Song of the Holly

This is a Christmas carol for SATB chorus, based on William Shakespeare's poem "Song of the Holly"

It was a pleasure to listen to it. The effect of contrasting voices and how they drop out and come in was fine. Sometimes, the voice leading could have been a tad more polyphonic,  but that depends on your style. However, I think the music could do more to convey the meaning of the text, especially the contrast between the lines about ingratitude etc and than the refrain where the holly reminds the author that life can be jolly. 

35 minutes ago, Willibald said:

It was a pleasure to listen to it. The effect of contrasting voices and how they drop out and come in was fine. Sometimes, the voice leading could have been a tad more polyphonic,  but that depends on your style. However, I think the music could do more to convey the meaning of the text, especially the contrast between the lines about ingratitude etc and than the refrain where the holly reminds the author that life can be jolly. 

 

Thank you very much for these kind comments! 

I'm planning to add a basic string accompaniment to provide some depth to it, and some polyphony.

When you talk about conveying the meaning of the text, do you mean thinking about the emotions behind it and incorporating them into the music?

Yes, I thought about how well the music shows the emotions that are expressed in the text. But that is just a suggestion.

@Willibald Here is the string + chorus arrangement

Thanks. Sounds good! Some small remarks:

You have a very strong bass, with three independent voices (choir, cello, contrabass). It’s fine as the contrabass makes some chords more harmonious (like the first one, where the choir sings a F Major chord in second inversion, but the contrabass transforms it back into root position), but it can sound a bit bass-heavy in a real performance. It is also difficult to pull off in terms of voice leading.

Minor quibbles: I guess you did use those transposing bass clefs for the contrabass to get an accurate MIDI output. In a real score, you would just use a normal bass clef; the contrabass player is accustomed to playing an octave lower than notated. In the alto, you have one wrong notehead (for percussion instead a normal one) in the first bar. This happens again in the third bar.

21 hours ago, Willibald said:

You have a very strong bass, with three independent voices (choir, cello, contrabass). It’s fine as the contrabass makes some chords more harmonious (like the first one, where the choir sings a F Major chord in second inversion, but the contrabass transforms it back into root position), but it can sound a bit bass-heavy in a real performance. It is also difficult to pull off in terms of voice leading.

Thanks. Should I make the cello play more of a tenor range or just specify e.g. that I only need a few contrabasses?

21 hours ago, Willibald said:

Minor quibbles: I guess you did use those transposing bass clefs for the contrabass to get an accurate MIDI output. In a real score, you would just use a normal bass clef; the contrabass player is accustomed to playing an octave lower than notated. In the alto, you have one wrong notehead (for percussion instead a normal one) in the first bar. This happens again in the third bar.

MuseScore automatically writes contrabass in that clef. I will be able to change it. I hadn't noticed that in the alto voice. I must have clicked copy + paste and the cross notehead repeated. 

Hello @ilv

Regarding your first comment, I did not want to make it to low for the alto but I think that I can resolve it. Also, would bringing more of that phrase up the octave help?

Nice job!  Think carefully about the places where you split the tenor line.  Tenor is almost always the smallest section in a choir, so if possible, you generally want to give the extra line to the bass or alto instead, or it may be too quiet to be heard.  For example, at measure 5, the tenor is the only divided part, so both tenor parts will probably sound very quiet compared to the other voices.  You can easily give the top tenor line to the altos instead.  It's easily in their range, and they are coming from a C in measure 4, so they will have no problem finding it.  (:

Thank you for this remark @pateceramics

Should I give one of  the tenor lines to the altos/basses all the times they split, or just that one?

I'm wondering whether the whole thing could have a fuller harmony. Do you think this too?

Nice piece!

The counterpoint sounds fine to me and I like the harmonies.
The ending sounds a bit abrupt in my opinion. Maybe you could make it more logical?

6 hours ago, aMusicComposer said:

I'm wondering whether the whole thing could have a fuller harmony. Do you think this too?

 

Well, the music sounds really full already, so I would not compose an even fuller harmony.
Nothing wrong with space between voices.

Well done!

@ilv @Maarten Bauer

You have both commented saying that the ending was too quick. Do you think adding some closing harmonies and maybe repeating the last line would help with this?

1 minute ago, aMusicComposer said:

@ilv @Maarten Bauer

You have both commented saying that the ending was too quick. Do you think adding some closing harmonies and maybe repeating the last line would help with this?

 

Maybe a sort of fade out could help too.

1 minute ago, Maarten Bauer said:

Maybe a sort of fade out could help too.

 

Thank you for that answer. It's really helpful to hear what other people think of my music!

Good try  aMusicComposer! I like your melodies, & the violin sound is awesome! 

Keep your good work! :)