# Piano quintet op7 with score



## Zeus (Jan 6, 2018)

Here's my piano quintet, uploaded along with a score, if anybody was interested in it. Would appreciate further feedback apart from the last thread, where you only had an audio to go by.






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## Vasks (Dec 9, 2013)

I only listened to the first 3 minutes although I peaked ahead .

First, kill the reverb. A string quartet does not sound like a chamber orchestra in a Turkish bathhouse. Also in Sibelius choose Violin (solo), Viola (solo), Cello (solo); never just Violin, or just Viola as those are for orchestra where there are a number of violins. violas, etc.

Piano 
1) Almost all of the pedal markings are superfluous. And they are always placed below the *lowest* staff. 
2) If the RH is going to play bass clef notes (like in page 3) change the clef of the upper staff instead of creating clutter with both hands in the lower staff. 
3) All dynamics markings are centered in between the two staves except if the two staves are to have simultaneously two different dynamic markings. 
4) Page 7 - is the RH going to play the bass clef upper most notes or is the LH going to roll? As of now the LH can not play the widely spaced chord without rolling but you don't show the wavy rolling line like you do in the RH. 
5) Page 9 - Good luck with the LH trying to trill while also attacking a note an octave lower.

Strings
1) mss. 2 & 4 need the abbreviated sub. (subito = suddenly without warning) after the triple piano dynamic because of mss. 1 & 3 cresc. marking. 
2) Fast tremolos is three slashes, not 4. 
3) You probably do not need to show any bowings (although maybe for some accented down bows). Better to show none then doing something like on page 9 where you have some up bow markings in the middle of long tones; I have no idea what that's about!

Miscellaneous 
1) What's going on with page 14 instrumentation?
2) No need for breath/luftpausen marks in this piece
3) Slurs like Vln2 on p.9 go to the end of the tie. The old fashioned way is what you did.


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## Zeus (Jan 6, 2018)

Vasks said:


> I only listened to the first 3 minutes although I peaked ahead .
> 
> First, kill the reverb. A string quartet does not sound like a chamber orchestra in a Turkish bathhouse. Also in Sibelius choose Violin (solo), Viola (solo), Cello (solo); never just Violin, or just Viola as those are for orchestra where there are a number of violins. violas, etc.
> 
> ...


Hello, first of all; thank you very much for your comment.

Second: regarding 1), I place pedal markings below the higher staff on the piano score, when it might not be clear where does the pedal marking end, as you can see in for example measures 28 or 30. It is true many of the pedal markings are superfluous, and as you correctly spotted out, there are some which aren't. I mostly put them to have a better idea of how it would sound, through MIDI playback. I will correct that though. Finally, where do you get the lowest staff part from? I didn't know that rule (you're probably right though).

2) Noted. Will fix those passages.

3) Noted as well, didn't know that (sounds logical though)

4) Wow, I revised my score so many times and I never noticed this. It's actually a mistake on my part. I believe I should add another note to the lower chords, and the 2 higher notes are played by RH (which jumps between the lower chords and the arpeggios higher up), while the 2 lower notes are done by LH. <I think this was the original idea, and I forgot to write it like so. I'll take care of it as soon as I can.

5) The lower note is played separately, as you can see in the score, there are no trilled notes above the octave lower note.

Strings

1) Right again. Will also take care of it.

2) To my understanding, the slashes needed for it to be understood as tremolo (according to some vague statement I recall from my orchestra teacher) depend on the tempo, and I always assume whenever it's more slashes than notes can be counted, the performer will just do tremolo.

3) Those up bow markings are actually really important. I'm also a cellist and this is something I've seen in many scores. When you play a long note a composer can instruct you to change of bow in the middle of the note, by doing something like what I did. Because of the dynamics, the bow speed in that passage is very fast, and by having the same note in 2 bowings, it's not also more comfortable for the player (not struggling to withstand the strength of the note in one bow), but also works better ending down-bow, for the sFF to be as strong as it can be.

Miscellaneous

1) Get that question all the time. It's to highlight the canonical nature of the passage (4 of the previous motifs are played in canon-like structure), and to be able to mark the melody I want to hear in a single bar out of 4, which was easier than doing skilled editing in 2 or 3 bars.

