Choir

I need some advice. What's your best hints tips and ideas on writing for classical choir? I'm hoping to one day be able to complete a symphony I'm writing on like always and never :) let's say it's a workj in progress.

But it's a symphony for full orchestra, and I want choir with it. I love choir but I don't know how to write for it ;) so I need some advice to get started.

nobody knows :mellow: I'm doomed :lol:

Do you know stuff like the ranges of each voice part? Do you know what the four basic voices are? I know a lot about this, but I don't want to tell you a bunch of stuff you already know.

What do you know about choirs and the human voice? Then we'll put mortar between the stones.

I know the basics, range, I can't say a tone but I know when I can't write any higher (one, I don't know people who can sing the tone, twosibelius marks it as red :)).

What I realyl is after is how you make a good choir harmonic song that fits with an orchestra. If you listen to symphonies from mozart and such they often use choir, but not as a melody but as a background. THat's what I'm after, a background choir- and what I wnt to know is how to make good choir harmonics to be used in the background of a symphony.

You mean how to voice chords. I don't know. I also wanted to know how a melody is harmonized and sung by a choir. Surely they don't sing in octaves. I never laid my hands on a nice piece of sheet music for choir. I guess buying sheet music of your favorite choir piece will help.

I guess I could try and get lord of the rings, or maybe mozarts requiem. But that'll be expensive :S

The standard choir of mixed voices has four voice parts: Soprano, Alto, Tenor and Bass. These may be further divided into more parts if need be.

There are basically two kinds of choral writing: homophonic and polyphonic. Some pieces employ both.

Homophonic means that all the voices sing chords at basically the same time, like hymn-singing in church. This kind of writing is what you'd call "vertical," because the focus is on the harmonies, usually as related to a single melody line (in the highest voice most of the time). For an example of homophonic choral writing, I've attached my chorale on the hymn tune "Vom Himmel Hoch."

For MIDI, go here: http://www.youngcomposers.com/forum/index....st&p=5213

Polyphonic means that the voices are individually singing melody lines that happen to go together harmonically. This kind of writing is "horizontal," because the focus is on the melodic lines, often with the use of contrapuntal devices such as imitation, canon, fugue, etc. For an example of polyphonic choral writing, I've attached the Kyrie to the so-called "Pope Marcellus Mass"* by Giovanni da Palestrina (1525-1594) below (PDF & MIDI).

In writing homophonically for choir, it's best to begin with the melody line, and at least some idea of the harmony you'd like the choir to sing. After establishing the melody line (typically in the soprano, sometimes elsewhere), it's usually best to write a bass line next, then fill in the harmonies in the alto and tenor parts logically.

In writing polyphonically for choir, begin with a melody or idea in any of the parts, then bring in the other voices in succession with their own melody line that works in harmony with the other parts. A typical treatment would be a short motive (just a few notes) for one voice, followed by another voice singing the same motive in either the same or a different tonality while the first voice continues its melody in such a way as to harmonise with the new voice, and each successive voice enters on the same or a similar motive. This is called "imitation" (the attached Palestrina excerpt is a particularly fine example of imitation). Specific contrapuntal devices such as "canon" or "fugue" may also be employed, but specific rules govern their use that are beyond the scope of of this discussion.

That's a start for you. This is, of course, a huge subject that I have tried to distill to a short explanation, hoping to de-mystify the process and help you get started. As with anything else, you're going to have to play around with it yourself. If you have any questions, ask, and I or one of the others will try to answer.

* Mini music history lesson: Palestrina worked for the Pope in Rome for most of his career and was one of the greatest and most influential composers of the Renaissance. His "Pope Marcellus Mass" (in Latin, "Missa Papae Marcelli") was composed in what was then a new polyphonic style reactive to the Protestant Reformation in England and Germany. As part of the Catholic Counter-Reformation then underway, the Papacy and the Council of Trent were considering banning polyphonic treatment of religious texts because in earlier religious choral works the text was often unintelligible. In this Mass, Palestrina demonstrated that with careful text underlay, the words in a polyphonic choral work could be clearly understood. For unknown reasons, this Mass has been traditionally associated with Pope Marcellus II, even though he only reigned as Pope for 22 days.

Here are a couple of sites offering free choral music:

http://www.freesheetmusicguide.com/classical.htm

http://www.cpdl.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

The second one (Choral Wiki) is specifically for choral music, much of it in the public domain.

is it something you don't know ? :)

Very nicely put, J. Lee. That would make an excellent article! :)

Hehe, I was going to say.