Choral Music Workshop 2014

yes, for me it's not worth insisting too much on a project, better to move on to something else...

i say "abandon it", you define it as "tormenting it" but the substance is the same

and I repeat that this is not the case with Bianca's work, but if she tells me about months of work before I dedicate myself to it, I would see what my priorities are and if I have the possibility I can also dedicate myself to it

as far as I am concerned... you might even be right, now to start I will fix the Ave according to @rstrauss's instructions and we'll see how it turns out

Regarding this last pedagogical issue (the Classic/Gerardo discussion), I am very demanding, so it is better if I do not express myself. However, I think it is not very useful to throw away good ideas even if they are poorly executed; perhaps at this particular moment there isn't the strength and preparation to sustain them, so the best way is to put them in a drawer and pick them up again in due time, perhaps changing their purpose or giving them a new form.

A piece that is difficult or impossible to sing could be simple for an instrumental ensemble, so sometimes it is enough to re-instrument or re-orchestrate... and that's that.

Surely Gerardo's teacher was very wise

Bianca wrote:

But what do you mean, that I thought of the individual voices as instruments, without taking into account the difficulties they encounter, or that the ensemble is, say, a quartet? In the second case, I would say no; in fact, as RStrauss has already pointed out, the voices almost always sing together, which is something I had set (within certain limits) as one of the objectives to achieve.

Dear Bianca, between the posts by RStrauss and Faria there is enough material to become aware that the piece is not yet performable for a choir... if you were to assign the same parts to instruments, you would notice that, apart from the metric structure which still needs to be clarified, you wouldn't have much trouble having it performed.

This immediately says one thing: regardless of how you positioned yourself mentally during the creative phase, you have not yet fully developed that awareness that allows you to pay those attentions required to make your piece truly performable for a choir—attentions that are not necessary in instrumental music (precisely)—which in my opinion has several points of interest and, as Gerardo suggested, deserves the additional work to make it performable (but also intelligible).

I insist on this point because I wouldn't even know how to solfeggio your piece; if you have had a chance to read my score, you will realize that the tempo changes are clearly related and one always knows what is happening to the pulse (which deserves its own notation, just like harmony, melody, etc.). Without this, for example, one cannot reason in terms of accents, harmonic rhythm, etc.

In relation to:

> Certainly everything can be rewritten in a more traditional way, one just needs to find the right way.

The point is not to write in a more traditional way; it is to make the compositional intent clear. For example:

in measure 17 you use an 11/8 and propose to us: quarter note, quarter note, dotted half note, and an eighth rest.

Where would you place the accents? I wouldn't know how to conduct it; if I had to resort to marking only the beat (like a metronome), then everything goes out the window for me. Why not 3+2/4 and a measure with a 1/8 rest? Perhaps, still thinking about measure 17, coming from a 4/4 instead of an 8/8... it would be nice to understand how it relates to the 6/8 (ternary time) that precedes it.

In short, it's not a question of being "traditional"... it's a question of it being incomprehensible.

I fully agree with the "it's a matter of not understanding" :-)

but I move on to Frank's piece, which I "enjoyed" well a little while ago.

I like it and would be happy to hear it with the voices used by Bianca (I have absolutely no idea how it's done, but please do it because so far it is the best way). I like the dense brevity and I am convinced that many of those harmonies would work very well in a choir, especially because you kept the parts very tight and this would give an incredible richness of harmonics. In this sense, I also comment on a hint you gave a few days ago on the topic of choral intonation: how to make a choir sing clusters in tune? Well, a glance and a listen show that in this Ave Maria you haven't used actual clusters. There are harmonic functions, dissonant but always "functional", and this makes them intelligible even from an executive standpoint. And I really appreciate your counterpoint style, the idea that the chord arrives not as an overlap of lines, if not as a final, cadential point, of a series of melodic movements. Which are recognizable even within the dissonance. So, a main voice that presents the melody, in an arc, which in its descending parabola condenses and becomes harmonic, thanks to the arrival of the other voices. And in the "key" moments of the text, there is always only one voice remaining to make it clear which part of the words is important (a procedure, by the way, that is the reverse of the beginning).

It is well-designed and very "vocal."

And, as a voice in the desert, I add that it demonstrates a "culture" of choral repertoire... you spoke of piano, small table, and gestures. But the best way to know what to write and how to write, without running into stylistic or genre problems, remains listening to the repertoire.

Be honest, how many of you listen to a cappella choir repertoire? :-)

I agree with all the discussions made here regarding performability. It applies to all ensembles, both instrumental and vocal; it is no coincidence that when studying composition, a large portion is dedicated to the technique of instruments/voices, as the composer must always keep in mind who a piece is intended for.

Except for ranges (which is logical), writing for a brass quartet is quite different from writing for a woodwind quartet or a vocal quartet. One cannot ignore this, even more so in our case where the choir is perhaps the most difficult instrument to handle, as it presents an entire series of precautions to adopt which unfortunately can sometimes limit compositional freedom.

