A question about some intruments for my new composition

[Ballaw de Quincewold]

My composition professor gave me a summer project to write 3 movements for violin, flute, clarinet, and marimba. Naturally, I am going to research these instruments and their capabilities (Being very new to composition, I am not familiar with basic concepts of many instruments), but I thought it would be good to ask you guys for some preliminary advice. So, any thoughts or comments about specific and non-specific qualities and possibilities of these instruments?

[Thorolf]

For flute and violin, a lot should be plain sailing. This is an occation that you can use the register of the flute all the way down. The violin’s pizzicato will sound very dry compared to the surprisingly warm sound of the marimba. And don’t forget to use the clarinet as a bass instrument!



Regards

[ttw]

My mother taught a guy to play marimba; four sticks. He did win the Texas marimba championships about 60 years ago. If you have a good player, you can give lots of notes to the marimba.

The marimba and clarinet sound kind of "woody" so they should blend well. The flute wil blend with the clairnet as will the violin. The biggest tone color contrast will be between the violin and marimba. (And between the high and low registers of the clarinet.)

Don't forget to post us a preview here. It will be fun to listen to.

[chckn8r]

Originally Posted by ttw

My mother taught a guy to play marimba; four sticks. He did win the Texas marimba championships about 60 years ago. If you have a good player, you can give lots of notes to the marimba.

If you're using a keyboard to sketch out multiple stick parts (three or four sticks) for the marimba, a good rule of thumb is to try and play the voicings with your pointing and pinky fingers (folding your ring and middle finger in). If you can play it easily on the keyboard like that, then the player should be okay.

[stevel]

Originally Posted by Ballaw de Quincewold

My composition professor gave me a summer project to write 3 movements for violin, flute, clarinet, and marimba. Naturally, I am going to research these instruments and their capabilities (Being very new to composition, I am not familiar with basic concepts of many instruments), but I thought it would be good to ask you guys for some preliminary advice. So, any thoughts or comments about specific and non-specific qualities and possibilities of these instruments?

By the way - about Marimba - don't eliminate the possibility of using two players - you can have one player, 2, 3 or 4 sticks, or two players high and low, usually 2 sticks each (any more than that gets a tangle). Additionally, even for a single player it's often written on two staves (a grand staff like Piano) instead of one.

Don't forget also that a marimbist can change sticks - or even have one harder stick to bring a line out when playing with multiple sticks! (I keep saying sticks but I should be saying mallets). Soft yarn mallets can make a very different tone than hard rubber, etc.m so you check those out in detail - Marimba cab be a very tonally rich instrument.

I'd also suggest maybe making a table of techniques you might like to include - someone already mentioned pizz.

It might be interesting for the marimba to double things - for instance, long soft mallet rolls on low notes can match the long bowing of violin . Furthermore, you can emulate pizz well too (there's no reason by the way the marimbist can't mute keys with a free hand, or lay a cloth across a certain range of notes (think prepared marimba)).

Another doubling of interest might be fluttertongue on flute with higher harder mallet rolls or "tremolandi" on marimba.

One word of caution - I feel the the Clarinet is most timbrally similar to the Marimba so you might be careful of one covering the other when playing unison lines.

Oh, and one more thing - if you get stuck compositionally, you can always walk around to the other side of the marimba and play it upside down! Sometimes the most mediocre of normal lines can become quite fascinating.

OK, one more one more thing - don't get carried away with fancy sticking and such for the marimba unless it's going to be featured. Most players will figure out their own sticking and they can pretty much handle anything within reason. But unless you're going to make this about some showing cross-sticking stuff, I'd stay away from it. In fact, don't forget that the marimba part can just be a single note - just because it (and its players) can play four notes at a time doesn't mean you always have to.

I'd love to hear it when you're done - it's a good assignment that should yield some fun stuff.

Steve

[Ballaw de Quincewold]

Thanks for your commentss! I'm not sure how interesting it will be as I am a novice composer.

When writing for one person two-mallet marimba, do I use the grand staff or just one staff and change clefs when I need to?

Do you guys have any structural ideas? I know it will be three movements but the rest has not been decided.

[Thorolf]

Originally Posted by Ballaw de Quincewold

When writing for one person two-mallet marimba, do I use the grand staff or just one staff and change clefs when I need to?

It all depends on the music you write…

If you don’t need two staves, one is fine. If you need two staves, just go ahead: I’ve even written two staves for one double bass when I needed it!



As for structure: Try to make a subject utilizing all four instruments and see where that leads you…

Regards

[stevel]

When writing for one person two-mallet marimba, do I use the grand staff or just one staff and change clefs when I need to?

