Surely, I come quickly (SATB, sop. descant)

This piece took me the past two days, so I guess about seven or eight hours total, not including time spent mulling it over (though it does include some engraving issues I had with Sibelius.) My biggest problem in this was steering away from parallel fifths and fourths as I was going for more of a baroque-inspired harmonic vocabulary. In all, I'm pretty happy with what I've come up with, especially given a chance to use a few phrygian cadences. The piece is set mainly to a verse from Revelation, and there is a little add-in from John. I would like to expand on this piece, but I'm mostly out of ideas, and the piece is repetitive as it is. Melodically and harmonically it's somewhat interesting to me, but it flows nicely. Perhaps someone has some ideas on another verse I could use related to this text to expound upon the piece?

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Thanks!

Not to be pushy, but is there any chance someone would venture to comment? =] I'd be their best friend forever.

This piece has some good sounds in it, but if you were going for more Bach-style harmonies, I am going to draw your attention to a few points.

You use a lot of double inversion (64) chords (ex. C major with G as root). In standard writing, these can only be used in 4 ways.

1. Cadential - A tonic 64 going to the dominant before a cadence.

2. Passing Bass - The root of the 64 acts as a passing tone. The two used most greatly are IV-I64-IV6 and I-V64-I6

3. Arpeggiated Bass - Same chord used in different inversions. ex. I-I6-I64-I

4. Pedal Bass - Bass line is static and the chord changes over the top result in a 64 chord.

Either way, the bass (5th) is always doubled.

Your piece contains many "illegal" (non-standard) double inversions but one in particular is quite stark. In measure 9, beat three you have a non-standard triad (major third, diminished fifth) twice inverted. You did double the root, but that causes a note in a tritone to be doubled. This is extremely harsh sounding and should be avoided. It is why one is supposed to double the third of a diminished chord.

Now, it's not like you need to change all of these 64 chords or the music police will be on you but it will add strength to your piece. The reason Bach used these chords so sparingly is because they are extremely unstable, more for decoration than anything else. Your harmonies will be stronger if you use root or first inversion chords instead, most of the time.

I do like you piece, I think it has some nice ideas and is on the right track.

Musicthor

PS You don't need to find any more text, it's enough to work with as it is.

Thank you for breaking the silence! I am quite aware of my abundance of 64 chords, it is a habit of mine and is in fact abundant in all of my writing. I also agree that if I'm going for more of a baroque feel, I need to take a second look at those. Thanks. Do you have any recomendations on that chord in measure nine? I'm quite happy with the melody, but I was very confused as to what to do on the harmony. Most of what you're saying makes a lot of sense to me, but I'm not sure what a tritone is; I still haven't had any formal training-- just an ear and some scores to study.

Also, what is your opinion on the mini-fugue? I'm quite happy with it, but a friend of mine told me that it was too quickly developed.

Again, thanks!

A solution to that chord would be to turn the C's into C-sharp's making it a major chord which I think fits. Else you could turn the A-sharp into an A but I think that melody line works very well as is.

A tritone is the interval between a C and a F-sharp (of course this can be transposed, another example is a E and B-flat). The tritone divides a octave into half and is more technically called an augmented fourth (C, F-sharp) or a diminished fifth (E, B-flat) depending on how it is written. It is the most dissonant interval in Western music. It also happens to be the first two notes in the theme to the Simpsons

I really can't comment on the fugue because I have very little knowledge of counterpuntal techniques. Overlaping ideas and changing motifs like that are extremely common and vocal music and the form it takes does not need to be a technical fugue to be effective. Make it develop as fast or slow as you want.

By the way, I would appreciate a comment on my choral piece that is posted :(. It is a setting of the folk lullaby All the Pretty Little Horses.