Matthew

I love the idea of removing the barlines. Or at least dotting them. Regarding what I said about "good enough for the program," I think you're taking me a bit too literally. As far as the rules of engraving go, there are things I don't care about and things I do. Obviously I didn't consider the beams "good enough for the program," or I would not have changed them. I also write my music out by hand before transferring it. What I said was really only with regards to the beams.

It's not lazy, it's fact. I defy you to instruct me as to why a stem pointing in the wrong direction makes my intentions as composer less articulate. It doesn't. If there were something impeding that, of course I would change it; but something like an "incorrect" stem direction is of little importance to me.

I would certainly take my performer's preference higher in consideration than aesthetics, of course; though, one could argue that that is the more professional route.

Hi flint, I don't see any D3s with stems pointing upward, and while there may be some, it is really of little concern for me as I notate with Sibelius, and if it's good enough for the program, it's good enough for me. As for the unbeamed eighth-notes, I did that with a purpose. As a singer, it is easier for me to read, and many singers who have commissioned pieces from me request it. I'm happy to oblige.

Hello again. This piece will eventually come before my previous post "O Captain, my Captain," in a cycle of Whitman Poems. This piece is slightly less tonal, with an emphasis on chords built on fourths. Enjoy. MP3 PDF I have the same request as my last post: constructive criticism is welcome, but please no needless flames. Thank you.

I think this piece is fairly straightforward. It is a setting of a well-known poem commissioned by a bass-baritone in my studio at school. It is set to the Walt Whitman text "O Captain! my Captain!" as follows:

While this is a much more conventional piece than normally you may compose, you managed to be a little weird in there, and with great effect. I thought this was a great piece, and so far out of your theatre-phase, this is probably my favorite. Nice work.

Beautiful piece. It captures the text very nicely, and creates very nice colors. Very nice orchestration. A word of advice-- you should notate those repetitive quarter note rhythms in the strings as tremolos, for ease of reading.

Holy sharps, Batman! Beautiful piece. It is a little difficult at times to hear the piece due to the blending issues-- especially that one tenor. But hey, tenors, what can you do? I think my favorite part of this piece how well the music flows with the text. All of the meter changes were very appropriate and made for some really fantastic phrases. The piece was very colorful, but again, it's difficult to tell exactly what was intended because of some intonation issues caused by the poorly blended sections. Did you suggest straight-tone singing to your choir, at all?

Thank you all for the kind words. The reason the "amen" was a bit abrupt was that I was trying to work within the constraints of the situation. The piece had to be relatively short for the baccalaureate ceremony, and that was just one place where I cut some corners. =]

I really enjoyed listening to it, it sounds like a great start to the piece. Something that I did not like, though, were all of the voice crossings. For the most part, the only voices that really should cross (albeit sparingly) are the alto and tenor, which ironically doesn't happen much. You have quite a few crossings between the bass and the tenor where the bass could easily sing the lower of the pitches. While I could understand why you might do this for reasons of "singability," it will really only make it more confusing to the choir in the end. Also, the last chord struck me as odd. You endeavored throughout the rest of the piece to keep words like joy and stars on major chords; why not a picardy third for the end? Something about "hope" being on a minor chord there at the end struck me as inconsistent. Besides that though, an excellent start to the piece; I really enjoyed it.

Hello all! It's been awhile since I've posted a piece here, but with marching band season and musical season, I haven't had much time for composition. This piece was written specifically for my honors choir at my high school to be performed at my senior baccalaureate. With that in mind, I intended for it to be short, and singable, while still being very colorful. I kept all of the ranges to the absolute minimum, with the sopranos and tenors going no higher than an Eb and the basses going no lower than an Ab. I included no phrasings or dynamic markings in the score because I was teaching and conducting this piece and wanted to give that information to the choir verbally. We decided to make a recording of this for posterity last week, so I thought I'd share it with all of you :) The recording is located on my music myspace here: MySpace.com - Matthew Sullivan Sorry about that. I don't currently have any server space anywhere else to upload it. Thanks for listening! Ave Maria.pdf

Hello! It's been quite awhile since I've posted anything, so I figured I'd give this a post. This was written for my high school's string quartet with the addition of a bass. It took me about a day of writing and a week of intermittent revisions, all done in Sibelius. It was written at the news of the death of a friend of mine, Gary Bloom. It had initially started off as a theme and variations on the bass line and evolved from there. I'm really looking forward to getting some critique on this piece. MP3 PDF

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!

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