Death Toll- Please review!!

Alright, so the title is unofficial, seeing as how i havent written any words to it yet. This is the first time i finished a decently lengthed song for choir, so i would appreciate both optimistic advice and debilitating criticism. Yes, since i havent heard it performed, i ran it through my computer, so forgive the crappy synth sounds. Yes, its supposed to be performed by a choir. The link to the song is here,

http://gcmunky109.tripod.com/ode.mp3

while the sheet music is here

http://gcmunky109.tripod.com/opuspi.pdf

Pelase help me out on this, or at least tell me if you like it.

So hey, talk to me. Thanks so much.

Don't start with music. Never start with music. You'll never find text that just happens to fit perfectly and generally composers can't write poetry for scraggy. What you essentially have is a sketchpad of a few motivic and harmonic ideas, now go actually compose a piece and see if you can't worm one or two of these ideas in there. Until you do you haven't "finished" anything.

As far as criticism, the fact that you just. kept. repeating. those. opening. chords. left me bored to tears; enough to just give up before hearing anything else.

The score was really jumbled on page 3. Notes squishing notes. Babies...eating babies.

For the lower 3 voices you seemed to just muck around in their lowest register for way too long; F, B, and G for basses, tenors, and altos respectively aren't unreasonable, but they should be used more sparingly.

Yep.

Thank you, if you are still interested, i'm altereing the piece per your suggestions and replacing the link later this week.

-GC

Your tenors are too low in those FF parts.

For a four-part choral with Tenor on Lower Si? That's extreme..

I figure that there's already been some critique in the posts above mine,

so I'll leave a compliment. :)

Despite repetitiveness or range issues or whatever,

I really like your harmonic ideas.

It's already really nice.

Your choices of chords are pretty powerful,

in my opinion.

With some cleaning up,

you'll have an extremely powerful piece on your hands! :)

The repeated chords at the start and end are repetitious but the actual substance of the piece from about 1:00-2:30 has a dark intensity. A good listen, all in all, but I'm not sure why you obsessed over those two chords?

Thank you for your critiques and comments. I'll give you guys a heads-up as what i'm doing.

-I raised the tenor and some soprano parts up an octave. I tried for a dark sound, which i didnt know tenors could manage within their normal ranges.

-I cut off a few of the repetative chords. I added so many simply because i didnt want the first and last ones to be really heard, sort of like the chords were the bells mourning a death as one got closer, and then farther away, louder and quieter.

-I added words, in Latin. Eat that one, naysayers.

Let me finish this recording this week, so you might want to try the links again, and maybe you'll hear the new version.

Again, thanks, I'll post again.

Alright, neat piece.

I can totally see the bell aspect you are trying to bring out, and I think the amount of repetition you use is tasteful. Enough that I get the picture, but not too much to bore me, good job.

First thing, I have to echo those above me. Text hardly ever appears and fits perfectly. Next time, I'd have a text first and derive the music from that. It creates more of a unified piece, and the words have more relation to the music. It also opens up the idea of word painting. If there is a particular word used, you can model the harmonic language used to match the wording. An example would be if the word is "light" make the chord sparkly and major. If the text you find stumbles on the word "horrific" make the chord hopeless, ect...

Just an idea. :D

I also noticed, there doesn't appear to be a clear climax in the piece. There are swells, but never a point where the walls come crashing down. Maybe its an individual thing, but I don't see death as very subdued. A point of climax would be a nice addition to the reflective textures that you have here.

Next time, I might be a little more conservative on your soprano ranges, or at least let them have a bit notice before spring high B's out of nowhere.

Also, a quick notation issue. Anytime you have a voice sing more than one note on the same syllable, those notes need to be slurred. An example would be at measure 30 on "et"

Besides that, I think you have a lovely piece here

Best of Luck!

-Corey

I really enjoy this...I agree with most of the posters about the repetitions and range issues...I have similar problems when I am composing. I love your descending figures at around the two minute mark. Some beautiful stuff...keep up the good work.

memento mori? Like the Jonathen Cohen short story?

Close. The actual translations are as follows.

Morituri te salutant

Cum tacent, clamant

Memento mori

Mundus vult decipi

Pulvis et umbra sumus

Fiat justitia et ruat caelum

Those who are about to die salute you

When they remain silent, they cry out.

Remember that you must die

The world wants to be deceived-

We are dust and shadow.

Let justice be done though the heavens fall

By the way, thank you all for your support.