My first choral piece

This is my first real choral song (at least that I have posted). It is not finished and there are many things I need to change. I am posting it to get advice and see further things that need to be changed. I wrote it not to any words (much harder than with words in some respects) and I took it (this exact version) with me when I went to talk to an older retired composer about composing. He pointed out two points (among others):

1. The high A flat is not a good way to start and should be only used during a climax and not at the beginning of a peice.

2. The bass and tenor parts are much too static. I have expirimented with changing this and have the tenors double the sopranos an octave and a third down and the basses the same with the altos, but it changed the sound for the worse. Any suggestions on how to change that?

This is one of my first and I have had no training in composing, but I think that I like the way this is going. Thanks!

Choral Song.pdf

Cool Choral Song.mid

Hello! I would like to personally thank you for trying your hand at choral composition. And, you say you have had no formal training, neither have I. To be honest, training pales in comparison to just DOING the vocal thing. Especially when working with voice, one of the hardest aspects can be trying to master exactly how the timbre of the human voice, when combined with others, can be most proudly exalted and most efficiently executed. With that said, you have written a wonderful four part piece.

You have followed all the rules to the letter, but one thing comes to mind... Did you REALLY write it for choir? Or have you written a four part voice piece for SATB? Now, to most, there isn't much difference, but you seem to have the natural theory knack for getting things JUST right. So, I am going to push you here... I am going to push the envelope and say that you did not write this piece for human voices to sing. First off: There is no text... While there are lots of Vocalises out there, keep in mind that this particular style of song without words comes at a detriment to the performers. Choirs, generally, do not enjoy singing songs with just OOOOs and AHHHs. While it may be pleasing to the listener, you will not receive touts from your performers that they enjoyed performing the piece. Why? Because humans (choral singers) are not as adept at presenting personal emotion JUST through the music, so they usually need help. Text setting is VERY important to Choral music. While you have created a beautiful little 4 part piece, you have failed to accomplish the humanization of the music.

SO, that is what I am going to address.

1st: The Voice Setting.

You must keep in mind the range of the performers. Generally pieces like this follow a "vocal arch". They begin at a low range, climax 3/4s of the way through with a very high chord, and come back to the opening material and close the piece out. You chose to make the climax the beginning of the piece... bad idea. The audience will become bored after the second page. The reason that climaxes are built that way is NOT because you are considering how high the women can sing, but because the highest pitch they sing will indicate to the audience that the piece is almost over. It's common practice. Feinting the audience that way will turn heads. Most will refute that your piece lacked development, when they really mean that there was no discernible arc. So, take the time to carefully craft your piece for choir... in the range. Start low, modulate and develop to a climax, and come off of it. Once you do this for a long time and get used to it... then you start breaking the rules and start writing pieces with high beginnings and low climaxes. Or, you start messing with form. Whatever you wanna do. Just make sure it doesn't throw your audience.

2nd: The Vocal Textures.

You have kept the texture of the piece pretty static. It is a series of tension and releases with relentless clarity. While that is good, it throws your audience into a lull. They will say: "I thought it was the same the whole way through..." Even though YOU know it isn't, they will think it is. Audiences, especially church ones (not saying it will be performed in a church, but that they are the least knowledgeable of the Choral Crowds) are generally lacking in the adequate theoretical knowledge to appreciate what you have done here. So mix it up, take the theme and mix up the ideas. Do more of what you did on page three, it was my favorite page... mostly because of the rhythmic shifts.

3rd: Rhythmic Interest

In Choral music, I have learned, it is best NOT to EVER have the same rhythm more than four times in a row in a piece. This includes rhythmic groups. Like your phrase from page one starting at measure 3 should not be repeated more than three times. Now, saying it is intro... well, there is gray area there. But, you get the general idea. Relax. And just make a decision to make it more interesting. People LOVE when you have them ALMOST in a lull and then you "change" it. Like on the 3rd measure of page three, you took the rhythmic idea and kept it the same but you shifted the focus and direction of the melody, keeping the emphasis on beat two. I loved the way this fit with the modulation. It created quite the endearing effect. I still love it. haha.

All of those issues being address, I think this piece mainly needs more: variety and nuance to make it fitting for voice. Like I said, the piece itself is good... just not the execution and "vocal" orchestration.

Another thing you might consider, think about adding some homophonic sections and build up some harmony... maybe even a more polyphonic section (fugal maybe?) granting each voice more independence leading up to some more rhythms (introducing some eighth notes?)...

I don't really know... it's definitely up to you. So play around with ideas and repost. :)

-Morivou

-Choral Music Instructor.

Thanks for the feedback. I guess when I wrote it, I just made it for voice because I think that it is the best sounding medium for any music. When I was writing it, I wrote the first section (measures 1-14) pretty quickly (in about 30 minutes because it was a simple pattern) and then did not know where to go on from there. This was in part that I had no words (I was just writing what sounded good) so I had no help from the words for were to go. I then decided to keep on going with the pattern from where I had left off. And in the third section (measure 27 I think) I just decided to vary it, and I agree with you - that is also one of my favorite parts. Well thanks again!

