Morivou_

The original is notated with the dotted 8th/16th. And, there is no swinging in the original. The swings are written out as 8ths/16ths and then the main chorus actually has no swing to it. But, I added the swing as it's common practice to do so. I'm still debating on what to do. Maybe I'll re-engrave it with all eighths. The reduction change was intentional (to show the original rhythm). But, thanks for bringing it to my attention. I'll shift that to quietude and breathiness. It was a typo. thx! I had thought about the homophony issue. Mostly I wanted this arrangement to be about the crunchy harmony. And with only four people, I decided to focus on one thing. I might do some finagling with the mm. 42-46 section because it does get slogging. I may also add some movement during the half note holds at the end of every phrase. Thank you for bringing it to my attention. It's good that somebody noticed it. lol. The tuning actually is quite difficult. Tho, I consider myself a very adept vocal writer, and even if I say something is difficult, I don't intend for it to be a problem.

I will watch for that when we try it!

Hi all! So, another little arrangement of mine. I have written this for my quartet. And, I found it quite challenging to get the dissonance I wanted while really only having three non-melody voices to work with. I sort of went the amoeba route, where I had close harmony surrounding the melody. This is found in barbershop music, and there is some influence there. However, I tend to take things further than a barbershop quartet would allow, which I'm super chill with. Pay no heed to the difficulty of the music, as the people singing this are true musical paragons. It is probably one of the harder arrangements of this piece out there. I'm looking specifically for comments on musical moments that stick out to you. Things that you think may not be effective or fit in the narrative of the piece. Please also look out for spots where you think there should be courtesy accidentals. I put a lot in, but I suspect there are more I'm missing. Thanks in advance for your thoughts. 🙂

Spacing as in the voicing being spread quite wide? Or the formatting of the page spacing? I am experimenting with that consecutive dissonance passage. I'm glad you caught it because I wasn't convinced it would work either. When the quartet has time to sing through it for real (we did a quick and dirty read last week), I will pay close attention to this section. Thanks for listening!

You might study your favorite composers to see how they do it. Whom do you admire?

Sure thing! 🙂

Hello all! I wrote this for my quartet to perform in church. Happy to hear thoughts. Please note that there will be a lot more push and pull of the tempo in the live version of this. Please follow along with the score to see when certain shifts occur. It has become somewhat of a style of mine to use the space traditionally used for tempo markings for other things. I note push and pull of tempo here as well as general dynamic markings and moods. Best, Mori

Hi, So, I have created a professional quartet that will be learning and doing music at my cathedral (hopefully... in the future). And, also looking to do professional gigs. We will also be doing vocal jazz and other secular works. I'm looking for gooood rep. What are your favorite pieces for just four voices? Accompanied is fine, actually. -Mori

This is a cool piece. Very tricky to pull off well, but the material warrants such an attempt. My only thought is that I don't really feel the direction of the piece all the time. You certainly have sections where you want it to be static and moving at the same time (like when the choir is singing sleep child, for example). I'm not sure if it needs to be fixed. Just the emotion I was feeling then.

No, I don't think the dissonances are too much. My own version of the National Anthem is pretty nasty in its own right. The "bombs bursting in air" sounds weird to me. Maybe look at that. I LOVE what you did on "free".

Nothing constructive to comment on here! Really lovely stuff. Thank you for sharing this lovely piece!

Hi isuckatcomposing, Could you answer me a couple of questions: 1. Is your first language English? 2. Have you ever taken formal lessons on chord progressions and such?

Overall, I like the ideas presented here. You have a good sense of theory and how colors work in a composition. You must understand that this piece could only be done by a large choir that is highly advanced. I think my major criticism is that there is no pay off in this piece. While the colors are wonderful and will sound cool, nothing really happens for 3 minutes. You do attempt development via increasing the rhythmic density and increasing the dissonance until reaching a climactic moment of rousing togetherness and a tonal shift to boot. How to fix this? Make the sense melodicism stronger. Make the lines longer instead of writing in fragments. The ideas are good, but they need to be stringed together better. Keep up the good work. -Mori

It's weird, but I feel like the final cadence was out of place. Like, the whole piece is kind of non-functional because the only harmonic movement is between the major and minor versions of the tonic. But, then, at the end, you put in a I-V7-I... why? I might have done like something playing off the Fb. Like, maybe an Fb-major (E-major) with an Ab/G# in the bass. So, you still have a I-V-I bass movement, but the chords fit with the aesthetic of the piece. That's just one possibility. I'd play with some ways to make the ending stronger and more in character with the rest of the piece.