Gadget for Wind Quintet

Hello again!  I wasn't going to share this next installment in my "composed with dice" series as I thought the results sounded too random and haphazard but I've grown to like it somehow.  I named this piece for Wind Quintet (Flute, Oboe, Bb Clarinet, French Horn in F, and Bassoon) a "Gadget" because of it's inventive character (but it's not strictly an invention or anything) and because it was composed with dice.  I used a twelve-sided musicians dice (that has all the 12 pitch classes on it's sides) to roll a chord name and then a four-sided triangular pyramid dice to determine whether that chord will be 1 = major, 2 = minor, 3 = augmented, or 4 = diminished.  I threw pairs of each of these dice together and came up with polychords which I used as a kind of under-drawing for my melodic material (just like caricature artists first start with a kind of under-drawing of a face where they draw an oval for the general shape of a face and a line bisecting the face and then another line at eye level and two more ovals in the general area where the eyes will be etc.).  A rule I used to try and make the music more consistent with itself instead of seemingly just jumping between random ideas is to reuse previous harmonic material as much as I can and only as a last resort throw the dice again if I want something completely new harmonically and melodically.  Unfortunately, if this piece were ever performed the Oboists and Clarinettists might want to kill me as you basically need to be able to do circular breathing with how the piece was written.  An alternative might be to have two of each and have them trade off playing their part to make breathing easier.  Let me know what you think!  I welcome any observations or criticisms.

Edit:  I've uploaded an mp3 generated by Musesounds to compare.  Also included a landscape score.

It coheres well and would make a nice scherzo in a multi-movement work. As you hinted, breathing would be a problem and you'll certainly get your money's worth from the horn player! The clarinettist has to play 9 bars before a feasible breathing point. They have a better chance in the passage from bar 13, grabbing a breath at the staccato in bar 17. The long flute trill at the opening may have to be split somewhere. 

The horn part is difficult both from the breathing and notes from bar 44 where it gets a bit florid, as you've phrased them legato. The harmonics are close together in the top register. You definitely need a good quintet player for that. A triple horn would save the day having its high F section.

It might be a precaution to put the trill notes in on all trills in view of the indeterminate key of the piece.

Just a personal reaction. I felt the section from bar 44 seemed a little short putting it out of balance with the rest. Without a detailed analysis it had a different 'tone' to it although it has similar thematic material. (17 bars total compared with 44 before it). 

A most interesting piece, energetic, easy to listen to.

Great.

(I did watch the video on composing with dice....interesting in the way dice can be applied.)

6 hours ago, Quinn said:

It coheres well and would make a nice scherzo in a multi-movement work. As you hinted, breathing would be a problem and you'll certainly get your money's worth from the horn player! The clarinettist has to play 9 bars before a feasible breathing point. They have a better chance in the passage from bar 13, grabbing a breath at the staccato in bar 17. The long flute trill at the opening may have to be split somewhere.

Thanks re: the coherency!  I think with the Clarinet technique it is definitely possible to learn circular breathing but what I am worried about is whether circular breathing is even possible for double reed instruments ... ???

6 hours ago, Quinn said:

The horn part is difficult both from the breathing and notes from bar 44 where it gets a bit florid, as you've phrased them legato. The harmonics are close together in the top register. You definitely need a good quintet player for that. A triple horn would save the day having its high F section.

In this case, having been an accomplished horn player myself I wrote the part to be playable for me in particular.  I think the most difficult bars are 50 and 51 but there are staccato notes in bars 49 and 48 that would allow the horn player to sneak a breath in.

6 hours ago, Quinn said:

It might be a precaution to put the trill notes in on all trills in view of the indeterminate key of the piece.

Are you referring to some of the bassoon trills that were left unmarked without any accidentals?  I guess a reminder that all those are natural wouldn't hurt if I ever revise the piece.

6 hours ago, Quinn said:

Just a personal reaction. I felt the section from bar 44 seemed a little short putting it out of balance with the rest. Without a detailed analysis it had a different 'tone' to it although it has similar thematic material. (17 bars total compared with 44 before it). 

