Preparing to write for String
Quartet, 10 suggestions
1.
Consider why you want to use this medium.
2.
Write down a list of the techniques that you
might use.
3.
Think carefully about where you have heard other
composers using these techniques.
4.
Ask yourself which SQ piece stands out in your
mind as a great work; is there a particular reason for your choice?
5.
Ensure that you are familiar with the
capabilities of the string instruments and the people playing them.
6.
Consider your audience, what might they expect
from your work.
7.
Select your method of planning, even down to the
type of paper you use.
8.
If you make sketches, keep them all, even the
most unproductive.
9.
Work out your best time of day for composing and
keep to the routine.
10.
Have a critical friend, another point of view is
more than helpful, it is vital.
It is not enough just to say I want to write for string
quartet. If you have been instructed to
do so, or it is the case that you won’t be paid unless it is a string quartet
then that is another matter. The medium
is not a matter of it will do.
Point two follows on from the first, you can use a
particular medium in a simple way, e.g. in this instance one might just use
bowed and pizz. textures. If you listen to Jonathan Harvey’s quartets you might
be astonished as to the variety of sounds available, and most composers hunger
after new sounds.
For most of us the Beethoven SQs are the main source of
study, then Bartok but why restrict yourself, try one or two of the Maxwell
Davies Naxos quartets or go outside the accepted range and listen to string
quartets playing Bach’s Art of Fugue.
Max:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEU4KNhdJ44
J.S.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ILd81jY1v4
I write out my own manuscript paper, it takes time, but I
love the process of using pencil on paper.
I also have my own paper made up on Word using the lines on Insert, it
saves money especially with a laser printer, but again that is not the reason,
it is the comfort of familiarity.
I am terrible at organising paper, I have boxes of music
paper that I should throw away. Slowly I
am cultivating the habit of scanning sketches and have the computer file
them. If only I could have done this 30
years ago.
Morning time is best for me, between 8.00 am and about 2.00
p.m. anything after this is less productive, and one has a life to live.
It has been less than a year since I got to know Nurtan
Esmen, we have the luxury of being continents apart, but through the medium of
the internet we can be as critical to each other as we like! Seriously though having a person who is kind
enough to listen to your music, and it may sometimes be bad music, is a luxury. We forget all too often to say thank you to
those who help in this way.
I have helped composers and people sitting exams in
composition for a number of years and I know that for every suggestion I make
somebody else will have two better ones.
If you are reading this and have such suggestions, please add them to
the list, that way everybody wins.
Thank you Ken for your keen critical eye and ear and sharing your vast knowledge of music freely and willingly. Also, personally, for putting up with my drivel, diolch da.
ReplyDeleteThe suggestions above on writing a piece for a string quartet are excellent and I would like to add only a few remarks that are strictly my personal opinion:
A string quartet is not a concerto for a string instrument and three other string instruments. It can be but that should be properly labeled as, for example, XYZ for a violin and string trio. On its own, it is a piece interpreted by four musicians on an equal footing. Each instrument has its own individuality and timbre to contribute; thus,each instrument should have an interesting part to play.
A quartet is not a string orchestra. In some articulations, a solo string instrument is vastly superior to a large group of the same and conversly, a solo is is very inferior to a group in other articulations. For example, a sustained tremolo violin harmonics might be evocative in an orchestra; but it is likely to sound like a mosquito with a solo violin. Slight differences in jete and ricochet bowing would be difficult to hear in an orchestra, but the difference between the two techniques are clear withn a solo instrument. These type of nuances, whether noted or suggested or not can be used in a string quartet.
The slight differences in bowing techniques are generally magnified in solo playing and this is a great advantage in writing for a string quartet. If you don't have these diffferences in your your musical memory, you should acquire them. If you don't have an access to instrumentalists, this can be done by listening with the score. Composing for a string quartet is hard enough task, and you should not handicap your creativity unnecessarily.
As difficult as it might be, writing for a string quartet is a wonderful experience and if the end result is satisfactory the reward is worth the effort.
Thanks for those points Nurtan, and they are well worth noting. I hope our student of the style has had at least part of the question answered, and I also offer my best wishes for getting a group of players together. I also hope that we might have a link to a recording of the finished piece, that would be the icing on the cake!
ReplyDeleteMi sembrano punti condivisibili da considerare per scrivere. Un'altra domanda importante può essere: a cosa serve oggi, un quartetto per archi?
