String Quartet No. 3 "Amor Temporal"

I have finished my third string quartet. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated!

Hey Jake

Nice piece you have here. Your score is clean for the most part, as it's easy to read. Kind of shoddy in spots, what is your overall goal with this one? This is your 3rd string quartet and it's only 3 minutes long? Is this something to be performed? Are you a student of music interested in guidance towards your craft? I'm curious of your musical background. 

To me, this piece just kind of meanders for a large portion of the time. There wasn't much for me to grasp onto, usually that's done by the melody, but can also be done with rhythm/harmony. There were some cool moments with the pizz sections, but overall it felt like you were trying to write what sounded good over lines and motifs you've established. 

You have a lot of cool ideas here, my advice is to focus on what the greats have done before you, check it out and see what they did, but also think of what the listener is hearing, rather than you who will always know your music more than any of us. 

Great work here, hope to hear more from you in the future. 

Beautiful piece. The quartet blends well. I like the ecstatic initial part,. I find the change to the pizzicato part (m. 16-17 too sudden, un prepared -again very different textures); perhaps introducing some pizzicato sound before measure 17 would make the change softer. On the other hand the next section is fine. 

10 hours ago, Thatguy v2.0 said:

Hey Jake

Nice piece you have here. Your score is clean for the most part, as it's easy to read. Kind of shoddy in spots, what is your overall goal with this one? This is your 3rd string quartet and it's only 3 minutes long? Is this something to be performed? Are you a student of music interested in guidance towards your craft? I'm curious of your musical background. 

To me, this piece just kind of meanders for a large portion of the time. There wasn't much for me to grasp onto, usually that's done by the melody, but can also be done with rhythm/harmony. There were some cool moments with the pizz sections, but overall it felt like you were trying to write what sounded good over lines and motifs you've established. 

You have a lot of cool ideas here, my advice is to focus on what the greats have done before you, check it out and see what they did, but also think of what the listener is hearing, rather than you who will always know your music more than any of us. 

Great work here, hope to hear more from you in the future. 

 

Thanks for the response! I have been in band/orchestra for the last 9 years and write music as a way to express my emotions. 

My overall goal was to capture the emotions I've felt from a temporary love I've experienced this summer. Overall I feel that it is sad but hopeful, at least that's how I interpret it, with an overall abrupt ending. It is short, just like my journey this summer. 

I felt that I tried to focus on making every part worth it's weight, but it seems it didn't come across that way. I've been working on reading other's musics and continue to do so on this musical journey I am on. 

6 minutes ago, Jake Compton said:

I've been working on reading other's musics and continue to do so on this musical journey I am on. 

 

That's great to hear. What I took from this piece is that you have some strong harmony here, and that could be further developed with a more pronounced melody. One thing that helped me in melody writing was to START with the melody. I had been so used to starting with chords that I wound up trying to "fit" my melody in there all the time. I used to have this really cool jazz piano teacher, and he kind of opened my eyes up to that. You'll find if you start with the melody, it becomes a lot freer, and your chord choices you build around that usually are less robotic. 

Of course, that's just one path to take. I'm personally usually inspired by something cool in a harmonic progression, but starting with a different focus in your composition often times yields unexpected (and cool!) results. 

Hi! i Find the pizz middle section very interesting! However, I find the starting largo a bit too draggy. I like the counterpoint in that section but there is no real distinguishable melody, and for someone who may not be familiar in that particular piece, it may be a bit off-putting. Especially given this is a 1 movement quartet, it should have a certain melody that stands out. I would suggest that you could adapt this into a scherzo and trio with the pizz section as the trio, save the largo for a slow movement. In addition, the transition is way too abrupt. Based on how your piece is structured, I would offer a few ways for transition:

1) Bring the phrase to a complete stop with a pause before the next section

2) You could use a quaver ostinato to bridge to the pizz section (personally would prefer to do this with the upper strings playing a held note with the cello entering a beat after with the ostinato in dissonance)

3) You could try a standard pivot chord using long held notes

At first I listened without the score and really enjoyed the initial cello melody.  There's also some heartbreaking harmonies you have above it.  I feel like the pizzicato parts would have been better if they weren't just octave doublings (I mean right before the end).  Since you keep most of this diatonic the part that starts at m.17 sounds like it's in B locrian - that is quite an uncommon mode and not easily written in.  Overall nice job!  I've grown to like this piece after multiple listens.