I consider the piece to be a kind of mini little sonatina with an A theme, B theme, a short development section and a recap of both A and B with B being in a different key and a short coda based on the last two measures of the original B theme.  The recap of the B theme which I think you're referring to here is comparable to the original (the original being 8 bars and the recap being 6 and a half followed by a coda that's 9 bars long based on the last two measures of the original B theme).  The recap of B is also in Eb modified half-whole octatonic while the original is in B modified half-whole octatonic.  Also in the recap is where the horn takes the melody giving it that different tone or color.

6 hours ago, Quinn said:

A most interesting piece, energetic, easy to listen to.

Great.

Thank you!  It was fun to write on paper but then a terrible experience of actually entering it into MuseScore which gave me a very bad first impression of the piece LoL.

6 hours ago, Quinn said:

(I did watch the video on composing with dice....interesting in the way dice can be applied.)

I've since watched some other videos about how it is possible to compose with dice.  Search "how to compose with dice" on YouTube and you'll find some other alternate videos to the one I posted earlier in the forums.  Thanks for your review!

Hi! Just a brief comment, as I'm not well versed in contemporary styles so I don't think I can give any useful advice! I don't generally enjoy this style of music, but I did find the piece interesting, partly because you mentioned how you composed it.

I do however really like your wind textures - even from the very beginning there are trills, arpeggios, long held notes and staccato passages! 

I liked more when the number of instruments was reduced (like Bar 21). I think there's a lot to be said for not using the full ensembles all the time, and using a sparser scoring could help with some breathing issues.

On 6/20/2021 at 6:07 AM, PeterthePapercomPoser said:

An alternative might be to have two of each and have them trade off playing their part to make breathing easier.

That could lead to some interesting antiphonal textures. You could even experiment with the position on stage of each instrument (sadly, Musescore's pan function is a little limited) or think about having some offstage instruments! An onstage quintet and an offstage quintet?

Thank you for sharing. It's a shame this piece doesn't have more reviews, especially as you're so good at commenting on other people's. Such is the way of a forum, sadly.

aMC

On 6/22/2021 at 6:57 PM, PeterthePapercomPoser said:

Thanks re: the coherency!  I think with the Clarinet technique it is definitely possible to learn circular breathing but what I am worried about is whether circular breathing is even possible for double reed instruments ... ???

In this case, having been an accomplished horn player myself I wrote the part to be playable for me in particular.  I think the most difficult bars are 50 and 51 but there are staccato notes in bars 49 and 48 that would allow the horn player to sneak a breath in.

Are you referring to some of the bassoon trills that were left unmarked without any accidentals?  I guess a reminder that all those are natural wouldn't hurt if I ever revise the piece.

I consider the piece to be a kind of mini little sonatina with an A theme, B theme, a short development section and a recap of both A and B with B being in a different key and a short coda based on the last two measures of the original B theme.  The recap of the B theme which I think you're referring to here is comparable to the original (the original being 8 bars and the recap being 6 and a half followed by a coda that's 9 bars long based on the last two measures of the original B theme).  The recap of B is also in Eb modified half-whole octatonic while the original is in B modified half-whole octatonic.  Also in the recap is where the horn takes the melody giving it that different tone or color.

Thank you!  It was fun to write on paper but then a terrible experience of actually entering it into MuseScore which gave me a very bad first impression of the piece LoL.

I've since watched some other videos about how it is possible to compose with dice.  Search "how to compose with dice" on YouTube and you'll find some other alternate videos to the one I posted earlier in the forums.  Thanks for your review!

 

Circular Breathing is done on Oboes.

When writing for wind instruments it is always a good idea to think about the phrasing.  Wind players need to breathe.  In the clarinet part some judicious places to breathe, i.e., rests would be quite helpful.  I myself and my colleagues if we were to play the work ... would live out a note here and there in order to create the proper phrasing and not exhaust ourselves in order to perform well.

13 hours ago, aMusicComposer said:

I do however really like your wind textures - even from the very beginning there are trills, arpeggios, long held notes and staccato passages!

Thanks!  I tried to differentiate the roles of the instruments so each one would be doing something unique.  There is however, something to be said for using the instruments in the same way at the same time sometimes which I didn't really utilize in this piece.

13 hours ago, aMusicComposer said:

I liked more when the number of instruments was reduced (like Bar 21). I think there's a lot to be said for not using the full ensembles all the time, and using a sparser scoring could help with some breathing issues.

