# Your Predictions



## Majed Al Shamsi (Feb 4, 2014)

So I decided to write something for the little kids in my music school to play, come December's recitals. If it sounds good, people will praise me, and if it sounds horrible, I can always blame it on the kids' performance! 

Jokes aside, I've written something for the piano here, and then I rewrote it for three violins and three cellos (the only string instruments taught in this ridiculous joke of a school.) You can listen to that one here.

It's missing the dynamics and fermatas, but that's okay. I don't think my questions would be related to those.

So, first question: Would the instrumentation work when performed live? I don't trust the sound quality of MuseScore.

Second question: In bars 9 through 11, the first violin is supposed to hold the last note, while the second violin plays a transition. Somehow, I feel like I failed to pull that one off. Does it have to do with the contrapuntal soundness, or is it the sound quality of MuseScore again?









Thanks!


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## Majed Al Shamsi (Feb 4, 2014)

My bad. Something seems to be wrong with the previous image.


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## Hmmbug (Jun 16, 2014)

In response to your second question, I would advise having the second violin play the first note of the next measure in those "transition" parts, which not only ensures the sound flows, but bridges the problem of having timbre differences from players of different abilities and also creates a nice downbeat.


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## SeptimalTritone (Jul 7, 2014)

So... if you just look at the first violin melody, there is a clear implied harmony, which is simple, but decent and effective.

However, what the bass line (the lowest cello) actually does is very different from the "obvious" implied harmony. This would probably make the piece sound very awkward (do you have the playback?), because what you do is strange, hollow, and ineffective.

Like in the last beats of measures 2 and 4 the cello shouldn't leap down to the tonic note before the measure ends. It should stay at the dominant until the measure ends, otherwise you have something really disappointing-sounding.

Even the first three chords: there are a few possibilities for what the bass line does for that subdominant chord, but moving in parallel octaves with the soprano is the least effective (because it's hollow-sounding, much less breaks "the rules").

You're going to have to study your harmony book more carefully, and supplement that with looking at some Haydn and Mozart string quartets and seeing what their melodies are, and what the cello does to make those melodies sound strong and effective (rather than hollow and weird). Good luck!


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## Majed Al Shamsi (Feb 4, 2014)

Hmmbug - Thanks, I will try that, though I have a feeling it won't make a difference in the computer generated recording.

SeptimalTritone - Harmony again... It seems no matter what I do, I just can't get it right.
If I work on the chord progressions and harmony first, my melody would be very limited, and if I work on my melody first, the chords I can choose from will be limited. Worst dilemma ever.
I've signed up for classes starting this September to learn more about that subject.


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## Vasks (Dec 9, 2013)

Majed Al Shamsi said:


> I've signed up for classes starting this September to learn more about that subject.


Nice! Clearly a good move for you who is sincerely interested in understanding theory/harmony.


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## SeptimalTritone (Jul 7, 2014)

Majed Al Shamsi said:


> SeptimalTritone - Harmony again... It seems no matter what I do, I just can't get it right.
> If I work on the chord progressions and harmony first, my melody would be very limited, and if I work on my melody first, the chords I can choose from will be limited. Worst dilemma ever.


Don't feel bad, I can't get it right either! But that's why I'm studying up too.

But: you'll eventually learn that melody and harmony are not antagonistic to each other. Indeed, your melody has, as I said, an implied harmony to it, and in fact, most simple melodies have some implied harmony!

For purely diatonic melodies, the tonic/pre-dominant/dominant progressions and circle-of-fifths progressions are fine enough and as effective as one needs (as long as you pick good chord inversions). For more chromatic melodies, secondary dominants are quite good  as well as borrowing from the parallel minor and Neapolitan and augmented sixth chords for some real chromatic strength.

One thing you might want to try in musescore in the meantime is to _change the lowest cello line to fortissimo_ for playback purposes. Indeed, when I do string quartets I put the violins on mf, the viola on f, and the cello on ff. This way, you get the real-life feel of a strong cello bass line. One thing you have to realize is that the bass line is the most important thing for harmonizing the melody, and just by looking at the melody and bass line you can get a sense of what things are going to sound like. If you want to convince yourself, just play a melody and bass line on the piano and note how you still get a good musical feeling!


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