# Rhythmic crescendo (for String Quartet)



## aleazk

My new piece, very influenced by Ligeti's ideas about rhythm:


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https://soundcloud.com/aleazk%2Frhythmic-crescendo-for-string


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## Kopachris

I like it. Very complex, but every rhythmic motive still easily identifiable.


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## aleazk

Kopachris said:


> I like it. Very complex, but every rhythmic motive still easily identifiable.


That was _precisely_ the idea , glad you enjoyed it. See this remark by Ligeti:



> For certain pieces what interested me at first was not so much the music itself, but the procedure that would allow the number of voices in polyphony to augment - as for a certain number of musicians playing different types of xylophones, for instance. Again, from the booklet:
> 
> The polyphonic collaboration of several musicians on the xylophone - in Uganda, in Central African Republic, Malawi and other places - as well as the playing of a single performer on lamellophone (mbira, likembe or sanza) in Zimbabwe, the Cameroon, and many other regions, led me to search for similar technical possibilities on the piano keys.
> 
> First comes a primary figure, very simple. Then, with another musician, it becomes more dense, with slight offsets of the two forms on a regular pulsation basis. I imagined that it was similar to a continuous current that bifurcates, and decomposes itself in several other currents. When listening to those marvelous recordings, I was fascinated by a music that didn't have an initial melody, but in developing would create subterranean melodies: hidden, interior, always ambiguous. They appear, disappear, return.


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## Guest

I tried but soundcloud could not be found! Do you have to belong to this sect??


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## aleazk

Andante said:


> I tried but soundcloud could not be found! Do you have to belong to this sect??


odd (the link works for me, and apparently for @Kopachris too), try this:


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https://soundcloud.com/aleazk%2Ftracks


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde

The link works fine for me too.


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## aleazk

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> The link works fine for me too.


That's all you have to say!!?? :lol:

Well, here's the deal, you will like my piece, or I will start to speak badly about Ligeti! :lol::devil::tiphat:


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde

aleazk said:


> That's all you have for say!! :lol:
> 
> Well, here's the deal, you will like my piece, or I will start to speak badly about Ligeti! :lol::devil::tiphat:


Fine. I will.


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## aleazk

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> Fine. I will.


............


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde

aleazk said:


> ............


I'll listen to it tomorrow.


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## aleazk

^^^^ I think that this one is one of my best and more complex pieces.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde

aleazk said:


> ^^^^ I think that this one is one of my best and more complex pieces.


I think my "Cataract 3/Yon" is one of my best pieces. Go listen to it.


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## Chrythes

Very cool piece.
I would have added a fugue near the end.


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## aleazk

Chrythes said:


> Very cool piece.
> I would have added a fugue near the end.


that cannot be done because there are no themes in that section. What I'm doing there is to use Ligeti's idea of a steady fast rhythm and accentuating some notes. The result are very complex polyrhythms, of the accented notes with each other, but over the steady fast rhythm, which gives Ligeti's effect of "ordered chaos".


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## Chrythes

Is it possible to present a theme near the end and just "dissolve" it into what has been developed from the beginning?
Even without presenting a new theme some motif's can be heard in this piece, so isn't possible to use one of them (or even combine some) for a fugue? 
I don't why, but when a piece is essentially similar from beginning to end (in this piece the rhythm, or the beat is constant) something seems to get "old" very quick and for some reason I think that a fugue is something that can really "wake up" the piece. 
It's like in Gorecki's 2nd String Quartet, the Second Movement. It's energetic but it builds up to nothing. A fugue before switching to the slower part would have given much more contrast and power.


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## aleazk

Chrythes said:


> Is it possible to present a theme near the end and just "dissolve" it into what has been developed from the beginning?
> Even without presenting a new theme *some motif's can be heard in this piece*, so isn't possible to use one of them (or even combine some) for a fugue?
> I don't why, but when a piece is essentially similar from beginning to end *(in this piece the rhythm, or the beat is constant) something seems to get "old" very quick* and for some reason I think that a fugue is something that can really "wake up" the piece.
> It's like in Gorecki's 2nd String Quartet, the Second Movement. It's energetic but it builds up to nothing. A fugue before switching to the slower part would have given much more contrast and power.


The answer to your points is in the remark by Ligeti that I mentioned before (and in which I'm basing my whole scheme for this composition):



> For certain pieces what interested me at first was not so much the music itself, but the procedure that would allow the number of voices in polyphony to augment - as for a certain number of musicians playing different types of xylophones, for instance. Again, from the booklet:
> 
> The polyphonic collaboration of several musicians on the xylophone - in Uganda, in Central African Republic, Malawi and other places - as well as the playing of a single performer on lamellophone (mbira, likembe or sanza) in Zimbabwe, the Cameroon, and many other regions, led me to search for similar technical possibilities on the piano keys.
> 
> First comes a primary figure, very simple. *Then, with another musician, it becomes more dense, with slight offsets of the two forms on a regular pulsation basis.* I imagined that it was similar to a continuous current that bifurcates, and decomposes itself in several other currents. When listening to those marvelous recordings, *I was fascinated by a music that didn't have an initial melody, but in developing would create subterranean melodies: hidden, interior, always ambiguous. They appear, disappear, return.*


So, that's the main idea of this piece, complex rhythmic textures over a regular pulsation basis (that is how it works african music). Melodies and themes are secondary here, they appear as a subproduct of the rhythmic textures, and, as Ligeti says, they are very ambiguous, appear, disappear, return, etc. That is how the melody enters in this kind of compositions. The whole concept of a fugue is incongruent with the scheme of composition that I'm using here.


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## Guest

aleazk said:


> odd (the link works for me, and apparently for @Kopachris too), try this:
> 
> 
> __
> https://soundcloud.com/aleazk%2Ftracks


It works OK now .....


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## PetrB

I failed to hear or feel any real kind of build-up or 'crescendo' of activity in this piece. A simple layering of activity, ala Rossini, or more distinct rhythms working with or against each other might have fit the bill. I still hear one pulse throughout, and nothing distinct enough to 'get me off the runway and into the air.'

Could be your ideation of working with the concept has deceived your ears as to what you (or others) will actually hear. This is not 'bad music,' but as to your specific goal, here, I think it is not met.


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