Slovak folk song Nič to nič

A small playful piece for my friend who asked me for something fun. 

Approximate translation:

Never mind, never mind,

yesterday I had a girl today I have none.

Now It's bad, now I'm gone

I: my wife sold my oaxes for a bonnet. :I

She sold a cow aswell

bought herself a thingy-lingy on her head.

She sold a stallion too,

bought herself laces for bonnet.

Never mind, never mind

I: yesterday I had a thousand crowns now I have none. :I

translation only for understanding the text purposes as always. 

Any advice on what to try out next in piano+voice songs would be much appreciated. I feel that I am getting stagnant with these "clashing" sharp dissonances at sections where there could be a conventional consonance (the intro would be a nice example and that style of harmonization is in my previous pieces as well). The only thing that differs is stylization and even that one is lacking creativity in left hand. Maybe something contrapunctual with conssonant harmony without the necessary clashes? That might get boring though. An attempt for quartal harmony would be a step up from this. Less harmony changes on a short section and maybe try using silence for tension or letting harmonies last rather than changing them so quickly. Some tip in this spirit would be appreciated. I will try so on my own but a perspective from someone more experienced would be gladly welcomed.

Nice work! I really liked, how you mixed the tonal melody with chromatic bass.

I noticed, you put staccato marks sometimes in the stuff of the tenor solo. Generally the composers try to avoid this notation, and mark the length in an other way. For example, in the 34th measure I would write eigths intead of quarters with staccato.

14 minutes ago, Aure_liano said:

Nice work! I really liked, how you mixed the tonal melody with chromatic bass.

I noticed, you put staccato marks sometimes in the stuff of the tenor solo. Generally the composers try to avoid this notation, and mark the length in an other way. For example, in the 34th measure I would write eigths intead of quarters with staccato.

 

Fair point, thank you. My intentions were to change the declamation of text from legato fluid one to an accented one with more tension. Not a complete staccato "cutting" the syllables from each other but rather creating more tension contrasting the previous phrases. I suppose the change from staccato quarters to normal eights (or eights with tenuto?) would be enough for singer to recognize that change of the style of singing is needed. The quarter staccatos could confuse the singer to "hiccup" the notes heh.

I'll change it to eights then and ask the singer's professor about how to better indicate the phrasing that I want there.

Great, I'm happy, I could help. In your place, I would use eights with tenuto, an in this case the differeces will be absolute clear.

19 minutes ago, ilv said:

Nice little folksong. It could be longer and more developed.

 

Yes I do feel the end was a bit rushed and the intermezzo before middle accelerando section has vaguely variated material. I should definetly work on clearer and longer phrases. But the original melody is four measures and text 5 two versed stanzas long so I wanted to avodi too much repetition. Singer singing 4 bars over and over again the same way would be boring and too many different ways of singing chaotic. Maybe you know of some folk songs with short melodies and little text that have been developed into two minutes or more yet still feel balanced and not like solo piano with voice accompaniment? I'll keep your advice in mind in the future. Thank you.

On 10/8/2017 at 1:31 PM, Kamil Adamčík said:

Yes I do feel the end was a bit rushed and the intermezzo before middle accelerando section has vaguely variated material. I should definetly work on clearer and longer phrases. But the original melody is four measures and text 5 two versed stanzas long so I wanted to avodi too much repetition. Singer singing 4 bars over and over again the same way would be boring and too many different ways of singing chaotic. Maybe you know of some folk songs with short melodies and little text that have been developed into two minutes or more yet still feel balanced and not like solo piano with voice accompaniment? I'll keep your advice in mind in the future. Thank you.

 

Nice tune and nice arrangement. My general thought would be starting consonant and progressively moving to a more dissonant surprising harmony with each stanza. Variation in texture would be a possibility. In order to expand the piece, I would think of repeating some verbal lines, the inclusion of more elaborated non-repeating piano interludes and adding a little coda at the end. Good luck! Keep sharing, please!