The Christmas Rose

I wrote this as a Christmas present for my best friend. Please comment/critique :) **EDIT** I just reuploaded the music with some changes. I'm still contemplating adding more to the end, but this is what I have now.

The Christmas Rose

This was nice. A few short comments.

The ending was a little too sudden / unprepared. Given your material, and the text, you could have a more dramatic ending - give the piano maybe 8 more bars of stuff, and have it die off to nothing. (Just a suggestion).

Near the start, the voice and bassline moved in parallel 5ths. I'm not a huge stickler for rules, but this one tends to sounds jarring to the ear - In general, contrary motion between the outer parts is more satisfying. Parallel motion, even when 3rds or 6ths, gets tiring quickly, but p. 5ths work best as a special sonority that gets focused on a lot - here they're just for a couple of bars. (The first time is at b.10 -- the first note of the L.H. could be an F, solving the problem).

The countermelody / counterpoint in the violin is a good idea, and for the most part, works. Sometimes it would give the line more focus and clarity if you aimed for the chord tone for the second eighth of the 3-note group. E.g., the chord is F minor, you could have in the vln G F C -- so the first note is a suspension or appogiatura. Sometimes in the vln line you have things like this, but also sometimes you're trying too hard to stick to chord tones (IMO).

Good work.

Thanks!! I'm going to look at those parts and take your advice, then reupload the piece. :)

I agree the ending was sudden, perhaps a rall would help, but rather than sudden I'd say it needs a ritornello, to listen all over again, I don't know if was for the lyric that you ended there, but I'd like to hear it again.

The piano part looks very easy for me, but there's nothing wrong with being easy :D

Hey, Elizabeth. :)

I'ma agree with SYS on this one. This piece could do with a big repeat or something like that. Simple fix to a relatively substancial issue.

I like the overall setting quite a bit. Feels very natural, flowing and interesting enough for such a simple minor piece.

Yet the melody line feels very very blocky and square to me. The note durations and note choices are all... too predictable, with hardly any non-chord tones. I think I even detected a handful of parallel octaves between voice and bass. I don't know if you improvise at all, but I'd compare it to a blues solo where the guy is dancing around tonic the whole time.

This is an exaggeration, but how many times can we hear "do me me re do" in a piece so minor and still be interested?

One man's opinion. *shurg*

Thanks for sharing! I hope your friend likes/liked it. :phones: You do have a gift for making simple piano lines pretty interesting.

-Peter

This is an exaggeration, but how many times can we hear "do me me re do" in a piece so minor and still be interested?

I hope your friend likes/liked it. :phones: You do have a gift for making simple piano lines pretty interesting.

-Peter

As a singer, I enjoy simple melody lines... they give me liberty to express emotion through simple notes. I do see your point though :)

He ended up really liking it. Thank you for your nice compliment. I'm trying to look at either extending the song, or as you guys suggested, putting a repeat in.

Thank you so much for your feedback, guys :)

I loved the voice line, you always come up with the best lyrics! As far as the length of this piece, i think it's in dire need of a B-section. It's pretty, but it's not long enough. I like the violin part, not that challenging and it adds a nice 'something extra'. The piano i think is pretty too, but at m20 it's just too much, i start paying more attention to it than the singer. I would start working on balance between the parts, it's so important that you have a good blend of the soprano-alto-tenor-bass voices. For example, at places like m32, the violin part is playing higher than the voice and continues to play at equal register with it. This is generally a no-no, the only time the accompaniment plays higher than the voice is when the voice decrescendos and is either no longer important, or is just taking a break. You have this at m20, so you do have the idea of good balance, just incorporate it more throughout the entire piece.

Well, I must admit...these aren't my lyrics. I found a poem that I really liked and used those. And I'm considering making a B section, but so far have been quite stuck... :S