo instruments. Which means that at a bare minimum, they need to sample the sustains with a fast and adjustable attack, with round robins on the sustains (nearly no sample libraries for orchestra do this) but it would make a huge amount of lines playable and cohesive in a single patch. The result of most current sample libraries is that the various articulations sound like entirely different instruments and layering arts is your only option to play actually musical lines. Most people just avoid this because it's a headache and this is how we got the "staccatos for ostinato, string pads for chords and the 'melody' is exclusively legato" style of writing — because it's what these poorly-sampled and scripted libraries can play easily. Cinebrass is especially a good example. The freakin' short notes' lowest velocity sampled is quite a bit louder than the lowest sustains, so the timbre is entirely inconsistent and layering them sounds very obvious. Makes the whole thing sound like two totally separate performances stitched together. If I ever get the money and the right Kontakt scripters together, I will take it upon myself to record a library that could actually do a decent job of playing real orchestral music without being unwieldy to use.