chamber piece

I'm a bit behind, but I've got my piece for a small chamber ensemble underway. The instrumentation is piano, vibraphone, and 2 violins. Suggestions in class yesterday gave me a lot of ideas of the sonic possibilities with this instrumentation, and how I can apply them in the overall structure.

All 4 instruments have the ability to play very percussive/dead sounding notes, or sustained notes (pedal vs. no pedal, bowed vs. pizzicato). The glissando effect on violins can also be somewhat imitated by bending a sustained vibraphone note, as I found out yesterday. The material I have so far mainly pairs the violins together, and the keys instruments together, playing mostly stacatto notes in a sporadic, almost pointallistic way. Some good ideas thrown my way were to keep this theme of "pairings" present throughout, but mix them up (vln +vibes, vln+piano, etc. ) Playing with the attack of one instrument and having a nother instrument provide the sustain (sharp, staccato piano attack with sustained vibraphone providing the echo, for example) was an effect I hadn't thought of, either.

Structural suggestions were helpful as well. The material I have does not seem to be introductory, unless this were a short, character piece. I think it would be more effective mid-piece, as a contrary mood to whatever precedes it. Josh suggested using a tutti approach at the beginning, perhaps something semi-cacaphonic but somehow fitting all 4 parts together, and then maybe I can break into the sporadic feel out of nowhere... I think that would work. I also like steering away from the pointalistic stuff very briefly, with a singing melody over sustained pitches or something, and then going right back into the more sparse material... so I'll play with that idea some more too.