The Calm Before The Storm

The Act 1 finale of "Pirate Hearts." Enjoy! Questions/Comments are welcome! :)

The Calm Before The Storm

It had a very strange, sorta stately feel, which I don't really know if that fits the title or lyrics that well, but could add an interesting layer of meaning if it has something to do with the story outside of this scene.

I think that long instrumental interlude in the middle of the scene, even though it sounds very nice, might be kinda awkward unless there's dialogue or specific actions that people are doing. Particularly, there's a moment in the middle with 6 whole note chords which is very unexciting, and also unusual unless there's some sort of moment in the stage actions which justifies it.

The text setting is actually not that bad (most people can't do this at all). There are moments which are pretty awkward though like the begging of page 7 "so very different ye T some howthe same". The T in yet isn't it's own syllable, so unless you want the singer to awkwardly break the word in two, you should write it as one word, and if you want melisma (this forum doesn't know this word...) on "yet", then slur the notes and write "yet" like "yet____" with the line going for the duration of the melisma. But it might be strange to have emphasis on an unimportant word like yet, sung text should be set so that it's smooth as if someone were speaking it, important words should land on downbeats or be emphasized, unless you're going for some unusual effect.

Notation. It might be useful if you named the staffs so that someone reading the score could tell what instrument you want to play each of those lines. There's no indication of tempo either so people might play it at any tempo how it's currently written, which could be what you want. Sometimes things overlap so that you can't see certain markings, like the first mp in the guitar part is completely covered by those flags.

You might want to watch the range for the vocals, phrases often span an octave and a fourth, which is quite a lot for singers to take in one phrase. It might be more exciting to save the high notes for climax points in the piece. But if you have a melody in mind already, which I can totally understand, this can be difficult to deal with, so in conclusion writing for voices is just always hard.

I said all this and it probably seems very negative, but that's not how I feel at all, I really like it, and I'm going to check out your other "Pirate's Heart" pieces.