Epitaph

We've sung a lot of Teasdale in chamber choir, so I was looking for one of her poems to make

into a song, and I found Epitaph, which I absolutely love.

This is the first piece I've composed, so take that into consideration, haha.

Things got a tad distorted in the PDF creation process. Sorry about that.

song2_37_1_10_2.mid

Epitaph.pdf

Sorry to say this, but your chord progressions are rather suspect, including many parallel 5ths and octaves. In addition, the piece is very homophonic (no, not homophobic), homophonic i.e. chordal with very little polyphony and/or counterpoint. And the chords used apart from some 'special ones' such as 6ths, 9ths etc... are your typical I IV V and Vii.

There are some good moments in there, especially with the word painting used. So not all that bad!

Thanks for the feedback!

One thing I never understood (and probably will never understand...) is why

there are rules for music. I don't understand why parallel 5ths and octaves are so bad.

I mean, if they were so horrible, they wouldn't exist (impossible, but you get the idea, haha).

As long as the music sounds good and conveys a message, I don't believe it should be constrained by rules.

I mean look at Mozart. In Lacrymosa alone, the sopranos and altos drift more than an octave apart, which apparently should never happen.

The rules are there for an extremely good reason. Believe it or not, you are going to follow SOME rules by writing conventional (bear with my ambiguity here) music. Rules that you'll probably follow: Chords are built on thirds and are defined by melodic coincidence, Cadences give contour to your piece, the 3rd line of a treble stave is B, etc...

They're there to make your music sound good, not amateurish.

There is a great importance in the individualization of voices. It is what makes music interesting, beautiful, and deep (depth giving, that is). You must realize that the concept of "chords" comes from the interaction of different melodies simultaneously. The concept of harmony is secondary to the concept of counterpoint. Therefore, when you are writing "conventional" music, the interaction of melody lends an absolute strength to the piece if executed well.

Parallel 5ths, Parallel 8ths and Hidden Fifths, and Parallel any other interval for an extended period of time are forbidden for a very good reason. They take away from the independence of voices. Without independent voices, you have "holes" in your harmony and in your musical texture. Your piece is weakened by these independence-destroying directions.

Now, if you are writing a non-common-practice piece, the rules of counterpoint still apply, but in different senses and different ways. Composers find ways to overcome these problems.

You can't talk about Mozart in the same way that you talk about yourself for that very reason.. they found ways to overcome the flaws of their pieces. And by the way, it's not an Octave separation, it's a 12th, as that is where the harmonic (p=1) series (seems to) produce the richest sound.

I think your piece would improve significantly with counterpoint study and then harmony study.

The rules are there for an extremely good reason. Believe it or not, you are going to follow SOME rules by writing conventional (bear with my ambiguity here) music. Rules that you'll probably follow: Chords are built on thirds and are defined by melodic coincidence, Cadences give contour to your piece, the 3rd line of a treble stave is B, etc...

They're there to make your music sound good, not amateurish.

There is a great importance in the individualization of voices. It is what makes music interesting, beautiful, and deep (depth giving, that is). You must realize that the concept of "chords" comes from the interaction of different melodies simultaneously. The concept of harmony is secondary to the concept of counterpoint. Therefore, when you are writing "conventional" music, the interaction of melody lends an absolute strength to the piece if executed well.

Parallel 5ths, Parallel 8ths and Hidden Fifths, and Parallel any other interval for an extended period of time are forbidden for a very good reason. They take away from the independence of voices. Without independent voices, you have "holes" in your harmony and in your musical texture. Your piece is weakened by these independence-destroying directions.

Now, if you are writing a non-common-practice piece, the rules of counterpoint still apply, but in different senses and different ways. Composers find ways to overcome these problems.

You can't talk about Mozart in the same way that you talk about yourself for that very reason.. they found ways to overcome the flaws of their pieces. And by the way, it's not an Octave separation, it's a 12th, as that is where the harmonic (p=1) series (seems to) produce the richest sound.

I think your piece would improve significantly with counterpoint study and then harmony study.

I can't add more to it myself, as it has been said already.

There are times when I break the rules and allowing para 5ths (never octaves as this does weaken chords, as mentioned above), but they are not blunt and obvious to be honest.

One thing I will add is that a choir sings 4-part harmony. Granted, you can double up the voices (if you have 2 or more per part, of course), and then you can add more notes to the 4-note chord, but in essence we work on 4 notes. If 2 voices move in parallel 5ths or octaves, it weakens that transition and limits the harmony in the 2nd chord making the harmonies not so rich. This was mentioned above. But one of the rules which was not mentioned was the doubling of 3rds. This is allowed in minor chord but not major. Test it yourself. A G-Bb-D-Bb chord sounds richer than its major version of G-B-D-B which sounds weak. Something about harmonics and frequencies etc...

