Yet Another - Deep River (2 part and piano)

For comments and/or enjoyment...

Deep River is a slow spiritual. After doing "Jericho". I figured I was good for one more. It should be pretty easy to sing and play.

BTW, the jericho files have been updated as well.

Here is the mp3 for Deep River...

http://www.hooblermusic.com/images/stories/audio/comp/deepriver.mp3

and the PDF...

http://www.hooblermusic.com/images/stories/audio/comp/deepriver.pdf

Firstly let me say that this is not the popular version of the Spiritual as sung by Paul Robeson and others - I was expecting the melody to go down to an A not a C - as will many other people.

But having opted for this version, there are a couple of points worth mentioning. I would have thought that the bass notes of the piano would have more sustain, either by making the first quaver last longer or the use of the pedal. Maybe put some pedalling suggestions in for the piano.

Bars 15 and 16 - I wasn' really convinced by the bare 5th in the harmony. You obviously want a sort of cold sound. There are a few other places like that.

I shan't mention the obvious stuff like the rolled chord sign running into the notes etc (sorry I have) but for me the biggest question mark about the arrangement is this. If there was over a case to be made for word painting, then this is the song. I think we expect the basses to predominate on the word "deep", but for some reason you have the ladies doing most of the vocal line here...

It's a strange inversion of musical logic that I just can't get used to after having grown up this classic bass/ baritone star turn.