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Hi, could someone recommend me any particular literature?
Thanks in advance!
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03-09-2016 08:26 AM
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That's a huge question.. In order to do that, I'd need to know your starting point. How much theory do you know? Do you compose? What level improvisor are you? What style of music do you want to arrange? What tunes? Do you really mean 'arranging', or composing for string quartet? etc.. that kind of stuff. There's so much that goes into writing for string quartet.
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I've got some background in classical 4-part harmony. I think my knowledge about jazz harmony is intermediate. I have no theorethical background in composing. Tunes... from "yesterday" to "You don't know what love is". I mean arranging. And I maybe should have said counterpointing? I have no problem with voicing the chords (although there is a lot to improve here), but playing a block chords one after another is surely a waisting of a string quartet's potential.
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any textbook on orchestration will help you with the ranges of the instruments and will talk some about how to use them.
Rimsky-Korsakov's "Principles of Orchestration" is translated into English and on Amazon used for $7 USD right now
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/048...ilpage_o06_s00
if you want a good, practical guide for counterpoint, Fux's Gradus is translated and also very cheap on Amazon.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/039...ilpage_o02_s00
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I haven't really written much for classical or even for strings (yet... I really want to)... but for me, when I'm arranging/writing for the jazz idiom and I want to get away from just writing block chords, I usually start by writing a secondary melody to accompany the main theme... a countermelody.
Sometimes, I can just hear one in my mind. Other times, I will start by writing a simple guide tone line that moves through the harmony I want to create. And then I will take that guide tone line and turn it into a melody... adding notes, changing rhythms, adding rests, etc.
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Steve Khan once told me about one of the heavy Vegas arrangers . (I'm sorry I can't remember his name). He was a guitarist, and worked out a lot of string arrangements on the fretboard. Apparently a lot of typical 'guitar' voicings (C-G-B-E at third fret) have a good spread for a string quartet. Just remember to adjust the octave transposition and clef.
PK
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I composed a string quartet in two movements, one of which got destroyed in a flood
, using the standard text, Walter Piston's "Orchestration".
Otherwise, I studied my two fave string quartets, Ravel's and Debussy's.
It's much easier than writing for horns, because there's no transposing and very few technical limits.
The only PITA is learning the the tenor and alto clefs for cello and viola, respectively.
One thing guitarists tend to be weak on is notating articulation. My composition teacher in college told me to make believe I was bowing the violin; you obviously wouldn't bow every note.
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I've written quite a bit for string quartet/quintet and this is one of the things I was going to suggest.. very good suggestion
This is basically the entire thing.. write a second, then third, then fourth melody.. there's more, but this is huge.
Last edited by ghoststrat; 03-09-2016 at 04:08 PM. Reason: clarity
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Which suggestion are you commenting on?
Originally Posted by ghoststrat
I've written quite a bit for string quartet/quintet and this is one of the things I was going to suggest.. very good suggestion This is basically the entire thing.. write a second, then third, then fourth melody.. there's more, but this is huge.
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Oops.. I overlooked the fact that my reply didn't quote. I was referring to jordanklemons's post. Originally Posted by kenbennett
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I'm guess some music software would do that for you. Originally Posted by sgcim
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Yeah, learning that will only take you a few days of writing. And you're right, if you have something like Sibelius or Finale, you can use treble clef instead of alto clef, then update it when you're ready to people to play it. Originally Posted by BigDaddyLoveHandles
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In classical music, string quartets are by far my favourite grouping. I often feel like I an reading the composer's diary (late Beethoven, Shostakovitch). Symphonies tend to wash over me but string quartets make me lean forward in my seat. I used to take the scores out of the Uni library and follow along as I listened to CDs. Good on you for trying to arrange for string quartet!
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Yeah, the whole countermelody thing was a big shift for me in my writing and arranging when I started to get it. It really brings out a sense of 3-dimensionality that you can't really get any other way. Fun to mess with. Originally Posted by ghoststrat
I've written quite a bit for string quartet/quintet and this is one of the things I was going to suggest.. very good suggestion This is basically the entire thing.. write a second, then third, then fourth melody.. there's more, but this is huge.
Do you have any of your work online? I'd love to check out what you've written.
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Nothing fancy, but everyone has to start somewhere.
Don't ask me why I picked this tune, I have no idea
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Constructive criticism pls.
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You're right, man, gotta start somewhere, and that's really the key to it: just start doing it, throw time and 'ears' at it, refine, listen, experiment, repeat. Eventually you'll surprise yourself, if you haven't already.. Originally Posted by katamaranos
Nothing fancy, but everyone has to start somewhere.
Don't ask me why I picked this tune, I have no idea.
Constructive criticism pls.
I'll listen to it after work.
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Two bits of advice I got...
Always space the chords wider than you'd think
Don't give the cello anything too rhythmically busy to do with the bow or they will drag.
String players hate playing long notes/pads. But the thing is it's what they are good at :-)
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Here's a cool idea: sign your work. Musicians since Bach (B A C H = Bb A C Bnat) have been working their initials into their music. Dimitri Shostakovich's quartet #8 begins with D Eb C B (D SCH, Shostakovich was also spelled Sch...)
