Christmas Anthem

Originally Posted by frantz

wow, what an enthusiastic composition! loved!

What exactly did you like? Thanks for the compliment, but I'm curious about what you enjoyed about it.

I think this is a great start.

Personally, I think that too much importance is placed on harmony. People spent the 18th and 19th century forgetting about the individual lines of music and focused on music as a vertical entity. As a result, we have this horrible effect (still plauging us today) of people who write very vertical music, where each measure looks like a little picket fence. I think you have great potential, but I think you need to focus MORE on the individual line. So what if it's modal? I'd rather see modal music than diatonic music.

I would listen to some composers of older vocal music, preferrably anything written between the 14th and 17th century. Trust me; it's worth it.

I would have to agree with the harmony, but you must understand that I spent about one year trying to figure out how harmony was done, so to actually put it into something of any size was just fascinating for me. Now I am beginning to understand that there is more to composition than just harmony, but I'm afraid that for a while I put barely any stress on writing individual lines. I am planning to try and write a string quartet next, so I will try to make each individual line more interesting.

I'm not sure if it's allowed to critique the instrumental part of vocal music but I noticed that none of your brass parts (horn and trumpet) were transposed. This leads to parts that are basically impossible to play. When the horn is transposed up to D, it becomes ever so hard to reach that concert E (now a B). Also, there are some concerns of mine for the sopranos. Giving them a G in the 2nd measure could be tough, but I don't know voice ranges that well.
Nice piece though! I like the horn and alto section especially

Thanks so much for the note about transposition- that thought never occured to me. I will attempt to revise.

You're better off not writing the music transposed. Instead, learn the CONCERT PITCH ranges of the instruments you're writing for. By the collegiate level, players are expected to be able to transpose in their head. If you're concerned about range, specify a certain instrument (horn in F, Bb trumpet, etc). If you're going to do that, though, make sure to specify that the part isn't transposed.

I didn't write the music transposed. I wrote it in concert pitch, and when I took off the concert pitch, I realized the part would be nigh impossible to play. That's why I'm revising.

Here is the same piece with a revised horn part. Hopefully it isn't too low now, but I think it gives a sort of fullness to the music.

nicely done! the horn part was much better, and while it didn't have the same brilliance as it would've (if the parts were practical), the new register sounds perfectly good