1st String Quartet - Mvt I

This is my first ever chamber work. I am trying to gain experience in writing for strings hence I decided to compose a string quartet. Constructive feedback is always welcome!

Edit: I posted another audio with different soundfont and after correcting some issues.

This is a very good start, your counterpoint Is very effective for the most part, though a brush up in a few parts definitely is recommended. 

Your opening is of course very similar to Eine Klein Nachtmusik, while not a bad thing, it obviously draws comparisons which I think you could avoid by having your initial theme come through earlier. the second theme is nice with some harmonic development, from bar 70 onwards, I really enjoyed that section. be careful with trills in lower and middle registers, they may come out a bit muddy. 

My main problem with the movement overall is one of balance, more care could be taken with dynamics, melodic range and feel, especially in the more chaotic opening it feels a bit too busy and confusing, in the development bar 140 feels very out of place and jarring, but that's my personal perspective. and then the rhythmic themes afterwards feel very out of the blue, maybe if you introduced it more throughly earlier it could work more convincingly. 

over all you have many impressive things in this piece and it's a commendable first attempt at string quartet writing. 

I look forward to hearing more of your writing. 

56 minutes ago, Bradley Scarff said:

This is a very good start, your counterpoint Is very effective for the most part, though a brush up in a few parts definitely is recommended. 

Your opening is of course very similar to Eine Klein Nachtmusik, while not a bad thing, it obviously draws comparisons which I think you could avoid by having your initial theme come through earlier. the second theme is nice with some harmonic development, from bar 70 onwards, I really enjoyed that section. be careful with trills in lower and middle registers, they may come out a bit muddy. 

My main problem with the movement overall is one of balance, more care could be taken with dynamics, melodic range and feel, especially in the more chaotic opening it feels a bit too busy and confusing, in the development bar 140 feels very out of place and jarring, but that's my personal perspective. and then the rhythmic themes afterwards feel very out of the blue, maybe if you introduced it more throughly earlier it could work more convincingly. 

 

over all you have many impressive things in this piece and it's a commendable first attempt at string quartet writing. 

 

I look forward to hearing more of your writing. 

 

Thanks for listening and I absolutely agree with the criticisms even I think that the starting theme was too muddy because there was too much going on and sometimes the music feels out of blue. I will definitely touch things up in the future

Definitely a pleasant piece. What you might want to revise:

1. MM. 9 ff. don't really work, at least to my ears. In M. 25, you lose precious momentum. The quaver embellishment in M. 30 also does not really fit. In MM. 31 ff., the first violin is hard to pick out because of its use of the low register(thought this might be mended by turning up its volume).

2. In comparison, the ending of your exposition is more intelligible. Choice of register and clear rhythm make it much easier to get behind the musical idea. 

3. The beginning of your development section reminded me of the music of Grant Kirkhope("Donkey Kong 64", "Banjo-Kazooie"). The shift between two minor chords by semitone or tritone always gives me this impression. Funnily enough, your development seems to be more linear than the exposition or at least have more stringent phrasing. In MM. 224 ff., the register problem of MM. 31 ff. returns. MM. 248 ff. also lose some momentum.

All these are mostly phrasing issues, besides one problem of register(MM. 31/224 ff.). Minor quibbles aside, your movement is quite a pleasant piece of music. I look forward to your touch up. I remember trying my hands at a string quartet movement quite a long time ago. Maybe your movement will inspire me to go back.

Too classical for me to comment on the music but I think you'd need a truly virtuoso cellist to bring off the double stops from bar 10 to bar 21 and elsewhere. Octave double stops are entirely possible but are the worst to bring off with speed. The thumb is used for the bottom note. The stretch is quite long down near the nut. 

On 4/3/2022 at 7:45 PM, KStoertebeker said:

Definitely a pleasant piece. What you might want to revise:

1. MM. 9 ff. don't really work, at least to my ears. In M. 25, you lose precious momentum. The quaver embellishment in M. 30 also does not really fit. In MM. 31 ff., the first violin is hard to pick out because of its use of the low register(thought this might be mended by turning up its volume).

2. In comparison, the ending of your exposition is more intelligible. Choice of register and clear rhythm make it much easier to get behind the musical idea. 

3. The beginning of your development section reminded me of the music of Grant Kirkhope("Donkey Kong 64", "Banjo-Kazooie"). The shift between two minor chords by semitone or tritone always gives me this impression. Funnily enough, your development seems to be more linear than the exposition or at least have more stringent phrasing. In MM. 224 ff., the register problem of MM. 31 ff. returns. MM. 248 ff. also lose some momentum.

All these are mostly phrasing issues, besides one problem of register(MM. 31/224 ff.). Minor quibbles aside, your movement is quite a pleasant piece of music. I look forward to your touch up. I remember trying my hands at a string quartet movement quite a long time ago. Maybe your movement will inspire me to go back.

 

Thanks a ton for willing to spend the time to give such a detailed feedback. Some of the above stated problems I had already fixed. The places with low registers in MM.31 are meant to be played louder. I thought it was obvious because the passage the violin is playing is a direct derivative of the main theme appearing at the start of the exposition hence I think players would instinctively accent it and treat the other voices as accompaniment. I believe a lot of these phrasing issues (not all) arise because of the limited capacity to modify midi data. For examples the trills and the sforzandos sound unpleasant and too confusing as it is impossible to phrase them properly by just using soundfonts. However I do acknowledge that there were quite an amount of passages lacking balance between the voices and the instruments and not to say that the exposition was too busy and unintelligible. I also had to do some fixing due to contrapuntal and voice leading issues. Thanks again for your time!:)

5 hours ago, Quinn said:

Too classical for me to comment on the music but I think you'd need a truly virtuoso cellist to bring off the double stops from bar 10 to bar 21 and elsewhere. Octave double stops are entirely possible but are the worst to bring off with speed. The thumb is used for the bottom note. The stretch is quite long down near the nut. 

 

Thanks for the valuable input. I also thought of the same thing while writing the cello part. I'd figure out a way to make it easier. 

If I'm being brutally honest here, this needs A LOT of work. I see potential in the theme, but the fact that you lack much needed knowledge about counterpoint and harmony is really holding you back. For example, the harmony and voice-leading measure 11-25 doesn't make any sense. In the bass, you have what seems like a F#7 with a doubled leading tone and a bizzare altizans that should resolve E > D to E > A. 

On 4/3/2022 at 10:15 PM, KStoertebeker said:

Definitely a pleasant piece. What you might want to revise:

1. MM. 9 ff. don't really work, at least to my ears. In M. 25, you lose precious momentum. The quaver embellishment in M. 30 also does not really fit. In MM. 31 ff., the first violin is hard to pick out because of its use of the low register(thought this might be mended by turning up its volume).

2. In comparison, the ending of your exposition is more intelligible. Choice of register and clear rhythm make it much easier to get behind the musical idea. 

3. The beginning of your development section reminded me of the music of Grant Kirkhope("Donkey Kong 64", "Banjo-Kazooie"). The shift between two minor chords by semitone or tritone always gives me this impression. Funnily enough, your development seems to be more linear than the exposition or at least have more stringent phrasing. In MM. 224 ff., the register problem of MM. 31 ff. returns. MM. 248 ff. also lose some momentum.

All these are mostly phrasing issues, besides one problem of register(MM. 31/224 ff.). Minor quibbles aside, your movement is quite a pleasant piece of music. I look forward to your touch up. I remember trying my hands at a string quartet movement quite a long time ago. Maybe your movement will inspire me to go back.

 

It has that hint of a retro game soundtrack isn't it.