Ave Maria (SATB)

I'm new here, so I don't yet know if I am using the website correctly (please forgive me if I'm not!)

Attached is what I have been working on for the past week or so.

Hi StripedGazelle, 

Welcome to the community.  You will probably find that you get more engagement with things you post if you include both the pdf and a sound file so people can listen and read along simultaneously without having to get to a piano, or be a particularly good pianist.  You can add one here by using the edit function.  Most composing software makes it pretty easy to generate one, even if midi voices aren't as nice as a live performance.  

At a glance, this looks like a great start.  Ranges are good and your score is pretty tidy.  You have some melismas to make things interesting, but they aren't so long that breathing becomes problematic.  (Depending on tempo).  Did you have any thoughts about tempo or dynamics?

Thanks! (pateceramics)

MP3 from MIDI uploaded now (albeit not one capable of pronouncing syllables).

I don't have the ones that pronounce syllables either. 🙂.  You have some really nice harmonies here.  

I might suggest either a general marking at the beginning of the piece of a tempo rubato or ad libitum, or some rit. and a tempo markings to help the phrases flow musically.  (Good musicians will probably do it, even if you don't mark it, but marking it officially gives them permission).  

This is great!  How long have you been composing?

I guess I'd have to say I started composing in earnest, as it were, sometime in the 1990's.  But even then composing usually took a backseat relative to college studies in mathematics or church organist gigs or computer programming jobs.  Only since about two years ago have I tried to give it first priority.  But I'll never be prolific since my approach is so rigorous, or else so self-limiting, I'm not sure which way to put it.  I value succinctness above all.  Perhaps that comes from my mathematical background.  My favorite composers are Jehan Titelouze, Nicolas Lebègue, Louis Couperin, and François Couperin.  Thank you ever so muchly much for your kindness!

Hello again @StripedGazelle!

This piece also has some very unique harmonies and voice leading.  The melody always leads the harmonic changes, justifying them.  For this reason the piece always sounds like it knows where it's going and like it was composed through some very deliberate choices.  Like, for example, I love how you handled the harmony in bar 8, sneaking from a C7 sonority to A minor and ending on an augmented C7.  These little twists are what keep the music interesting to me.  Thanks for sharing!

I think it's a fantastic piece.
Vocal music is what I have less experience in so I'm here to learn.
But one thing that strikes me here is that in much of the piece the voices move in blocks. It's as if it were a jazz-like harmonization. Maybe it doesn't help that they are fictitious sounds but seeing the score gives me that impression.