Caverns (for cello and piano)

Hello! I wanted to come on here and share my first completed composition. Any thoughts or suggestions would be much appreciated. I play cello myself and this was really fun to write.

Hello!  I am just wondering - did you write this with a scordatura tuning for the cello in mind?  You wrote a low B below the C below the staff in bass clef (the C is usually the lowest note on cello).  Another thing that jumped out at me in this is that you write some very muddy voicings for the piano which I am not sure is the best choice in a piece which features a cello solo.  Although you do use the cello very often in it's alto range here, sometimes you voice an E minor chord for example in measure 9 with the cello on an E below the staff in bass clef and the piano with a B below that making it a 6/4 chord which can be a particularly dissonant sonority and especially since those two tones are so close together.  Measure 10 is also quite a muddy voicing especially in the piano.  Although I have heard that because the tone color of the cello is so different from the piano that sometimes these kinds of rules can be ignored, but I do think that your piece might sound unnecessarily muddy in many places if it were performed live.  Thanks for sharing!

1 minute ago, PaperComposer said:

did you write this with a scordatura tuning for the cello in mind? 

 

Check the note above m. 10!

3 minutes ago, Eickso said:

Check the note above m. 10!

Ah I see!  I didn't notice that at all in the small score video LoL Thank you for pointing that out!

As I'm working on a laptop I can't see the score too well, can't zoom in. My screen's turned orange warning me it's soon to be bedtime!

Never mind. It's a credible achievement for a fist composition. It flows and works well although the balance should favour the cello better in places.

I agree with PaperComposer about muddiness in the piano left hand especially when the cello overlaps low chords. It's really the closed chords. I can't see the bar numbers but the page turn around 1'50" brings in some low sustained chords that draw attention to this. Possibly making them less sustained might lighten them.

The tenor clef might give some cellists a problem but that's a minor point. The issue of the low B has already been addressed.

Otherwise, well done.

On 1/31/2021 at 9:34 PM, PaperComposer said:

Hello!  I am just wondering - did you write this with a scordatura tuning for the cello in mind?  You wrote a low B below the C below the staff in bass clef (the C is usually the lowest note on cello).  Another thing that jumped out at me in this is that you write some very muddy voicings for the piano which I am not sure is the best choice in a piece which features a cello solo.  Although you do use the cello very often in it's alto range here, sometimes you voice an E minor chord for example in measure 9 with the cello on an E below the staff in bass clef and the piano with a B below that making it a 6/4 chord which can be a particularly dissonant sonority and especially since those two tones are so close together.  Measure 10 is also quite a muddy voicing especially in the piano.  Although I have heard that because the tone color of the cello is so different from the piano that sometimes these kinds of rules can be ignored, but I do think that your piece might sound unnecessarily muddy in many places if it were performed live.  Thanks for sharing!

 

Thank you for this comment! Finding the best voicings is definitely a weak point for me. I originally wrote it like this in an attempt to make it very boomy and dark, but I think you’re right, more clarity and neatness would really improve it. Thank you again for the pointers, this definitely helps

19 hours ago, Quinn said:

As I'm working on a laptop I can't see the score too well, can't zoom in. My screen's turned orange warning me it's soon to be bedtime!

Never mind. It's a credible achievement for a fist composition. It flows and works well although the balance should favour the cello better in places.

I agree with PaperComposer about muddiness in the piano left hand especially when the cello overlaps low chords. It's really the closed chords. I can't see the bar numbers but the page turn around 1'50" brings in some low sustained chords that draw attention to this. Possibly making them less sustained might lighten them.

The tenor clef might give some cellists a problem but that's a minor point. The issue of the low B has already been addressed.

Otherwise, well done.

 

Thank you for listening! those are great pointers, I will definitely go back and revise those muddy places. Having that low B is weird and something I could’ve avoided, but I think it brings a neat unexpectedness. When I go to play it, it definitely is a unique experience lol. Thank you again

Hello,

the piece is great indeed, I don't find anything relevant, that haven't been already pointed out. Only thing I'd like to point out is that the use of scordtura is really coherent here, because if one should be more on the c-string and above that do some double-stops for example, it would be quite difficult to learn and in that case I would suggest to tune down all strings and rewrite it properly (and I have to concede, that I wanted to do it at first). However here is the amount of time on the c-string quite reasonable, moreover it is really readable so the fact, that all strings aren't tuned down is completely desirable. Well, You probably know what You're doing.

Hi Cece, an enjoyable piece, well done. Something slightly silly to note is that the cello's line in measures 9 and 10 is identical to the opening of Hedwig's Theme in key and rhythm, the only thing that pulled me out of the piece! I'm sure it wasn't a deliberate homage, lol... anyway, I commend you on your choice of instrumentation, cello and piano are a lovely pairing, and they sound very good in the digital rendering.

The only thing I'll add to the comments above is to really consider the inversions of the chords you're using - is it going to be in root position, 1st inversion, etc., and to stay consistent with it - and to hone your rhythms to be more 'memorable': choose a couple of rhythms that stand out and focus on those - as it is, there's a lot of rhythmic diversity in the piece, including triplets, dotted rhythms, and syncopation.

Anyway, there's a lot of potential here, I would look forward to your next work! Thanks for sharing