ReplyDeleteThat is a very important point, when we hear music like Jonathan Harvey's String Quartet No 3 the textures are so extended that the conventions of such matters as dialogue are no longer a concern. It is a wonderful array of sounds, probably only possible after being immersed in the electronic music of contemporary 'serious' music. I would like to think more on this.
DeleteKen.
Here is a short link to the Harvey Quartet No 3
Deletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOCCBK86hvo
To answer Chinyeri Obasi's original question (music composer's group, Oct 7th) - you have chosen the most difficult, the most demanding, and the most fulfilling group of instruments that you could have done. Composers have always used the string quartet for their most personal music. I would also add Haydn to the ones that Ken gave in his reply to you.
ReplyDeleteI go along with Ken's list of ten suggestions, and would put a special asterisk for no. 8. But there is another important general consideration which applies to all music during the last twenty years, whether writing it or listening to it, and that is the influence of digital techniques and the internet. The point is that 99% of music ever heard comes out of loudspeakers or earphones, and only 1% (estimates) is in a concert hall, and (again estimates) 50% of all new music produced is synthetic and not played on instruments. If you write for string quartet, the chances are that in the first instance, it will be realised on a DAW (computer system). This is true for me, and I find that I have to spend as much time on computer jiggery-pokery as on the music itself. This is especially so for a group like a string quartet which enables so much more meaning to be put into the notes via articulation. I find that without spending time and skill on MIDI controllers etc.( with me, still growing) my work sounds wooden.
Apart from my last paragrph, there is an opposite point, made forcibly to me when I just listened to Jonathan Harvey's quartet just now as recommended by Ken. First, it was played by the Arditti Quartet whose skill in producing music out of their instruments is quite extraordinary and had it not been for a skilled group like them, Harvey's piece would have fallen flat. But here is where computers come it. Music has been produced from gadgets with a string stretched over a wooden box for millennia, and all that has changed is the shape of the box, which now comes in four different sizes. The present design (i.e. violin etc) is superb at everything that Haydn or Beethoven made it do, but when it comes to other effects as are increasingly common, I believe that computers can often do it better. I suspect that Jonathan Harvey would agree, since he often incorporates computers in his work.
First of all, thank you for taking time to contribute. There is so much to discuss here. The use of electronics was once limited to a very small number of musicians. I can recall using a sit up and beg synthesiser (if you follow this link you will see a modern VST version of it) to input sounds via a microphone, it took hours to set up and the results were usually unimpressive but on a good day something magical would turn up. Recently the proms played Boulez ..explosante-fixe, and I was lucky enough to get a DG CD recently, this certainly shows where the developments have taken place.
ReplyDeleteI am going to add Nurtan's comments in a second reply in a moment, he is up to his ears at the moment, so I am going to add his e-mail to me that arrived a little earlier.
https://www.xils-lab.com/pages/XILS-3.2.html
ReplyDeletethat was the link I didn't add.
Nurtan's e-mail 13.10.2015
ReplyDeleteMy POV on SQ is contradictory - I think - to the current view. I have heard in several discussions that SQs written and performed today are basically by either well known composers or by school playing pieces written by the faculty and students, A fair amount of fillers (less than 7 minutes) are also played. That is a dismal picture for experimental writing.. I like to write for SQ I think it is wonderfully expressive medium, you get the benefit of interpretation by 4 very capable musicians playing off each other. So long as they are willing to put in couple of extra services to discuss and rehearse new peaces they too would be contributing to the growth of the SQ literature. It is an intimate medium, one has to study carefully and long to learn the trade craft. A good piece can forgive a lot of poor orchestration and good orchestration will make C scale sound good, but you cannot get away with either in SQ writing. The composer has to start with a very good sense of the sound of each instrument alone and within the ensemble. I suppose to study counterpoint is good but that is true for any composition.It is more important to experiment with the instruments. Also in this case a virtual instruments are no help since they don't have the sounds like tapping on various parts of the fiddle or the cello, scordattura is awful, most importantly you cannot experiment ( that is why I am waiting for my ship to come it to get a set of experimental strings). I will write something on this line and look at it two ways - the historical and future.
Talking of orchestrating the scale of C do you know the Henze Symphony No 1 (first movement)?
ReplyDeleteI'll look forward to your extended reply when you have finished with the conference material.
Ken
I am slowly catching up (I think ???) I know Henze Symphony No 1, and I like the 1st movement very much. It is really a very high class lecture on how simplicity can be used to communicate complex ideas. It is also an important lesson in open orchestration.
Delete