Also, a nice little test you can do at a piano is to play an A chord without the C# (so As and Es) in an arpeggio (up and down the piano) fashion whilst pressing the substain pedal down to build up a big chord, then with the pedal still pressed down, play any C natural (not sharp). Your ears won't like the result and it sounds weird, out of tune, horrible. That's because the tonic (A) and the Dominant (E) played together resonate and produce simulated frequencies of the C# (although not played), and when you play a C natural, it produces a false relation and the chord sounds clashed. Anyway, I digress...

I can't really add anything that hasn't been said, other than to ease the bluntness. All things being said, you have a good start. There can be little changes you can make to improve this piece. Really pay attention to how the voices interact and ask yourself "what can I do here to make this more interesting?" If the answer is really nothing on this piece, then leave it be for now. Just move on to another piece with these comments as a guide. I know the hardest thing for me is to always think about how the voices interact contrapuntally. I write out lines and hope they work together, but often I get stuck with a lot of parallels, especially after my first pass. Find the chords you really like and want to highlight, and figure out a different way for the voices to reach that point. That might be a good way to help expand your musical palette. Like those before me said, the rules are there for a reason, and that is only meant to make your music sound better and stronger. When necessary, the rules can be bent to achieve a certain sound, but ultimately they should be adhered to for the most part. I know that I personally love the sound of parallel 5ths, but I have to remember to use them sparingly, because they ultimately thin out the sound you're trying to create. I hope this was of some help/encouragement, I really did enjoy listening to your piece.

I''ll start off by offering the my side to the parallel fifths argument. Those "rules" everyone is discussing, applies only to the music of common-practice origin. Despite common belief, a parallel fifth will not result in the death of the world, bags of kittens being thrown in the river, nor mountains of hate mail in your mailbox. Just ask Debussy :toothygrin:. In reality, there are no rules. The only restriction to music is that you think it sounds good.

That being said, the harmonic materials in your piece suggest more of a common-practice based palette. You should take into consideration the sounds that the parallel fifths bring to the piece. Are they working towards the overall goal of the piece, or against it?

Other things...

You are putting the sopranos up the octave seemingly at random. Huge gaps (especially those grater than an octave) in the melodic line are generally frowned upon, and make the piece harder to perform than what it should be. What is the purpose of the high C at the end? Just because?

Although I enjoy some of the word painting in this piece, the text itself doesn't seem to fit in the overall scope of the music. As I read the poem over, the words seem to describe the realization that death is inevitable, and that everything continues on, regardless of the death of an individual. Its a brutal reality, but one that I don't feel is conveyed in the piece as much as it could be. A greater focus upon the last two lines I feel would give more weight to that meaning of the text.

Finally, I would like to see a clear climax in this piece. Know where the music is going to, so the work as a whole is more coherent.

All in all, I do think this does have quite a bit of potential. Take these suggestions into account, if you'd like, and apply them in all aspects of your composing. There were parts I thoroughly enjoyed, and I am looking forward to hearing your music again. Best of luck.

I''ll start off by offering the my side to the parallel fifths argument. Those "rules" everyone is discussing, applies only to the music of common-practice origin. Despite common belief, a parallel fifth will not result in the death of the world, bags of kittens being thrown in the river, nor mountains of hate mail in your mailbox. Just ask Debussy . In reality, there are no rules. The only restriction to music is that you think it sounds good.

We are talking about CHORAL music. Debussy didn't write any choral music.

Debussy wrote TONS of choral music

That's not the point at all.

If you're going to refer to composers that "break the rules" then please do it with some background information. Debussy's (and others) use of parallelism is a form of enriching the melody rather than creating harmony. The harmony is already exists in the background and the parallelism accentuates the melody. However, in 4 part writing, there is no excuse for parallelism as it HEAVILY detracts from the texture/depth of the harmonies.

I'd say it's one thing if you intentionally put parallel fifths and octaves in there to go against common practice, and an entirely different thing if you ignorantly put them in there.

In the context of common practice, this piece was very nearly horrible; however, in and of itself, it was pretty nice. I liked it.

As Maelstrom said, Debussy did write a lot of choral music...it's just not widely performed as much as his other work...but it's really beautiful. If you haven't heard any, anthony, you really need to.

As Maelstrom said, Debussy did write a lot of choral music...it's just not widely performed as much as his other work...but it's really beautiful. If you haven't heard any, anthony, you really need to.

When I said he didn't write choral music, I should have said he wrote choral music! :toothygrin:

A bit like Vivaldi invented the photocopier/Xerox... :whistling:

Ah, I see what you meant now. Carry on...