Julia's Voice.

Here is my new art song, Julia's Voice.

Its very very simple. Just a lovely song.

I wrote it for my very good friend Julia, not for her to sing obviously, but I was deeply thinking about her.

Im working on a choral arrangement.

On Julia's Voice

So smooth, so sweet, so silv'ry is thy voice,

As, could they hear, the Damned would make no noise,

But listen to thee (walking in thy chamber)

melting melodious words to Lutes of Amber.

-Robert Herrick

Enjoy! Comments are welcome as Always! :)

Julia's Voice.pdf

Julia's Voice.mid

that was beautiful tenor, great composition good job..the vocal part had such a pretty melody, Just loving that piano back round and the words even add greater strength to the song, good job..keep up the good work,

-roman

thanks roman!

I think I have told you in the past that I am not big into Vocal music, however this has a sweet melody and a fine piano underneath.

A little on the short side, but who cares.

Was this a piece for school or a love letter to Julia?

Well done

Ron

I think I have told you in the past that I am not big into Vocal music, however this has a sweet melody and a fine piano underneath.

A little on the short side, but who cares.

Was this a piece for school or a love letter to Julia?

Well done

Ron

Thanks as always Ron! got any new works?

I always seem to change your mind about vocal music, I'm very happy.

It was kinda both, Dr. Hardy (my compostition teacher) asked me to write some songs. I started looking for my text, and when I saw this, I knew I had to set it.

It is for Julia, and I have yest to give it to her, because I just finished it.

Making me plug my piece on your thread again huh?

Over in orchestra, I have a piece about Sailing the Chesapeake and one in incidental about a dead king caled Crosius.

For some reason I thought your name was Scott.

But this thread is signed Robert. Which is it and where did I go wrong?

Ron

I believe he means the text is by Robert Herrick.

Dang, now that I posted in this thread I feel obligated to comment on the piece.... I'll come but later, for sure. ;)

Thanks for clearing that up Enigmus.

Hope to see you back here :)

I liked a good majority of it, my favorite parts are when you have the piano imitate the singer. I enjoy stuff like that, I only wish you had done more of it!

I do have some qualms with the repeated notes in the melody. You did it fairly often, and it got dull pretty quickly. Maybe you would consider moving the melody a bit more. Then again I am going with the yucky midi, so perhaps a better rendering/live performance would make me change my mind.

I do have to say it is enjoyable, and you fit the words well (like the dammed would make no noise section).

Thank you for your comments.

I really wanted to keep it SIMPLE! haha. Thats all I said to my self.

As singers it is our job to keep the music alive, that means adding emotion and making melody sections or word sections that are alike, different. (which can be a challenge sometimes) I can asure you that a live performance would be TOTALLY different!

Thanks again.

tenor10, greetings!

I enjoyed the transparent texture of the accompaniment and the simple, beautiful melodic lines of the voice.

Some beautiful touches... e.g. m.14!

Cheers!

Thank you so much.

Im so glad you said transparent! because that is exactly what I was thinking.

Thanks again

A very pretty song you have here! But there are some problems regarding how you have set the text rhythmically. The first line will feel like: 'SO smooth SO sweet SO sil-VRY!!!' which doesn't really make sense if spoken that way. It feels like the 'so's need to be as pick-ups so the accents would be: 'so SMOOTH so SWEET, so SIL-vry.', which is closer to how someone would speak it. This happens in other places as well.

Another thing is that you need to slur your melismas, even if it's only 2 notes on one syllable. The slurs are an easy indication for the singer not to move on to the next syllable. This is useful since singers get commonly sung phrases and words they know, they sometimes want to rush ahead and finish the sentence but a slur will tell them to hang on to that syllable. It may seem redundant, but it's necessary for performers.

Nice job!

Thanks for the comments, I know people want it to be pickups, but I want it on the downbeat and I know its not how it would be spoken, but O well. haha.

And regarding slurs, and a vocal student myself, I KNOW the importance of slurs, I hadnt gotten to all of them yet, but thank you for the reminder.

The notes on 00:00:43 and 00:00:48 (voice) seem to don

It shows that you are singing- I can honestly say that I've seen a lot of my composer coleages set some really non-idiomatic vocal lines but this works. I think the repeated notes are great because they give the singer a chance to show of perfect tone, diction and some phrazing- especial since they're singing about a good singer :P

I agree with oingo86 about the word stresses. The so's arent that big of a problem, but silvry really loses it's anamatpoetic (spelling?) quality with the stress so strongly put on the weak sylable.

Great to see someone writing some nice, singable artsongs, though. keep it up!

Thank you so much. I'm glad you are one the people here that "get" me.

Im glad you enjoyed it.

About silv'ry, thats how its spelled in the poem from the 17th Century.

The I set it, it should almost feel unmetered, and some have a problem with that, whatever, I like it haha!

Thanks again.