2) Why do you say that so categorically? I actually put luftpausen marks because I needed them, because I wanted a very small pause between certain notes or measures.

3) Okay, will change!

Finally, thank you for the advice on the Sibelius instruments choice. But I actually did choose violin (solo), viola (solo), etc, but because I did this recording in a primitive manner due to Sibelius export issues (won't export my score along with my NotePerformer software without bugging in many places, might also have something to do with my old computer, I don't know), the sound loses a lot of quality, and it might also be the reason why you think I put reverb (which I didn't). I only record the sound output from the score with a microphone, and then save it to my computer, and sync it with the sound-less score video format from Sibelius.


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## Vasks (Dec 9, 2013)

First, two things I forgot yesterday; then later in another post I'll address some things you mentioned in post #3.

1) Double sharps - Never use them in non-tonal music. They (and double flats) are to be used only when in certain keys where they have a very specific function. Your piece is not in a key, let alone one that would need double sharps for harmonic reasons

2) I thought I saw later in the score some wholesale copy and paste from an early section of the piece (I mean I can't study the early pages and compare them to the later pages due to the YouTube format). It's OK to return to earlier material but avoid a literal repetition. We're in the 21st Century. Our music must continually evolve and continue a journey that the piece is involved in. Copy and paste is not the answer to composing serious works of art


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## Zeus (Jan 6, 2018)

Vasks said:


> First, two things I forgot yesterday; then later in another post I'll address some things you mentioned in post #3.
> 
> 1) Double sharps - Never use them in non-tonal music. They (and double flats) are to be used only when in certain keys where they have a very specific function. Your piece is not in a key, let alone one that would need double sharps for harmonic reasons
> 
> 2) I thought I saw later in the score some wholesale copy and paste from an early section of the piece (I mean I can't study the early pages and compare them to the later pages due to the YouTube format). It's OK to return to earlier material but avoid a literal repetition. We're in the 21st Century. Our music must continually evolve and continue a journey that the piece is involved in. Copy and paste is not the answer to composing serious works of art


Take your time to answer my previous post.

1) Skimmed quickly through my score, didn't find any double sharps or flat. However, wherever they are, I can assure you they do have a function. I use them as mostly as leading tones, which are still present in non-tonal music. However, my piece does wander in key regions, hard as it may seem to believe, but you can feel free to look with more attention and if you don't believe me, ask me about a specific passage.

2) There is a reexposition which leads to the coda. The reexposition isn't copy and pasted, and has some noticeable modifications if you compare it to the beginning, as well as instrumentation changes in specific parts. The truth is, I composed the last 6 minutes of this piece in 12 hours of non-stop composing in order to meet a deadline, and couldn't be bothered to develop more material, so I kind of went for a "lazy" approach.


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## Vasks (Dec 9, 2013)

First, what I mentioned in Post #4.

The double sharp I saw was in the piano, but in its context of an ascending chromatic triplet passage of augmented chords it is actually fine. I have seen too many young composers make mistakes in using double sharps/flats that it's a knee-jerk reaction from me to question the sight of any.

And looming deadlines make us do some less-than-best things. Sometimes it's best to skip entering certain contests/call for scores if one can't get it all done right. The sheer number of competitors for these things means the judges will quickly toss out pieces with anything questionable in order to weed out as many as they can.

Now back to my Post #2 with your responses in Post #3

1) About piano pedal markings. On page 332 of Elaine Gould's book "*Behind Bars*" she says "Place pedal indications beneath the lowest stave of the system, below all other notation"

2) Oh…page 9 about the piano trill. Your trill marking starts on the "and of" beat 1 and stretchs through the rest of the measure. So if you don't trill on beat 3, shorten that trill wavy line.

3) Tremolo…"three is the standard for unmeasured" (Gould - p.224). However, if a tempo is extremely,extremely slow, so that three slashes can actually be "measured" then 4 for "unmeasured" is possible. I'd kill the 4 slashes.

