ohreally

I'd like to join as well!

It depends on how big the cluster is. If it's three notes or something right next to eachother, just make strong fingers and make sure you hit every note evenly. Don't smack the notes down though. When it's a big cluster, like 5 or more white keys, something like that, just use your arm, fist, whatever. Be creative. I don't know if you're familiar with Frederik Rzewski's "Winnsboro Cotton Mill Blues" from his Four North American Ballads, but in the beginning of that piece the preformer is required to use both his hands to play clusters over the entire lowest octave, black keys-white keys-black keys-white keys, and later on to use the upper arm for even more clusters.

Hey, you pointed out exactly these parts I didn't feel comfortable about. You're right, I do need an orchestration book. Thanks a lot for your comment, it was very useful!

Nope. Guess you noticed some impossible things here and there?

Thanks a lot!

He is, and his interpretations are unimaginitive and dull.

Heh, the term for it is polytonality. The most famous example of this is probably in Honegger's Le Roi David, where the "marching of the feet" of the Israelites is in a different tonality as the chant they're singing, and another different tonality for the echoes against the mountains. Definately tonal.

I have 6 CD's of his piano works by Geoffrey Douglas Madge. Some of the works sound nice interesting, but most of them aren't that special. This could ofcourse be because of Madge, since I never really liked his playing at all.

Hello, I finished composing my first string quartet a couple of days ago, after working on it for several months (not constantly, there were sometimes gaps of up to three weeks inbetween). I tried combining a lot of different styles, new and old, into one piece that still has some kind of unity in it (this is a problem I tried to solve by themes that come back in the entire piece). I added no dynamics to the score, they're up to the preformers. The main key is F sharp minor, but the piece has an original structure, sometimes not even based on keys. The piece lasts about 8 minutes and is made out of a single movement, devided into several sections. The structure of the piece: The piece starts off with an atonal Lento section, which is in a 13/8 time signature to get rid of most sense of any tempo, and has some rather tense moments in it despite it's slow pace. Several themes are introduced here. Some which are only to be found in the atonal sections, and one which is found all throughout the piece (I will call this Theme I). After a minute or so, the atonal section develops into tonality and has a very clear cadence (which is in the key of F sharp minor). After a brief silence Violin I introduces Theme II (Tempo: Moderato, time signature: 3/4) in a fugato section. The theme (or here: subject, rather) enters all the other voices but all voices start off in different keys (and sometimes even stay in that key). Then the fugato smoothly goes into a section with an aim that's more harmonical, and a cadence (with a slightly modified Theme I in the lowest cello part) concludes it in C sharp minor. The piece continues in a kind of choral way for half a minute or so and suddenly turns into a rhytmically complex part which contains modifications of both Theme I and Theme II woven into eachother in a very dissonant way, and goes back to the a choral part. Then the same thing happens again, rhytmically even more loose and very chromatic, going into the key of F minor. This is where Theme III is born in the Viola part. This theme, sometimes with a few things changed, gets repeated, but the rhytms of the other instruments around it get messier and messier (Both Theme I and Theme II return in the other instruments here) and eventually turns into a "harmonic mess" as noted on the score. Then the piece accelerates (Theme I being played in two voices at the end) and ends in abrupt silence which lasts for some time. Another, slower atonal section (Largo) (Time signature: Alla breve) now starts, and contains most of the atonal themes introduced in the first atonal section. Theme I appears as a kind of canon (not really, I know) throughout all 4 of the instruments in this section. This atonal section goes right into another atonal section, but this is a lot more dissonant and harmonically frozen, and is supposed to sound like it's played in two different metres (as noted on the score). The midi doesn't bring this out very well, my excuses for that. Now the piece has gone into B minor suddenly, into a minimalistic section. Slowly, a theme develops which I will call the Development theme, since it's based on Theme II, and eventually turns into that. After the minimalistic section, which is the longest section in the piece, the piece goes into the climax (in F sharp minor). This section has a moderate tempo, and has a very harmonical aim and is very much based on Romanticism. Theme II is used here and extended to enlarge the effect of the climax. The climax ends in a similar choral kind of part as the fugato section, but is now in F sharp minor. The same rhytmical complex part that was the first one in the earlier choral section ends the piece. I don't know if it worked well to combine all the things I was planning to combine. Well, I'd love to hear what you people think of my work. Thanks! Have a nice day, - A.J. van Weert P.S. The midi file and the score still contain some errors I have to fix sometime. SQFinished.mid StringQuartet.pdf