I'm very new to composition and wondering if anyone here can have a look at this opening to a string quartet I've written. I'm trying to stay between the root and dominant chord, hopefully that's done succesfully. Any kind of feedback would be appreciated.
In general, add the leading tone (B#) to the dominant chords where you want to emphasize the return to the tonic.
Clean up measure 4 and 5 some. suddenly having the viola double the cello at the octave is a bit abrupt. maybe have the viola follow the violin 1 part down a sixth? Also, the falling figure in the violin 1 part first two beats of measure 5 is very common in V-I progressions. Should you choose to change the harmony in the first half of measure 5 to a dominant chord (personally I think it sounds better that way, but you be the judge), change the underlying harmony (in half notes) in measure 4 to F#7-Bm. This lets you have a nice chromatic line (maybe in the violin 2?) going A#-B-B#-C#. Under all that, the cello in measure 5 going from G# to C# would definitely strengthen the tonal center (I assume that's what you want if you're trying to stay between the root and dominant chord).
It's fine for now, but later definitely spice up the viola and cello parts.
Charles Martin
Thanks very much. I'm uneducated enough to not understand all of this, but I've tried to interpret and apply some of what you have said; see pic related.
Ugh, can it be ANY number other than 40? I just don't want to be reminded of... THAT top 40. *retches*
Camden Rogers
Helmut
Owen Sanders
Cherubini.
Asher Collins
Being "in the canon" is somewhat open to interpretation, all composers of all time could be considered "in the canon". If you mean the commonly played repertoire, then Martinů legitimately underrated composer
Its not great but keep at it. Look at the scores of great composers, see how they handle melody, harmony and form. For string quartets look at Haydn, Beethoven, Janacek and Bartok Also clyp.it > vocaroo in terms of quality
Nicholas Cook
Pretty sure all of these guys are more or less canonical.
Jan Kalivoda, Norbert Burgmuller, Franz Lachner, Johannes Verhulst, Franz Xaver Schnyder von Wartensee, Eduard Franck, Carl Reinecke, Johann Joseph Abert, Woldemar Bargiel, Robert Volkmann, Albert Dietrich, Felix Draeseke, and Friedrich Gernsheim.
Jayden Walker
Define the musical canon then. Come up with something better than this idiocy
Parker Anderson
Thanks for the advice. I'll have a look at Bartok's because I've enjoyed his. I've also tried looking at Ravel's string quartet because it's probably my favourite.
Sebastian Green
Yep the Ravel and Debussy quartets are masterworks. Are you studying composition? or just having a crack at it? If you're not studying it, reading Schoenberg's "Fundamentals of Musical Composition" can give you some good ideas about how to write themes and work with form.
Grayson Phillips
Just having a go at it, I did the basics of music theory a long time ago at school (GCSE music). I'll purchase that book, I've heard it recommended and wasn't sure if it was too advanced or not, but it sounds like it might be good for me.
Baroque and early classical era music is the most intellectually impressive from an academic's point of view, but as music it tends to sound a little bland and expressionless. On the other hand, romantic and late romantic era music is overly melodramatic and expressive to the point of being vulgar and artificial.
There is only one composer who managed to write intellectually sophisticated music that was still interesting, sang from the heart, but didn't whore itself out by forcing drama and theatrics like Wagner and Brahms did. The only truly great composer, for me, is Beethoven.
>as music it tends to sound a little bland and expressionless nope, you're 100% wrong.
Logan Campbell
Wow more empty plinky-plinky, noodling tripe, and tragicomical pianisms in a single sonata than in all of Chopin's works. How do bogbillies even pretend?
Ian Bell
B O G I L L I E S
Brandon Baker
What a stupid comment. Why would you screencap this?
Nathan Foster
t. butthurt child psychologist feminist employed by big pharma
Cameron Jackson
>Young composers edition I costantly imagine music (sometimes in my room I'll just start conducting imagined string quartets and piano pieces in my head), but I've got no musical training. I don't think that it is well structured (for example I'm pretty sure that the harmony is either too randomic or too derivative), but the melodies are usually original enough for me to not link them to any piece of music I've heard so far, and I'm pretty sure I've got a talent for motivic developement, since on a single theme I can spend even hours tweaking it in all shapes and forms, with very few repetitions. How much time should I put into the craft to get something out of it? How much study is required to be able to structure this music and transcribe it? Is it one of those things I could do in a year or two? Also notice that I already play classical guitar at a almost virtuoso level, but my theory is completely lacking. My sight reading and solfage skills are, instead, on point.
Ian Lee
Buy some theory books and some sheet paper and start writing, all the time.
Christopher Brooks
I'm not thinking about becoming a self-taught composer, I am pretty sure that I can get to learn it with some pretty good composers and theorists in my city. Yet I still don't know how much time and work is required to become at the very least decent, if not proficient. In a year from now I'll write full-fledged string quartets, or will I still deal with writing simple melodic lines? How hard it is to learn theory, melody and harmony?
Jonathan Baker
Get a teacher, and practice writing all the time if you wanna learn it, that's self-evident. Start writing a string quartet right now if you want to write a string quartet, I'm not sure I understand the question.
Carlos Seixas, Mattheus Pipelare, Johann Caspar Kerll, Mateo Flecha, Francesco Gasparini, Antonio Bertali, Anthoni van Noordt, Giovanni Girolamo Kapsperger, Gioseffo Guami, Johann Baptist Vanhal. Where do you get your music from? I remember searching for some of these composers and getting nothing.
Chase Davis
> but I've got no musical training. Ignore what everyone else suggested. They give stupid advice. Learn to play an instrument, practice until you can play the melodies in your head on your instrument of choice. Learning music theory and composition techniques is putting the cart before the horse. Composers that write their music straight down on paper are EXTREMELY RARE. Not even Mozart composed like that. He always used a fortepiano or a harpsichord to fiddle around and get a sketch of a composition tight, in playing. Think of it as piano reduction in reverse. The piano allows for most elaboration, but you can do the same thing on any instrument on which you can play chords. You can also do it on instruments that can't, but there you're limited to experimenting with the melody only.
Same advice to the other user that posted a small composition ITT: audition your music before you write it down. Hum, whistle! Whatever. Staff notation is not a tool used in composition per se. Unlike in painting, here the paper is not your canvas. It is a mnemonic device you use while you compose (while you hum to yourself for example, the melody will naturally change and you have a high chance of forgetting where you started with the melody -- which is why you write it down), and a storage schema after you're done. The snippet you posted is a cacophony (no offence), because, I am pretty sure, you did not audition your music. You can't simply apply some composition rules and expect to get a good result. You shouldn't even expect a mediocre result.
Music is a dynamic art. Composition =/= writing stuff in staff notation.
Christopher Perry
garbage OP, just shitpost until bump limit
Noah Mitchell
The second comment is not me. I always put spaces between the letters like this:
I cannot emphasise this enough: this is imbecilic advice! Do you have perfect pitch? Then you might have a small chance in succeeding with composing like that.
Learn a fucking instrument.
It's not a fucking accident that virtually every composition course either recommends or downright makes it mandatory for you to also minor in some instrument (typically piano).