You're totally right there.  I think you're referring to the start of the development where I introduce canonic imitation into the mix.  

13 hours ago, aMusicComposer said:

That could lead to some interesting antiphonal textures. You could even experiment with the position on stage of each instrument (sadly, Musescore's pan function is a little limited) or think about having some offstage instruments! An onstage quintet and an offstage quintet?

You have some cool ideas.  I do try to introduce some antiphonal textures when I have the flute and oboe imitate each other.  Later, in the development, I have the French horn and the flute imitate each other as well but I am not sure that their respective tone colors are differentiated enough to make that obvious, since the French horn trilling in MuseScore sounds identical to a flute trilling.  😞 And I didn't even know that MuseScore had a pan function!  LoL

13 hours ago, aMusicComposer said:

Thank you for sharing. It's a shame this piece doesn't have more reviews, especially as you're so good at commenting on other people's. Such is the way of a forum, sadly.

Yeah - thanks for reviewing!  I'm glad to see that the forum lately has taken on a new life!  All one can do really is review, hope to be noticed and of course, shamelessly promote one's own music when the time seems right!  LoL

8 hours ago, MJFOBOE said:

Circular Breathing is done on Oboes.

Awesome!  Thanks for clearing that up.

8 hours ago, MJFOBOE said:

When writing for wind instruments it is always a good idea to think about the phrasing.  Wind players need to breathe.  In the clarinet part some judicious places to breathe, i.e., rests would be quite helpful.  I myself and my colleagues if we were to play the work ... would live out a note here and there in order to create the proper phrasing and not exhaust ourselves in order to perform well.

Yeah I hear you.  It would be difficult for a clarinetist or oboist who doesn't circular breathe to play this piece.  I guess, that constant barrage of 16th notes would have to be interrupted somewhere!  LoL  Thanks for listening and chiming in!

10 hours ago, PeterthePapercomPoser said:

Thanks!  I tried to differentiate the roles of the instruments so each one would be doing something unique.  There is however, something to be said for using the instruments in the same way at the same time sometimes which I didn't really utilize in this piece.

Maybe, but since this is a short piece I don't think you want to much contrast going on else it might confuse the listener. There are plenty of great modern pieces that even only use one texture and they can be notable for that.

10 hours ago, PeterthePapercomPoser said:

You have some cool ideas.  I do try to introduce some antiphonal textures when I have the flute and oboe imitate each other.  Later, in the development, I have the French horn and the flute imitate each other as well but I am not sure that their respective tone colors are differentiated enough to make that obvious, since the French horn trilling in MuseScore sounds identical to a flute trilling.  😞 And I didn't even know that MuseScore had a pan function!  LoL

Yes of course, the imitation between instruments works for an antiphonal effect! And it's fine to have the contrast between two similar timbres - although a thrilling trilling horn, one of the most "raucous" (for want of a better word) instrumental sounds, should really be significantly far removed from a flute! Such is the problem of soundfonts...

aMC

I can see why this grew on you. It's a catchy theme. My tolerance for modern idioms has grown over the years, and though I would never write in this style myself, I don't hate it as I once did. What I have noticed, though, is that I find this sort of writing works best in short pieces, and that's probably part of why I like this. As Quinn mentioned above, it's very coherent, and I personally find it doesn't overstay its welcome.

Though I'm not a wind or brass player, it does seem to me that this would be extremely challenging, especially for the horn player. And unfortunately, if not played precisely much of the effectiveness would likely be lost. But it certainly isn't impossible to find chamber groups willing to include brief pieces like this in their programs, and if that ever happens I hope you'll share the recording here. I'd be interested to hear it.

Hey Peter,

I only find this piece through recent Motif Challenge!

Although the theme itself is aleatoric, your treatment of it is definitely masterful. What I enjoy most in this piece is your voice exchange and having different materials exchanging in different wind instruments. All of the instruments are given time for their distinctive colours, like that outburst of horn in b.45, bassoon in b.41, not to say the whirling clarinet in its chalumeau and low clarion range for its mysterious sound, and the flute and oboes exchanging their parts and giving different sounds to the same motives. I enjoy this thoroughly. Thx for sharing!

Henry