October 31, 200718 yr Hey gang. Me again. I've got a choral piece here for women's choir that uses some aleatoric ideas that I'd like some feedback on. I'll upload the midi file but keep in mind that the sections that are aleatoric will sound COMPLETELY different when I get the girls to sing it.
November 3, 200718 yr Quite convincing - I liked the whole "The tide strings away like a line of birds" part. The structure seems to work well, although the ending was a bit abrupt... maybe you could soften it somewhat? As for the aleatoric sections, they work for me, nothing seems arbitrary or unintentional. Sounds just like a regular modern piece :) I assume you are aware of the performance difficulties. May I ask what kind of choir this was written for? They must be quite good.
November 5, 200718 yr Author Yeah. I'm going to extend those "are gone" words through a few more chord changes. That should fix it. The choir is a bunch of girls(9-12) that go to my school. All are voice majors so they should be able to pull it off. Oh and thanks for the choice comments as well as taking the time to listen.
November 8, 200718 yr Author I'm getting a performance of this piece on the 19th! w00t! I'll post a recording with the updated score as soon as it happens.
November 8, 200718 yr Very nice. I like your solution for the unmeasured time signature. You don't specify, but I'm assuming time is proportional in those bars? The score needs a little attention for collisions, but on the whole the notation is very clear. Can you clarify the meaning of the notation at m.29? Nice work!
November 8, 200718 yr Author Not necessarily proportional. I'm going to tell the singers to just think in terms of "black dot=short note, hollow dot=long note". In other words, you can have a huge variety of shortnesses and longnesses. That way you get a nice "vapor" effect. m.29? Each singer would repeat that figure without synchronizing with other singers until the end of the black line. Once at the end of the line the singer will be able to just hold at the fermata while the rest of the choir "catches up". Once all the singers are there, the conductor can cue the next entrance. Corigliano uses it a lot in his first symphony. It's a sweet effect. All this will of course be included in a performance notes paragraph on the title page. It's not in this copy because I knew I would get to work with the singers. And good point about the collisions. I'll do another read through.
November 14, 200718 yr Wish you the best of luck on the performance! Though I had a bit of trouble with the MIDI (probably something on my end) I liked what I heard, and I think the aleatoric parts will really come through well. How large of a group will be performing this?
November 15, 200718 yr I cant wait to hear an actual recording of this. We all know how much vocal midi sucks and how nasty dissonances can be on the piano so I wasnt really able to get too good of a grasp of what it should actually sound like.
November 16, 200718 yr Author I'm going to a rehearsal tomorrow night. The conductor says it's coming along great but I'm of course worried that "coming along great" to her might be "abysmally schlockingly awful" to me. We'll see. The choir is only 12 voices. 4 to a part. That should be JUST enough to make the aleatoric stuff come through. More would be better of course. The performance is on monday so I'll be posting a recording next week. Wish me luck.
November 16, 200718 yr Well alright then. Good luck man! And have fun! I remember the first time I got a choral piece performed (I dont know if this is your first one or not, I'm just sayin). It all built up to that one day of performance and then all the sudden it was finished and everyone is coming up to you and saying how great was. It really is one of the most gratifying experiences you can have. Thats one of the biggest reasons I write music.
November 20, 200718 yr Author Pretty good. There was some inventive tuning that's for sure. I found that the aleatoric stuff in the higher registers was less succesful than I had hoped. When you have everybody screeching around in the d to f area it sounds a little harsh. I'll post a recording soon.
November 22, 200718 yr With a lot of imagination I can see this will be a beautiful piece when "the girls" as you say perform it. It reminded me alot of Eric Whitacre's Cloudburst if you know that piece. Overall great, great chords and a great setting of the text. Would love to hear it live!
November 22, 200718 yr Author Yeah. Unfortuneatly, these girls weren't on par with the amazing choirs Whitacre has record his work. A lot of the tunings are a little meh.... Also, I think I figured out a better way to structure the piece to give it a better flow.
February 28, 200818 yr What ever happened to this? Wheres the recording? ........ Tumababa left awhile ago. Said he was wasting his time here. If you notice, he hasn't logged in in nearly three months.
