The Rake

Hi all!  I've been busy with small business busy season, but I'll be a bit more present on this site after the Christmas rush is over.  Here's a short fall piece I managed to put together.  I'd love to hear any feedback, particularly any comments about my piano reduction notation, since I don't actually play piano.  I simplified a few rhythms to try to make the choral counterpart actually playable, but if you can think of better solutions, let me know.  If anything looks like it would be easier played with the other hand, or my enharmonic equivalents should be switched from sharps to flats or the reverse, please let me know.  Notation that's just a little "off" always slows down rehearsals so I do want to do it right, but I don't always know the best way to do it.  

I've attached a pdf of the score.  

And here's a video with the score rolling by:  

-pateceramics

Furtak-The Rake.mid

P.S.  Here's the complete text:

There is more welcome in the unbeautiful.

Put down the rake and leave the trees alone.

Let children climb the trees; they will not hurt them.

Keep the long grass for the cool afternoon and hunt for beetles there.

Watch knobbed hands braid hair on the front step.

m. 19: parallel major seconds.
m. 32: passing tones instead of appoggiaturas or escape tones.
m. 38: ending on an unresolved minor second in the upper voices.
m. 55: crossed voices.
m. 59-61: clashing tones regarding chromaticism.
m. 65: ending on a strange escape tone...

I'm sure it sounds different when actually sung, those things and other things like it in the piece sound strange in this realization.

You've found all the things I found myself, tried "the right way," and then decided that for this particular piece, the right way was the wrong way...  :D  My test is always to sing each part and see if I can sing it accurately.  Some lines just want to go somewhere melodically.  If the point of voice leading rules is to make sight reading easier and more intuitive, the ultimate test for me is "does following the rule here actually improve the intuitiveness of the sight reading."  Some of it is also word painting.  Upper voices moving from unison to a second on the word "hurt" feels like just the sort of musical toe stubbing that you need on the word "hurt."  Sharp and unexpected.  The chromaticism on "and hunt for beetles there," makes sense to me too.  The text is about putting away the lawn mower and immersing yourself in the mysterious world of the tall grass instead.  The line needs some unexpected strangeness.  

Thanks for taking the time to give this such a thorough look.  The ultimate test, of course, is to hear the whole thing sung and see if it really works the way I think it's going to work.  I think I've come up with weirdnesses that are weird, but workable, but you may be right about at least a few of the spots you mentioned!