I really like the different Renaissance influences here. Pretty much Morivou already said it all, though.

This was the updated .mid file but now I figured how to change it on the original post so it's there now also.

Cool Choral Song.mid

Great beginning effort Marcus! I do like what you have done. Add some text, do some more with dynamics, and more movement in the bass and tenor parts. I like your chord progressions.

I am also working on my first choral piece set to the scripture in Matthew "Come Unto Me"...Morivou's advice is much better than mine...so pay close attention to that.

Also, have you ever listened the Mormon Tabernacle Choir? They perform really great choral pieces and new music all the time. The way you structured your piece here reminds me of "O Holy Jesus" Here's a link: Amazon.com : Music Sampler

I think listening to choral music will help as well.

I think listening to choral music will help as well.

Spot on! The best way to write choral music is also to watch the scores carefully as you listen. Find some of the classic works on youtube with score accompanying them. I promise you will become thousands of times more informed by that process.

piano player18,

I must agree with you that O Holy Jesus has a similar structure. I couldn't find it anywhere else than on the amazon sampler, I would like to listen to the rest of it. And yes, I have been listening to choral music, but probably much too focused. I didn't become interested until last year when I heard a concert choir sing, and it was one of the best concerts I've been to. So I sought out the composers who they sang and that I liked (Eric Whitacre for example) and then listened primarily to them. So I have not been branched out enough I think in my listening, staying only to the other composers I like. The first CD that i listened too we had at our house and it had Agnus Dei by Barber (setting of Adagio for Strings) O Magnum Mysterium by Lauridsen, O Magnum Mysterium by Tomas Luis de Victoria and "Nimrod" (or something like that) by Edward Elgar and arr. by John Cameron and I liked especially those peices a lot. Thanks for the feed back, I will definently branch out a lot more.

If you will shoot me an e-mail, I will send you a Windows Media File of it. musicman9597@hotmail.com

very nice piece!

as i don't have much experience with choir (next to none) i can't say any more than that this is really a beautiful piece!

Thanks. And I see that you and I are both 14, have played piano for a while now, and started composing about a year ago! But I see you have by far a larger out put. I haven't had time to listen to your stuff, but I definently will.

If you want my advice, (to the composer) I would discourage using the low Eb without divisi. That note is accessible to basses, but not most baritones. Maybe split in 3rds so baritones are on Gb and basses stay on Eb?

Otherwise, it's a beautiful piece, those musings aside.

Thanks for the feed back. And yes, that note isn't accesible to most baritones. I had to move the whole song up several keys because that was even lower. I still wanted the bass part to have that thing in it though. But now the beginning is to high. so there's a lot of things i need to change.

If you want my advice, (to the composer) I would discourage using the low Eb without divisi. That note is accessible to basses, but not most baritones. Maybe split in 3rds so baritones are on Gb and basses stay on Eb?

Otherwise, it's a beautiful piece, those musings aside.

This voicing probably doesn't work so well - having the baritones and basses that close in that low a register will create a very muddy sound. A better bet would be baritones on a consonant interval of a fifth or larger.

This voicing probably doesn't work so well - having the baritones and basses that close in that low a register will create a very muddy sound. A better bet would be baritones on a consonant interval of a fifth or larger.

I will second that. Usually the bass note should be at least a Perfect fifth away from the next note up and you should be fine. Now, that isn't always true... For example if you WANT a muddy effect, a muddled Bass part would be lovely. However, to create a sound like that, you would have to be DAMN smart to do it musically and smartly.

For your case, if you simply made the gap even a fourth (even that is pushing it... a fourth, however, will create more of a majestic "chorale" style of sound if it's even mf) then you have achieved a clear sound.

I'm looking at the ranges, and I think this would also work fine for a string quartet if you so desired to try.

its melody reminds me of this song...

This voicing probably doesn't work so well - having the baritones and basses that close in that low a register will create a very muddy sound. A better bet would be baritones on a consonant interval of a fifth or larger.

Yeah, I agree with you. I think that here a fifth or an ovtave would be the best. Though I haven't closely looked at it recently.

I'm looking at the ranges, and I think this would also work fine for a string quartet if you so desired to try.

I have thought of this briefly, and I think it'd be a pretty good idea. I also think that the same critiques that were mainly laid out in Morivou's first post would have the same relevance also if this were a string quartet peice. Although then the extreme notes would not be a problem. Thanks for the feedback!

its melody reminds me of this song...

I must agree with you on that one. While this song has much more movement. It has the same kind of sound or tone with it's chords. I'm actually listening to it as I write, and I really like the use of dissonance. Thanks for the checking this out though!

Also, this isn't the right forum probably to address this, but is it possible to quote multiple people at once? Because currently I just have to right one reply for each quote.

Click on this button -> on all the things you want to quote, followed by the regular quote button.

Oh, I can not download or preview the attached file. What's wrong?

Oh, I can not download or preview the attached file. What's wrong?

Yeah, I don't know what's with this new thing. Hopefully it gets sorted out.

This post is EXTREMELY encouraging to me. Thank you for the GREAT suggestions and feedback everybody.