Catullus 85

Hey, yc, it's me again! 🙂 For the past few days I've been editing and finishing this SSAA piece that I started in May. It's based off of Catullus 85, which is available here. I'm pretty happy with the sound of it, but I think there's still some editing to be done. Also, I'm stumped on which key(s) to set this in, as I've always kept in in C. I'm not sure if it would be more or less convenient for the singers to have it in multiple keys, or to leave it up to their own interpretation.

I've attached two audios, one with the automated piano (p) and one with the robot voices (v). 

Please let me know your thoughts!

Edited August 3, 20196 yr by Carmen Hunter

There are so many accidentals that change so frequently, it's probably best just to leave it as is (no key) so the singers can read the notes more quickly. Lots of great chromatic passages in here that I really liked! There is quite a bit of doubling going on (the difficulty with SSAA choirs, I know), and I wonder if things wouldn't sound better if the S's and A's sang in unison with their respective parts until somewhere later in the piece. The harmonies were strange but that's a matter of personal taste. I also didn't hear much thematic development, and the quarter-note/half-note passage at the end seemed rather abrupt—maybe that was on purpose? Overall, nice piece of work.

Keep up the good work!

@Tónskáld covered some foundational stuff, so I'll just focus on engraving... You need to make sure that when you're putting rhythms in that everything is sectioned off in their own beat, and since you're using 5/4, that everything is in some sort of grouping.

The very first soprano line, for example, has to be dotted eighth, sixteenth tied to another sixteenth, then the remaining 3 sixteenths.