another attempt (for string quartet)

A very experimental work and my first attempt for writing for string quartet. I'm not too satisfied with it, but it's my best attempt so far. I've found writing chamber music excruciatingly difficult.

Thanks for sharing.

The whole piece has an overall eerie vibe. I can imagine this being played as part of the music for a horror movie. 

I really enjoyed moments like 2:40-2:54 - it has a nice, almost choral sound there.

Hi @veps,

I agree with @GospelPiano12 the piece has something eerie in it, but there's occasional tranquil there too like b.29. Not particularly my style but of course this is just personal preference. I really find the ending very scary. What is your intent of that ending?

On 5/2/2023 at 9:02 AM, veps said:

I've found writing chamber music excruciatingly difficult.

I think so too since you can't rely on timbre and colour in chamber setting especially for a string quartet. I see you are doing a lot here but mostly it concerns the timbre but not the music material itself. You have used harmonics, sul tasto, tremolo, double and triple stop etc, but I feel like the music passages here not very coherent. Maybe without color to use you have to focus on the music material more and cohere them in a reasonable way.

For b.42 cello you can just use tenor clef or even treble clef there with the high register. It may be too high using the bass clef.

I don't know if the double stops in the end (b.57-62) will be difficult to be played on strings, I think Jonathon @ComposaBoi knows much more than me on that.

I think that for the opening description "play eigth notes similar to appoggiatura", you can write a double dotted crotchet and a sixteenth note for this, since appoggiatura can have many ways of interpretations as well.

Thanks for sharing!

Henry

11 hours ago, Henry Ng Tsz Kiu said:

Hi @veps,

I agree with @GospelPiano12 the piece has something eerie in it, but there's occasional tranquil there too like b.29. Not particularly my style but of course this is just personal preference. I really find the ending very scary. What is your intent of that ending?

I think so too since you can't rely on timbre and colour in chamber setting especially for a string quartet. I see you are doing a lot here but mostly it concerns the timbre but not the music material itself. You have used harmonics, sul tasto, tremolo, double and triple stop etc, but I feel like the music passages here not very coherent. Maybe without color to use you have to focus on the music material more and cohere them in a reasonable way.

For b.42 cello you can just use tenor clef or even treble clef there with the high register. It may be too high using the bass clef.

I don't know if the double stops in the end (b.57-62) will be difficult to be played on strings, I think Jonathon @ComposaBoi knows much more than me on that.

I think that for the opening description "play eigth notes similar to appoggiatura", you can write a double dotted crotchet and a sixteenth note for this, since appoggiatura can have many ways of interpretations as well.

Thanks for sharing!

Henry

 

I try to use the dotted eight note - sixteenth note motif throughout, in terms of continuity I definitely agree that more needs to tie the sections together. I don't often write music with any narrative significance, so I'm not sure myself what the ending represents. And in my opening description, it's  more intended to influence tone and enforce that the emphasis is not on the short note. They should still be played to that duration. 

6 hours ago, veps said:

And in my opening description, it's  more intended to influence tone and enforce that the emphasis is not on the short note. They should still be played to that duration. 

But an appoggiatura means an accentuated passing tone or non-chord tone, so if you describe the eighth note as similiar appoggiatura, they will be played with emphasis instead of without emphasis.

Henry

2 hours ago, Henry Ng Tsz Kiu said:

But an appoggiatura means an accentuated passing tone or non-chord tone, so if you describe the eighth note as similiar appoggiatura, they will be played with emphasis instead of without emphasis.

Henry

 

whoops i meant acciaccatura

better change that

I am fairly new here - but this is the most interesting piece I have heard so far. It's the kind of music I like to write. The technical issues have already been addressed for the most part, so I won't bring them up again. To me, your choice of voicings here makes this sound more like a piece for orchestral strings, not a string quartet. I would have more interplay, dialog, and rhythmic variation across the instruments.  The first 16 bars have enough ideas for the entire piece. Pass the melody around. stretch, shrink, invert, reverse, and vary that melody a thousand different ways. You've already a lot of this, you just need to "harmonize"  the various sections so they coalesce into a cohesive statement.

Brian

Quote

I don't know if the double stops in the end (b.57-62) will be difficult to be played on strings, I think Jonathon @ComposaBoi knows much more than me on that.

They aren't just difficult, their Impossible to play. The intervals are incredibly large, and would require a massive painful stretch I don't think I could do, and I have long fingers and a long palm.