I usually don't see a lot of clef changes - it's usually Treble when it's a single clef. But there's no reason not to switch clefs if you absolutely need to. I wouldn't use Grand staff with only two mallets unless you're doing something like asking the player to play the highest and lowest notes at the same time! Seriously though, if there were two fairly distinctive parts, one low and one high, then it would be reasonable - but that's a lot to ask of a player.

Do you guys have any structural ideas? I know it will be three movements but the rest has not been decided.

Ballaw, let's say you have four instruments: Fl, Cl, Vn, Mba. Let's look at the possibilities:
Each solo.
Pairs: Fl, Cl; Fl, Vn; Fl, Mba, etc.
Trios: Fl, Cl, Vn; Cl, Vn, Mba, etc.
Quartet: all.

Rather than trying to write three movements, you might consider writing some smaller movements using various combinations (you don't have to use all the possibilities above (plus those I didn't list)). This can give you a chance to explore various things without feeling constrained to write "SONATA FORM" or something like that (unless your teacher is requiring you to).

For instance, movement I could be for Violin solo, and could be a study in pizzicato.
Movement V could be for the quartet and be a chordal study.

Movement VII could be for Flute and Marimba where they swap their traditional roles and the Marimba takes the melody and the flute the accompaniment.

Each movement could be 30 seconds to 2 minutes or so.

Some other things to think about (not necessarily structural):
Violin can play double stops - this could be a nice parallel to the two-mallet marimba - for instance, maybe you could write a bit for Marimba 2 mallets with Flute, then repeat the same music with the violin playing the double notes and the clarinet playing the flute's part (note, obviously you need to understand some basic double stops on violin to do this).

You might could pit the trio Fl, Vn, CL against the Marimba with three mallets - have them go back and forth in a little competition, conversation, or echo.

In other words, instead of getting stuck in this "I have to write three movements fast-slow-fast" mentality (not that that won't work either), a more creative approach can be to look at the things the instruments can do, and see if you can incorporate them or even use them as springboards. Look at what combinations of instruments you can use. Look at what techiniques instruments can do. Think about writing "something chordal", "something contrapuntal", "something melodic", "something for solo", "something for group", "something for 3 parts against 1 part", "something for "2 against 2", "something in unison (tutti)", "something in parallel", and so on. You , ,ay not end up using all of them but they can be useful things to remember when you get stuck, or can't even get started.

If you get a chance, check out Schoenberg's "Transfigured Night" - you can look it up on the internet and you'll find plenty of comments about it. You may or may not like the piece itself but my point in mentioning it is you can see how Schoenberg handled his material with an interesting combination of instruments. Another interesting work with this kind of "non-traditional" instrumentation is Messian's "Quartet for the End of Time". The historical aspects of this work (when and where it was written) are of interest.

Best,
Steve

[Ballaw de Quincewold]

Thank you for your long comment! I have already considered most of the stuff you have advised. However, all of my previous pieces have been minatures. This piece is supposed to be a study in longer lasting music, which I am extremely weak with. I will definitely be taking advantage of each of the instruments individual nature and won't feel constrained to constantly give all four of them a part, but I probably should keep the three movement form (It won't be a sonata). Any ideas on how to make it more interesting than fast-slow-fast? By the way, I know and love Messiaen's quartet for the end of time.

[stevel]

This piece is supposed to be a study in longer lasting music, which I am extremely weak with.

Darn! Oh well, you do need to learn to write longer things and if you're weak with them, now's the time (and probably why you've been assigned this).

I will definitely be taking advantage of each of the instruments individual nature and won't feel constrained to constantly give all four of them a part, but I probably should keep the three movement form (It won't be a sonata).

There are some longer two movement forms, like Adagio and Allegro, and of course you can always go up to 4 or 5 + (getting too long then). You can always fall back on the "there are 4 instruments, why not 4 movmements" philsophy :-)

Any ideas on how to make it more interesting than fast-slow-fast? By the way, I know and love Messiaen's quartet for the end of time.

Good man. Wonderful work.

Hmm. More interesting than F-S-F? How about an interesting F-S-F! Seriously, I don't think there's necessarily any lack of interest in that layout. But S-F-S is less common, so might be more interesting from that standpoint. You could do S-M-F or F-M-S but might be a little predictable unless there's some other musical idea of "growth" or "decline" you want to protray.

You could always play with the lenghts - the golden mean (2 movement) or Pythagorean Theorem.

What about am Arch Rondo-like form with short interludes:
A - B - A - C - A - B - A
Where A is miniatures (and I mean small things - like 8-16 meausures), and B and C are the "big" movmements? That would give you the ability to have A sections be short, focus on a single instrument (or even be solo), and act as a cohesive force - Intro, Interlude I, Interlude II, Outro.

Then the B and C sections could be the "meat" of your piece, but because of the A material they wouldn't have to be "as heavy" as a F-S-F only 3 movmement work.

Anyways, just tossing out some ideas.

Best,
Steve