PeterthePapercomPoser

Google: "The chorus effect in music creates a fuller, richer sound by duplicating an audio signal, slightly delaying the copies, and subtly shifting their pitch and timing, making it sound like multiple instruments or voices are playing in unison, adding depth, width, and texture, common on guitars, synths, and vocals for a lush, shimmering, or "detuned" quality. It works by using a low-frequency oscillator (LFO) to modulate the short delay time between the original sound and its copies, creating a constantly shifting phase relationship that thickens the sound. "

Yeah! I thought of another point: 4. Lack of vibrato/chorusing. Instruments or voices sound full when many of them sing or play together and the vibrato of many individuals turns into the emergent property of groups of voices or instruments that we perceive as ensemble resonance. Many samples and soundfonts already simulate this, but you can increase it or adjust it with the "chorus" effect which makes the vibrato wider or narrower.

If you make a lot of changes and want to preserve the old version so that people (and you) will be able to see the progress that you've made then you might want to create a new topic. I have a few things that I want to tell you about this piece too! Like for example just this first phrase: I perceive the downbeat of the melody on the 1st eighth note, but you have it offset by an eighth rest meaning that all your downbeats are on the off-beat. Also, 8/4 is an uncommon meter and I hear this piece as being in 4/4 but with all note durations halved like so: It's a charming and simple piece though! Thanks for sharing!

Hey @BlackkBeethoven! I was thinking of some alternate explanations for why you might perceive your music as not sounding "full". Quality of your sound samples - If you're using low quality samples or general midi or Musescore Basic Soundfonts this might be the cause of your dissatisfaction rather than anything about the quality of the harmonies or how full the textures you're using are. Lack of reverb or realistic room effects - If your renderings are very dry and without any realistic reverberation to let the instruments really resonate then that might be another thing that might be causing your poor impression. Avoidance of Dissonant Intervals - Choral harmony uses lots of beautiful rubs or dissonant passing tones or suspensions and if you haven't learned how to incorporate some of these dissonant voicings your SATB arrangements might sound bland to you. These are just some ideas off the top of my head for why you might experience your music as not sounding "full". I hope some of this was helpful!

I've had various issues with Musescore 4 too over the years, but they've updated it multiple times since last year around this time. Have you tried re-rendering it now with the new updates in place? Maybe it's no longer an issue?

@J. Lee Graham's submission to the event:

No .. there are no rules! You can submit as many pieces as you want. @J. Lee Graham - yes, please submit a link to your piece in this thread. Thanks for your participation!

Yeah, please do. Do you want thicker textures? If so you could just write for more vocal parts - SMATBB - 6 part choir instead of SATB.

Here is @Musicman_3254's submission:

Hello @Musicman_3254! Thank you for your submission! Would you please grant us permissions to view the PDF score? Thanks again!

Hello @mercurypickles! Great job! It's a shame this set of Carol's got so little attention on account of being submitted so late in the event. I was also puzzled about why you chose to use the piano in the part of the piece where you did. Did Musescore have a hard time rendering that many voices at once? I've been making some Christmas Mash-up's lately for choir and string orchestra and I didn't run into any problems with rendering too many voices at once. I'm really curious about the particular problems you encountered. Thanks for sharing!

Hey Henry I was just thinking about what you said and now that I think about it more there are probably more unexplored variations that could probably start with "Jezus..." instead of "God Rest..." .. I just went with the first successful combination I found honestly

Thanks for the advice. I tried two different other ways of combining the two Carols together so that they would finish their stanzas at the same time. My first attempt was to use a 6/8 variation of "God Rest..." while having the "Jezuz Malusieńki" in 3/4. There were 3 trailing measures at the end of "God Rest..." solo without "Jezus...". In another variation I had both Carols in 3/4 and had 4 measures of "God Rest..." solo without "Jezus...". Also, "God Rest..." has a pick-up anacrusis note while "Jezus..." starts right on the beat. The staggered entrances I used in the mash-up were my solution to these problems with the goal being to have both Carols coincide and finish their stanzas at the same time. I don't think there's any other way of achieving that - I think I tried quite a few alternate ways.

Both the English and the Polish melodies are tossed around the different registers of the choir, sometimes being in the Sopranos, sometimes in the Basses, Baritones or Tenors. Is that what you mean? I don't really think either Carol melody "leads" in this piece.

I felt like I had to find a way to include all 6 stanzas of each Carol in the piece! And the modulations are each prepared by a V chord right before each modulation (in bar 73 the F major chord prepares the modulation to Bb minor and in bar 113 the modulation to B minor is prepared with a Gb major chord). Thanks for your review!