Young Composers' Chorale Challenge

Hello,

Here's my second choral composition efford

The vertical limit, so only notes in the beat of the hymn

No emphasis on the words this time but chromatic colours.

Vom Himmel hoch,... 2.mp3

Hey there, to begin with, I didn't look or listen to anyone else's rendition before doing mine, so that would explain if and why it might be similar to anyone else's.

Anyway, this is a very traditional setting, although since that obliges one to stick to the rules rigidly, it's not necessarily easier, I should think.

Hope to hear what you think, and after I have posted I will start listening to all your versions :D

Now that I've 'done' 'traditional'; if I have the time I'll go on to a more imaginative, unconventional setting.

vom_himmel_hoch.mid

So far, my favourite on this forum is artisimo's first rendition. I love the way you embellished the lower three parts and made the chorale so ethereal in the process. The danger with embellishments is that it can cause the choral writing to become cluttered and difficult to follow, but purely from a listener's perspective, it works beautifully. You might want to consider how practically feasible the part-writing is, for example the early leap of a diminished 7th from F to G# in the bass. Other than that, I think it's lovely and certainly not standard. :D

Thank you Nojtje, I listened to your rendition of the choral, ... GREAT!

solid, logical, clear.

one little small remark. the ritmic pattern 1.2.123.,1.2.123. cought my ear.

but I consider it to be a consequence of solidity.

Honestly, I love it :D

Heya fellow Composers :D I joined the forum today and have been reading and enjoying since!

I just can't belive I found a place with people like myself! :D

I should introduce myself! My name is Bojan Buntic. I'm a 17 years old dude with a burning desire to one day be able to compose something beautiful. When I was a young child I lived in Bosnia. Me and my family fled the war and I know that since then I wanted to express my emotions trough music. I've been playing classical guitar for 3 years and I started studying music theory and counterpoint 4 weeks ago. It was the best decision in my life to buy Fux Study of Counterpoint. Now I finally feel I am getting somewhere!

Anyway! I wanted to try this even though I haven't mastered counterpoint for 3 voices yet :) I feel I am in an unknown territory but it was fun! I don't know if what I did is wrong :P

If I did wrong please tell me!

/Bojan

Vom_Himmel_Hoch2.MID

stupid me! I posted on the wrong thread! ;S this is for the Chorale thread

Sorry!

No sweat Hugowin, I moved your posts to the correct thread. :)

Welcome by the way.

I might try my luck today as well. Although I probably need a lot of coffee before I'll be able to spot every hidden fifth and illegal succesive leap.

Ok, this is my first posting on this site. The chorale challenge caught my eye. I love a good Bach choral. This of course does not mean I can write one. So here it is, let me know. I don't cry for very long, so let me have it.

vom_Himmel_hoch_satb_.mid

Ok, this is my first posting on this site.

Hey everybody, this is my first post here... and I wanted to post something completely different from the other works :)

Anywho... Yeah, I messed up with traditional harmony... big time! HAHA almost no chord progression was made as in TradHarm, except for one or two Authentic Cadences. I know it's supposed to be a Church Hymn or something but if this isnt a real job, I guess we can try different possibilities. I'm a big fan of fantasy, sci-fi, and alikes, sountracks. I'm starting to get in this different ambient the film composers get, cause it has its own rules [which unfortunately, i cant get anywhere ;) ].

I hope you guys like this harmonization, and yes, its VERY amateur and would like a lot of comments about it =) Learning from mistakes =)

Renato

Chorale_Challenge___vom_Himmel_hoch2.MID

:)

just 2 experiments!

VOM.MID

VOM2.MID

Hello frantz

hey interesting . Vom mid is more vertical harmonies and the melodie seems to have completely disapeared

vom2.mid has a melodic ritmic pattern, modern sound but never ugly (but what do I know about modern, haha :) )

very refreshing :)

thank you Artisimo! :)

best regards!

iv been composing for a few months but heres what iv got

Chorale.MID

My chorale, harmonized in that chromatic tonal style as that Melody harmonization I put in a while back - I'm quite happy with how this all turned out. THe only thing I wish is that there were more - the original ending I had used a subdominant for the final chord - perfect to lead into the next section. But I had to change it. Ah well.

This is the result of half an hour of work.

Fantastic. Very cool harmony. You even followed the rules!

I only have finale note pad and cant find a way to convert the file into midi but heres the part. :blush:

when i have the money i can get the good version. :wacko:

Enjoy

Exercise_on_Harmonization.MUS

Here's my harmonization. Let me know what you think. I tried to stay in the style as much as I could, even with the harmonizations (avoiding true seventh chords on strong beats, etc) I had problems avoiding parallels in the very last measure (any advice how to get out of them?).

-neuhausen

Neuhausen__s_Harmonization.pdf

Neuhausen__s_Harmonization.mid

That's actually pretty good. One of the reasons I chose this chorale tune is that it presents certain challenges - one being what to do with the ending, which I found a puzzle as well.

What I'd do in the last measure:

Bass - beat 1, down octave to F below staff; beat 2, low G; beat 3, 2nd space C.

Tenor - beat 1, same (top line A); beat 2, 1st quaver, down to 2nd line D; beat 2, 2nd quaver, 3rd line F; beat 3, E.

Soprano and alto are fine, leave the same.

This fixes the illegal parallels problem while alleviating the cross voicing between the tenor and bass as well. You run the risk of trouble whenever your voicing is very close like that...taking the bass to another octave is often a good place to start.

BTW, Christopher, yours astonishes me yet! :D

I find that chromatic harmony is a lot easier to use in contexts like these, because if you do happen to start using parallels, it's easy to drop one part down a half-step and end up with a major seventh. I'm glad it's astonishing.

This is a brilliant idea. I think that I am best right now with righting choral stuff. I will give it a try. I want to put a different spin on it though. I think that it should be new and creative. Mine might suck and it might be brilliant. Good thing is that I am very familiar with this piece. Be back in about 2-3 days with my arrangement.

No embellishments. Just harmony.

I did this in like 5 minutes so I only did a chorale on the first verse.

von_himmel.MID