Silver Dreams for SSAATTBB chorus

I've asked for some advice about this piece in the "Advice and Techniques" section. It was written in 15/8 time but, through the miracle of Sibelius, converted to 2/4 to make it easier to sing and conduct. We had a good discussion about whether or not to leave it in 15/8--well-reasoned opinions on both sides of the issue.

Anyway, I have a draft completed and would appreciate any feedback. The song is for SSAATTBB chorus with piano accompaniment, and it's about 3 1/2 minutes long. The score is attached, and an mp3 can be found at:

http://www2.potsdam.edu/simonega/Library/Silver_Dreams_7-23-09.mp3

Thanks for listening.

Silver Dreams 8-10-09.pdf

I only began to understand the idea of this piece towards the end - gradually developing chaos which subsides into some kind of peace. I'm the kind of listener who actually stays until the end of an unfamiliar work in order to see if my perseverance will be rewarded with an understanding of how the music works - which just about happened here where the music started to make sense with the text. For the first two minutes or so, however, I couldn't make much sense of it. The harmony seemed to have little coherent movement other than a gradual build-up of unrelated dissonance, and the only real development was of the volume. There were moments when the sound seemed like it was almost aleatoric and highly chaotic and I felt like this piece would be more successful as an electronic avant-garde work. I also can't help thinking that it's quite difficult to sing, what with the polytonality and polyphony of the individual parts. I think that, if I have understood your intended effect correctly, you should find a more convincing way of expressing it in music, and revise the first half of this piece to create more coherent development.

I am sorry... I listened to the whole piece... TWICE. And, I still don't get it. This music is almost, just noise. Not even the artistic kind where you bang trash can lids. But, this seems to me just a whole bunch of unrelated lines. My qualm with this is... nobody wants to hear that. At least in a choral piece.

I can understand art for art's sake. But... I want to understand, what were you getting at here?

Thanks you both for writing. And thanks, Morivou, for listening to it twice. I appreciate you making such an effort when the piece clearly does not appeal to you.

Ultimately, the piece has to stand or fall on its own, regardless of anything I might say about it. But I'm going to cheat a little and talk about it in case that aids in understanding.

Siwi pretty much got the idea. It's a relatively traditional tale of a person getting seduced by wealth, ultimately to their own undoing. (You know, "sour grapes" from schmucks like me who can never seem to get ahead financially.) I wanted the seduction to occur gradually, the protagonist imperceptibly lured further and further in until he/she is brought to ruin. So there aren't individual sections with beginning and endings. Rather, everything gradually smears together. But the song starts with the hero/heroine first getting drawn in, and all is well and safe and comfy. However, wealth has a way of making you want more wealth and, by around rehearsal letter C the goal becomes not so much silver as "more." Around this point the harmonies become denser--Major 7/9s and such, but with suspended non-chord tones to add a vague feeling of menace. Soon, the pursuit of silver leads to ethical lapses, around letters D-E, by F the hero is totally caught up in chaos of his/her own making. The downward spiral begins around G. These sections, from around E through G, are the densest and most confusing. The harmonies become cluttered and the rhythms picks up. So your comments about the piece sounding chaotic are certainly correct, at least in this part. Gradually, everything spins out of control and falls apart; the character loses everything and is on the verge of re-examining his/her life--the "help" at the beginning of letter K--when the seduction begins anew and the cycle starts again. The ending harmony is deliberately vague, neither happy nor sad, leaving it up to the listener to decide whether or not the protagonist makes the same choices again.

Anyway, that was what I had in mind when I wrote this. Whether or not I was successful is for you to decide. After reading your comments, I wonder if maybe I cluttered things up too quickly. Perhaps I should simplify things at the beginning around letters B and C, slow down the rhythm and remove some non-chord tones.

I agree that the piece is difficult to sing--that's why I switched it over to 2/4 rather than leaving it in 15/8--but I disagree that the piece would work better as an electronic piece. To me, the human voice has a beauty and poignancy that can not be equaled electronically, and I think the song would be too grating if it were electronic. But that's just my personal opinion. I should mention that I studied music at Indiana University many years ago, and I was amazed at how talented most of the performance students were. (Alas, I do not include myself in that group.) So I think that, although difficult, the piece is doable by a really good choir like you night find at most good music schools.

Thanks again for writing.

listening to it right now... i like the harmonies and the "chaotic" (i'm using that term without its judgementive suggestion) feel going on. however i think given the meterless feel you have going on here (which is something i remember you writing about wanting to achieve) there needs to be something that propels the piece (and by result the listener) through it.

the suggestion I can make for that is to do much much more with dynamics... especially in the beginning... have the voices fade in and out, not in any unison way but with gradual overlapping of the parts. i think this will the piece a general shape in direction rather than having static harmonies (which are quite beautiful i might add)

chris

Thanks, Chris. I like that idea. I'll play around with it a bit and see what I can come up with.

It is a piece that I didn't think I would enjoy, but did anyway ;-)

The intro is too short to my taste, and then the chaotic movement is too "blocky". I guess this is what Grizwald said in a more articulated way!