Miserere

Hi guys!

I literally just discovered this forum and am glad I actually made the effort to search for this. Being as I haven't really had that much of a formal education in composition (exclusively), it's great to have  a platform like this where I can share ideas and seek advice on projects. Anyway, this is a piece I recently finished, and it is a cappella, written for a SSAATTBB choir (as you'll notice in the score ). This piece is very new territory for me because I experimented with the relationship between the two choirs quite a bit (so consider it as SATB1 and SATB2) and I hope it's okay. Moreover, being as I don't have a choir readily available to me, it's unfortunate that you'd have to listen to the MIDI audio, which honestly doesn't capture the entirety of my intentions for the piece, but it's all I can do for now. Please feel free to tell me what you think or ask any questions regarding the harmonic/melodic choices I made that may seem unconventional! I hope you enjoy it !!

P.S: there's supposed to be a certain, short pause of some kind before the finishing note, but I wasn't sure how to notate this.

Hello and welcome! I'm glad you're happy with what you found. There's a lot going on here that I suggest you check out. Anyway, I 100% agree with you that MIDI choral sounds are almost exclusively terrible (just another part of being a composer *sigh*), and will do my best to look past that in this review.
I'm seeing a lot of crossed voices in your ripieno parts. That causes a lot of confusion when listening in that we don't know where the melody line is going. For some of these situations I can see that you're doing your best to create tension then resolve it by opening the interval, but sometimes it doesn't really work; keeping things standard would keep things cleaner.
The pause you're looking for at the end can be achieved with a breath mark ( ' ), choral performers should know to take a pause and also take a breath before the last note.
The MIDI probably contributed to this, but some of this didn't seem as focused as I wanted it to be, like in m. 20, you have an A-flat and an A-natural clash and not really resolve properly. Small things like that built up can confuse audiences sometimes.

I sound pretty negative here, but very good work. I admire the chord changes at the end and your phrasing in most of the piece really defines what you want. Hope to hear more from you.

Hello

It's a pity we don't have good (and friendly) vst for voices.

In this work, since there are lots of voices, somethimes the sound is pretty "dense". Perhaps, in my opinion, some parts are in "forte" (even with crescendos) too much time. I don't know what kind of effort would suppose that for real singers.

Sometimes, when the voices are in background (singing "Ah....") the same voice moves with leaps that, in the style, should be lessened. In other words, following the ancient rule of moving by steps, if possible.

Nevertheless, it's a nice work.

On 9 September 2016 at 2:59 PM, Monarcheon said:

Hello and welcome! I'm glad you're happy with what you found. There's a lot going on here that I suggest you check out. Anyway, I 100% agree with you that MIDI choral sounds are almost exclusively terrible (just another part of being a composer *sigh*), and will do my best to look past that in this review.
I'm seeing a lot of crossed voices in your ripieno parts. That causes a lot of confusion when listening in that we don't know where the melody line is going. For some of these situations I can see that you're doing your best to create tension then resolve it by opening the interval, but sometimes it doesn't really work; keeping things standard would keep things cleaner.
The pause you're looking for at the end can be achieved with a breath mark ( ' ), choral performers should know to take a pause and also take a breath before the last note.
The MIDI probably contributed to this, but some of this didn't seem as focused as I wanted it to be, like in m. 20, you have an A-flat and an A-natural clash and not really resolve properly. Small things like that built up can confuse audiences sometimes.

I sound pretty negative here, but very good work. I admire the chord changes at the end and your phrasing in most of the piece really defines what you want. Hope to hear more from you.

 

 

So do you suggest, in the name of conventionality, that I revise the ripieno parts? And concerning the tension, I tried to have a quasi-resolution of some sort in order to fully depict the begging/lamenting nature of the piece. Or would it be better to change them as you have suggested? And at which instances would I need to revise? 

And yes, I thought as much concerning the breath mark, but I assumed there would be some other sophisticated way of annotating this haha. And could you please explain further what you mean by 'focused'? Please forgive me if I'm supposed to know this, as I said, I don't really have that much of a formal education on the technicalities of composing. Thank you once again for your time!

On 9 September 2016 at 3:24 PM, Luis Hernández said:

Hello

It's a pity we don't have good (and friendly) vst for voices.

In this work, since there are lots of voices, somethimes the sound is pretty "dense". Perhaps, in my opinion, some parts are in "forte" (even with crescendos) too much time. I don't know what kind of effort would suppose that for real singers.

Sometimes, when the voices are in background (singing "Ah....") the same voice moves with leaps that, in the style, should be lessened. In other words, following the ancient rule of moving by steps, if possible.

Nevertheless, it's a nice work.

 

4

Thanks for the review! It really is a shame concerning the voices, but what can one do except manage haha! Yes, I was going for a dense sound because I wanted to depict a somewhat universal cry for forgiveness, so it's like lamentations of the world, hence the different entrances and periodic phrasing. I see your point concerning the prolonged fortes, and I'll make sure to revise this. Moreover, I see what you mean about the leaps with the "Ah"s, and will revise it as well.

Once again, I thank you both very much for looking at this for me, as I need this piece revised so it can be presentable for my university arts supplement submission. Here is the sheet music once more in case you'd want to personally look at some more things to point out!

Hi!

Sometimes dissonances don't resolve, and that's okay! It can be cool when a piece plays on expectations. I just thought that wasn't what you were going for, so I pointed it out. Normally when a dissonance is involved in a tonal chord, it resolves upwards or downwards to ease the tension caused by the dissonance. The issue with crossed voices is that it just makes it harder to do that because the audience doesn't know where thing are being resolved from.

By unfocused I mean it seems your parts seem to be doing their own things sometimes; not joined with the others. 

Remember this is just how I heard it.

Cheers!

Oh okay, thanks for the clarification. I see what you mean by that, and will work on making the parts a bit more cohesive. My intention was to play majorly on the density of the voices, and by having them doing different things, I'd hoped it would sort of add more depth to the depiction of the 'universal cry' idea, but perhaps it was a bit excessive.

Thanks!