4) Your upbows. I understand what you're saying, but it is always best to tell a player exactly where to do something. Don't let players have doubts about what and where to do something. So in this case, rather than just have (as an example) a half note with an upbow to the right of that note, use a two quarters tied with the upbow directly above the second quarter (if that's the part of the beat you want them to change).

5) The four-staved piano system of page 14. Keep the piano as a normal two-staved system and use multiple voices in each staff. With Sibelius, one voice (the one we always use) is colored blue on the "Keypad". Write your upper most voice (highest staff of your four) in blue. Then change on the keypad to "green" (next on right of blue) and put the notes of your second of "4 staves" in the same staff as your upper most voice. The result will be high blue voice with stems up and lower green voice with stems down. Now do the same to combine staves 3 & 4 on the LH staff. Much, much easier to read.


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## Zeus (Jan 6, 2018)

Vasks said:


> First, what I mentioned in Post #4.
> 
> The double sharp I saw was in the piano, but in its context of an ascending chromatic triplet passage of augmented chords it is actually fine. I have seen too many young composers make mistakes in using double sharps/flats that it's a knee-jerk reaction from me to question the sight of any.
> 
> ...


You're right about competitions. This is the first one I participated in, though, and I was very very interested in it, since admission meant going to Winter International Arts Festival in Sochi, where from 15 to 24th of february I'll take masterclasses from leading teachers in composition (Alexander Tchaikovsky, Anton Tanonov, Patrick de Clerck, Alvin Singleton are some of the names), and most importantly, Kuzma Bodrov will be there. He's a composer and teacher in Tchaikovsky conservatory whom I've met on one occasion where he reviewed one of my pieces out of personal interest, thanks to the help of a common acquaintance. Since then my goal has been to be accepted into the conservatory and study with him. I wasn't admitted to the festival's composition competition live performance round (last round), but I did get a place to go and participate in the festival as an alumnus, receiving masterclasses from the above teachers, lectures, also concerts by other important people (Bashkirov is head of piano department of that festival), and many other things. I'm actually getting my Russian visa tomorrow (assuming nothing goes wrong), and fly on wednesday. So I guess it paid off!
Apart from this^, you do have a point and I should plan ahead when participating in competitions, in order to not run into these kind of problems.

Now back to the work in question.

1), 2), and 3); noted.

4) Very well, I thought my way of writing it was clear enough though, and didn't lead to misunderstandings. But I'll change it (if I do, since I rarely make changes in my work when I finish it, I prefer going on to the next one, knowing it will be better than the last one, until I get to a point where the piece is good enough it deserves polishing and more extensive thought. As of now I must live with the fact no matter how much I better my works, the essence of them is still not good enough to warrant such attention. I do take notes from advices (not only from you, but all my teachers), and apply them in the next composition).

5) I did know how to do it that way, but unfortunately that part I had already composed before I even began this work, and again, due to time pressure, I just copied and pasted it. To be honest, it's a miracle the work is barely listenable. From the start of the Coda till the end of it (until the harmonics in the violins), and the piano part, that was my base for the piece. My original idea was in fact a Solo Piano Sonata; it started with the Coda, and after the resolution to the BMaj7 chord, the slow 4 staves part came next. Through some thought and development, I worked backwards to compose this piece.

I know, I'm a mess


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## Vasks (Dec 9, 2013)

Zeus said:


> I know, I'm a mess


No, you're just young and inexperienced. You'll be learning your craft bit by bit during your entire lifetime. And that Festival with Master classes is an important learning event. Try to look at other participant's scores and ask questions about things you see in them.


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## Zeus (Jan 6, 2018)

Vasks said:


> No, you're just young and inexperienced. You'll be learning your craft bit by bit during your entire lifetime. And that Festival with Master classes is an important learning event. Try to look at other participant's scores and ask questions about things you see in them.


Well, I can't thank you enough for all your advice. At the risk of sounding greedy, I would appreciate if you could some day comment on any of my other pieces, such as the latest one I posted, or the introduction and ricercar for orchestra, since I haven't been told much about them from anybody yet. And thanks again, in this phase of learning elemental and primary composing knowledge I must take all the advice I can get, to progress as fast as I can, so people like you actually feed my brain


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