An Attempt at a Waltz

Tried to do something just focussing on the string section so decided to do a waltz. I even attempted to write it down for once! The score is probably riddled with mistakes but I'm quite proud that I at least got it down and didn't give up.

 

I tried to do that the third time round by throwing in a Gmajor just so the tune wasn't exactly the same, leading the audience to think I was going the old way but then surprising them with the slight changes. Do you mean make the 3rd time round all major?

I had a debate about this. This time round when I was writing I was writing it out first before going to DAW and I was wondering if I should put counterpoint at around bar 33, but I wanted to give 1 of the violin sections a break just so that I could save them for later when I get the 1st and 2nd's playing in octaves so it sounded bigger. I then thought maybe a second solo violin but thought it might just be a little too weird to introduce the second solo and drop it quickly. I felt that by the time we got to the B section in bar 66 that because that was a new idea it didn't feel appropriate to have a counter melody in that new section because it was a new idea and I needed to ease the listeners into that new idea. Then the final reason I decided not to do a counter melody was because I wasn't sure how to fit it into the orchestration. I had the 1st and 2nd violins in octaves, the violas doing divisi, the celli help carry the rhythm and the basses accenting the 1st beat of the bar. Then I had the piano doing the melody as well but also trying to help strengthen the chords. Could I have gotten away with having 1st and 2nd violins doing divisi? My concern would be that the 1st violins are in such a high range that if I divisi them they would sound too weak and if I divisi the 2nd's then it doesn't support the 1sts as much.

This was another idea I had but decided not to do it. When I started writing a waltz I was looking into other pieces for inspiration orchestration wise and came across "Waltz No. 2" by Shostakovich and at around bar 43 he has the melody on both violin sections and celli in the same octave and I thought the sound was tremendous so I really wanted to try that. I didn't feel it was appropriate to do it the second time the A theme plays, I thought that might be too much too soon and I wanted to save it. I had then established the 1st and 2nd's playing in octaves in the B theme so I felt I couldn't drop that idea when the third A theme came through. So I tried putting celli in the same octave as the 2nd's but I didn't really like the sound. Then I dropped it an octave and liked it even less. It just felt like it was drawing too much attention to itself and the sound didn't feel as pure or something. Maybe it was the samples or the mix or something but I wasn't overly fond of it so I decided to drop it and just have it focussing on driving the rhyhtm with the violas and help accent the first beat of the bar with the basses. I did want a new kind of texture to the A theme which is why I added the piano to the melody playing in the same octaves as the 2nd violins, to me personally, the piano was less intrusive than the cello and gave the melody something a little different than just the violins (at least it did for me anyway, understandable if you don't agree with that though.)

This was the version of the score I referenced. Could just be that this score is formatted incorrectly or there's a reason to why it was done this way. I believe at the beginning it starts as celest and then it switches to piano, so maybe that's why this one had the piano below the string section? I'm not 100% sure. Initially musescore did put the piano on top (I believe the latest version tries to format the layout of the instruments to be correct) but then I saw this score and moved it. Curious if you can find a reason why this one is formatted in this way or if it's just a mistake.

Anyway, those were some of the thoughts I had when writing if you were curious. I've just send the violin part to a friend of mine and I'm hoping to eventually record the violin part live which would be quite exciting. I've never worked with a musician before so I think it would be a great learning experience and then the solo violin won't sound as fake.

 

And here was me wondering what I'll do next, looks like I'll be transcribing this and making a string quartet piece!

Thanks for sending this!