Dust of Snow (SATTBB)

Here is my entry for the Christmas Music Event!

It isn't necessarily a Christmas piece, but it's about snow and winter, so I figured it was close enough. Since I know someone will probably mention it, I am well aware of the very close voicings of chords low in the range of the ensemble, but a recent singing experience showed me definitively that if those kinds of voicings are well-tuned, they can work wonderfully! So I put them there intentionally.

The text is by Robert Frost:

The way a crow
Shook down on me
The dust of snow
From a hemlock tree

Has given my heart
A change of mood
And saved some part
Of a day I had rued

And here's the piece:

Please give me feedback, as it helps me improve my writing!

Hi. In which software is this written? Just out of curiosity. Colors, and that font and... I think I've seen this somewhere. Ah, musescore. Musescore? 

I have no complains about those voicings, it's a pity the piece ends so soon, I did enjoy it a lot.
Some details:
  Red: I would really change the direction of the stem, I believe this would help readability. Blue: in some contexts this is perfectly valid, overall it is redundant unless you want a certain singer to be quiet for that bar. In that case I'd put the silence further away from the note, but in any case this is just subjective and this particular screenshot is taken from the organ I believe (?). Musescore often tends to left redundant silences that often add nothing to the score or even hinder readability.

Finally, including the role of each pentagram/system at the beginning of the score would really help any reader to understand if what he's reading is correct or not. I will assume this is a score with 6 singers and an organ for now :]

Kind regards,
Daniel–Ømicrón.

51 minutes ago, Omicronrg9 said:

this is a score with 6 singers and an organ

Epic facepalm, just missed the SATTBB in the title LMAO. Sorry.

Nicely done. Agree with everything @Omicronrg9 said above. Great word setting and painting throughout.

The first thing that strikes me is that and SATTBB texture is very thick and heavy. The poem itself is rather uplifting in its own way, I wonder if you could be lighten the texture at some points?

Some things (personal preferences) that you might want to think about:

1 - it's a short poem, and as such it's a short piece. It starts pp and ends pp. Bearing this in mind, I wonder if the fortissimo in 23 is a bit too dramatic. To me, there isn't enough time to build up a proper climax, I would make that read just forte.

2 - I enjoyed the clashing extended chords such as the very last one. However, I would like to see more of them! When they only appear at certain points at the ends of phrases, they seem a bit cautious, even accidental. You really could make something of those and create a more mysterious harmonic world through some of the quieter passages - it wouldn't need much changed.

Fantastic choral piece, thank you so much for taking part in the event!

20 hours ago, Omicronrg9 said:

Hi. In which software is this written? Just out of curiosity. Colors, and that font and... I think I've seen this somewhere. Ah, musescore. Musescore? 

I have no complains about those voicings, it's a pity the piece ends so soon, I did enjoy it a lot.
Some details:
  Red: I would really change the direction of the stem, I believe this would help readability. Blue: in some contexts this is perfectly valid, overall it is redundant unless you want a certain singer to be quiet for that bar. In that case I'd put the silence further away from the note, but in any case this is just subjective and this particular screenshot is taken from the organ I believe (?). Musescore often tends to left redundant silences that often add nothing to the score or even hinder readability.

Finally, including the role of each pentagram/system at the beginning of the score would really help any reader to understand if what he's reading is correct or not. I will assume this is a score with 6 singers and an organ for now :]

Kind regards,
Daniel–Ømicrón.

 

20 hours ago, Omicronrg9 said:

Epic facepalm, just missed the SATTBB in the title LMAO. Sorry.

 

All good lol, just wanted to clear the same things up for potentially some other people by just dropping a PDF and an MP3 as well! 🙂

7 hours ago, aMusicComposer said:

Nicely done. Agree with everything @Omicronrg9 said above. Great word setting and painting throughout.

The first thing that strikes me is that and SATTBB texture is very thick and heavy. The poem itself is rather uplifting in its own way, I wonder if you could be lighten the texture at some points?

Some things (personal preferences) that you might want to think about:

1 - it's a short poem, and as such it's a short piece. It starts pp and ends pp. Bearing this in mind, I wonder if the fortissimo in 23 is a bit too dramatic. To me, there isn't enough time to build up a proper climax, I would make that read just forte.

2 - I enjoyed the clashing extended chords such as the very last one. However, I would like to see more of them! When they only appear at certain points at the ends of phrases, they seem a bit cautious, even accidental. You really could make something of those and create a more mysterious harmonic world through some of the quieter passages - it wouldn't need much changed.

Fantastic choral piece, thank you so much for taking part in the event!

 

That's a great point about the dynamics at the climax, I'll look into tweaking that.

Personally though, I sort of like the way those strange unresolved chords creep in at the ends of phrases. I should mention, however, that I'm looking at setting a couple more short little poems like this and potentially creating a little choral suite out of them. I think that would fix the issue of the seemingly sudden climax, as well as the the unresolved chords since I could work that into the fabric of a slightly larger work!

I think the chords perfectly match with the lyrics. I praticularly love the ending to change the second inversion chord of F major to 1st inversion of A minor to represent "rued". At first it's something sweet but unstable, then turns to something bitter and unstable too, since that's only past event and not realistic for now to regret so much on it. That Ab major it really " a change of mood"! Clever use of the tritone major to the opening D minor!

Although it's a short poem, some lyrics can be repeated with different music to allow time to build up to the climax more properly! I agree with @aMusicComposer that the climax is too abruptly prepared. The climax itself is great, but the build up can be longer. The mood change appears quite abrupt since each sentence is stated only once, thus the time to change mood is too short. 

I think more extended chord and suspension can be added to enhance the drama of the protagonist as well as the piece. The ending is fascinating, but it may seem gratuitous if it only appears once. 

4 hours ago, mercurypickles said:

Personally though, I sort of like the way those strange unresolved chords creep in at the ends of phrases.

I love that too! Just keep on composing these fantastic pieces!