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you work with both a violin and a cello player, too, Chris. That's a good insight about the cello bowing. A violin is really agile, but with the bow hold for a cello of a doublebass, its a lot different. And there's just plain more that has to move
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This isn't targeted toward you, it just triggered a thought that I figured I'd drop in here. Originally Posted by christianm77
I've always had a hard time writing to the limitations of the instrument, or player. Example: I sent a copy of the most recent quintet I composed to a bass player in a fairly respected orchestra (fairly, not huge), and he basically told me it wouldn't get played, and that the cello part would take a looong time to get together, if at all, and it would cost me huge amounts of money. I changed it, but it lost the spirit and momentum, so I sought to have it played anyway, just to see what would happen. Some of it was *almost* true. I got the thing played and recorded for ~$700, and considering it was read down in one 2-hr rehearsal, then 10 takes recorded in a 2-hr session, I think it was a success. Of course, more hours and more money would have taken care of the imperfections, but an easier part would have helped, too. So, it's a toss up; is what you're writing more important than whether it makes it out of electronic form, or is it more important to have your music played by humans. I know most would say that having people play it is more important, and that's fine and true for them, but it's not like that for other people. For me, getting my piece down on paper as true to how it sounds in my head as possible, and rendered in some 'hearable' form is the most important thing. Because of this, I've gotten fairly adept at making electronic instruments sound pretty damned good, to my ears, though I can still sit there and say, "that's not a real violin!", but I don't care. If people never play my compositions, that's cool. I'm my audience.
Nutshell: reasons dictate approach.
Again, this wasn't toward you, christianm77, your post just triggered a thought. The advice you got, and posted is very solid.
Edit: one more thing.. I actually prefer the electronic version of my quintet to the live recording, it renders exactly how I wrote it, which is to be expected, as I transitioned from writing head-to-paper to head-to-notation software about 10 years ago. Once I got into sampled instruments, head-to-paper, then to software for rendering wasn't efficient.Last edited by ghoststrat; 03-11-2016 at 12:27 PM.
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that's also really good insight, ghoststrat. I'm not a composer, so I would have never thought about it like that. I always was writing out something for the guys because I could and somebody had to do it, so making concessions for the players never even was an artistic decision for me. It's pretty interesting to hear what you were saying there.
that probably is a difficult decision for a composer to have to make
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Your observations are really great, but have you got any specific thoughts considering my arrangement?
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Yeah, sorry, I thought I replied with them. I'm multitasking. Originally Posted by katamaranos
There are several things to consider when commenting on it. The two most important, I think, are:
Does it sound good to you? If not, what's missing for you?
Do you want it to be more, or less 'hip'/advanced/etc? If you do want it to be more advanced, what's missing for you? What would you like to have in it?
First off, it sounds fine to my ears. It's something that could be presented convincingly at a Xmas concert, or the like. Someone else could probably speak to the 'right and wrong' of it, theoretically, better than I can. I've forgotten most of it, and write using instinct, reflex, and some reference books for notation.
If nothing seems 'missing' from your arrangement, I'd say to consider this one complete, and move on to another one, do the work, and post it here. When you pick it, maybe set up some challenges for yourself. e.g. let's say you pick the Real Book tune Django by John Lewis. For me, I'd write the counter melodies in an ascending way, since the tune wants, to my ear, something that's descending. So, when you pick your next thing, figure out what it wants, and then figure out what the opposite is, then do both. Maybe first time through, do it as it wants, then second time, do the opposite. Also, you may vary the melody the second time through.
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Not that it's necessarily ideal... but these days you can buy instrument packs for logic that are recorded from serious, legit orchestras (London Symphony Orchestra, I believe) with every possible articulation and variation of every note. I've heard that most of the time we hear 'orchestras' playing music in a movie, it's just all digital. The plugin is expensive. But if you're willing to drop $700 to record your piece, AND if you're not able to get it to sound exactly as you want, you may want to look into that.
@Katamaranos...
Thoughts on your arrangement?
First off, really nice. Very well put together, nothing out of place or bad sounding. The only thoughts I could share would be my own personal aesthetic preferences... which we may not see eye-to-eye on. I didn't like the abrupt stops in the middle of the word 'Christ' 'mas'. It felt a little awkward. I tend to think of instruments as replicating the human voice. And especially with such a well known song, every cell in my body knows that melody and knows that it's supposed to be singing the word christmas... so it just felt odd to have that phrase cut in half. It could be a cool effect to utilize elsewhere, but I would have let that phrase continue through without cutting it off.
I also would have liked to have heard more rhythmic variation in the background. It was very homogenous throughout. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing. It might be exactly what you wanted. My ear just knew the main theme so well that it was aggressively looking for something else in the background to grab its attention and take it somewhere new.
I also kind of wanted to hear an intro to set it up. But again, a lot of that has to do with the fact that I've heard this piece countless times and just wanted to hear you do something different with it. That said though, all in all, great job. This could totally be in the soundtrack for some old black and white christmas movie. You guys are all inspiring me to want to have a hand at some classical writing. I've wanted to since I first heard Dvorak's New World Symphony like 15 years ago.
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See, now THIS is good feedback! Originally Posted by jordanklemons
Last edited by ghoststrat; 03-11-2016 at 03:24 PM.
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