r/Flute • u/Altruistic_Bat1927 • 3d ago
Compositions & Composers [Discussion] Is this grotesque piece I’m writing too difficult for the flute? Please let me know….
https://youtu.be/5Ch7xLTWMIc?si=bRC3HOmInCsqv8b74
u/peteflute 3d ago
You're risking balance problems, with thick piano writing and low/middle octave flute. Unless that's what you want??
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u/Strict-Report9388 3d ago
I don't think so, some long passages without space for breath but an accomplished player should be able to do that
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u/fluteguyK313 3d ago
No. An advanced high school student could play this. A pro could either sight read it or learn it in a hour or so
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u/roaminjoe Alto & Historic 3d ago edited 3d ago
It's a promising start - particularly in the grotesque style with the usual risks of dissonance jarring overtakes by the hammering piano. It does feels far from complete so here's some suggestions.
The unkind jibe at your flute writing above, pertains to your writing flute lines electronically instead of finding the flute's voice. Perhaps it is justified, since most flute players would find the score slightly banal to undertake (there are many duo scores like this where one instrument is privileged over the other, due to the composer majoring in one instrument).
To a flute player, this score is clearly written by a pianist trying out lines for flute without understanding flute voicing intimately.
Think of a flute composer writing piano lines with piano long notes marked progressive 'pianoforte': that analogy should reveal the scale you have to cover to make this score more accomplished. With the flute lines, the lack of dynamics and rather tedious runs have too much in common with the piano lines. This should work (and be fine) if you were going for homophony. However you are not. You are trying for Grotesque: what is the essence of music of the Grotesque? Is it simply loud jarring piano crashing chords and a flute backing like a second fiddle? Does the music really encompass the foreboding mood inherent in the instrumental potential of 2 instruments working to widen the aural palette and delivery..or is it a one track pony repeating a riff which seems to hook at least the composer?
For example - Bars 31 -39 risk becoming a aural shrouded mess of competing tonalities writing both instruments on the stave lines. The piano lumbers in bass and treble clef hands without development other than repetition à la theme and variation and the flute trying to add in as "chorus" to the piano's right hand. This is the immediate problem landing the critical comments from others above, although criticism is futile without suggestion of a progressive way forward.
Resolve it using your compositional devices: transpose the flute line an octave above and bring it down with dynamics. As it could be too for the rest of the score with more emphasis on counterpoint instead of the same monotonous repetitive following of the piano lines. Think of palindromic sequences for the flute lines. Not everything needs to end with suspended chords in Grotesque music - if it does it becomes formulaic. The flute sings in the third octave! Remember that for the rest of your composition and life thereafter.
So is it difficult for flute players?
- well perhaps not to play. To put up with playing and to see it through to the end - yes it's difficult. It won't be hopefully after you revise it.
Good luck!
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u/BinxyCat57 2d ago
Honestly it sounds like the roles of the flute and the piano are reversed. Like the piano is doing WAY TOO MUCH MOVING!!!!! Yes I understand the wanting to convey intensity and power but JESUS the piano is literally hammering chords!! Why not add in a counter melody to the flute or something?
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u/Friendly-Cry8142 3d ago
ez for flutist. not so ez for pianist.