The situation becomes even more aggravated when a piece for choir is expressly requested by a particular choir (this has happened to me several times). In this case, the composer may find themselves having to make concessions to adapt the piece to the level of the choir that requested it... which could also be a challenge: writing something good but easy to perform...

P.S. as soon as I can, I will listen carefully to Frank's one.

I also listened to Classic's piece.

I don't want to be destructive, my comment has no such intention, and so I will start with the good things: in my opinion, it is impactful, and I like impactful things, even if impact tends to always be a bit easy listening. It is simple and "unpretentious," but it might appeal to a hypothetical church audience (if we exclude the fact that the Ave Maria is not a liturgical piece and therefore is not performed in church...).

But...

It is not a piece for a cappella choir.

It is cantabile, compared to Bianca's, but it is nonsensical. In addition to the extreme ranges, besides the bass clef for the tenor, there is another problem we haven't discussed: it gets the middle ranges wrong. If a soprano sings a high A natural fortissimo, then that can be done. If a bass sings a low Eb, as he did in Frank's piece, and does it alone pianissimo, that could work (one person, though...). But if, as in bar. 19, the tenors have to sing a Bb on the third line (treble clef, however) fortissimo and immediately after an F on the fifth line mezzo-piano, then it means you didn't even bother to think about it for REAL voices. I am biased toward my own interests as a singer and chorister, but if a piece cannot be sung well, then it is useless to waste time writing it.

A composer is not someone who just rattles off interesting chords. Those can come even by chance, just abound in dissonances and resolutions... if YOU don't know the voices, who should know them, the butcher down the street?

This, if anything, is a piece for organ...

@thalio

from a moderator I would expect more polite comments; criticism is always welcome and I have taken @rstrauss's criticisms into great consideration, and in fact I am modifying the piece in that sense...

i can use your comments for other purposes

A huge Like, big as a house, to everyone for the stimuli and the level of discussion on the subject.

PS

Thallo seemed very polite to me; sure, he said strong things (especially if directly interested)... but things that I read between the lines from everyone... starting from Faria, RStrauss... but even Frank made his allusions, I think...

The gist seems to be that your piece (Classic) is more suitable for other instruments; it's a good thing someone has the courage to say it... so that we can learn something later on.

Clearly, Rstrauss was supercilious... but he is a composer!

thallo wrote:

A composer is not someone who churns out interesting chords. Those can even come by chance, you just have to abound in dissonances and resolutions... if YOU don't know the voices, who should know them, the butcher down the street?

Sooner or later I hope to become a composer and master the subject; after all, as one can easily intuit, all great composers expressed themselves in vocal and instrumental music with an equal level of success... something that makes me very envious, since I'm lucky if I manage to write exercises

Frank wrote:

On this last pedagogical issue (the Classic/Gerardo discussion) I am very demanding, so it is better if I do not express myself. However, I think it is not very useful to throw away good ideas even if poorly executed; perhaps at this particular moment there isn't the strength and preparation to sustain them, so the best way is to put them in a drawer and pick them up again in due course, perhaps changing their purpose or giving them a new look.

A piece that is difficult or impossible to sing could be simple for an instrumental ensemble, so sometimes it is enough to re-instrument or re-orchestrate... and that's that.

Surely Gerardo's teacher was very wise

In short, music is like a pig... you don't throw anything away

Bianca wrote:

If it takes me, for example, two weeks to write a piece like this, to make the aforementioned changes

maybe it will take me two months, and I still risk not doing a good job.

... only by trying will you have the answer

One must gain experience sooner or later; I have always found success applying my teacher's suggestions, which contained content similar to that indicated by RStrauss; in previous workshops, I was "beaten" on the same issues as yours... and, aside from compositional naiveties, my last Tristis ultimately turned out to be playable... of course, it wasn't well-connoted. But that is another problem, certainly not one of playability.

For me, the purpose of the workshops is to exchange our experiences starting from a common ground; I find them extremely educational both in cases of successful pieces and in cases where they are less successful.

I join Aspirante in thanking you all!

Bianca wrote:

In the end, I fell for it and used EWQLSC with Wordbuilder (a name that long should have already suggested something to me....) and as Geppino said in another post, the effort is not as rewarding as one hopes (in my case mainly due to the limited basic resources of the PC).

Do you mean a playback without Wordbuilder?

...I understand ..., I was hoping for other easier solutions

Even if, in my opinion, the result is still functional for grasping some aspects. Of course, a real performance is another thing... but I assure you that just hearing the text and the interlocking parts is a very positive thing.

AbateFaria wrote:

... only by trying will you have the answer

One must sooner or later gain experience; I have always found it helpful to apply my teacher's suggestions, which contained content similar to that indicated by RStrauss; in previous workshops, I was "beaten" on the same issues as yours... and, aside from compositional naiveties, my last Tristis ultimately turned out to be playable... of course, it wasn't well-conceived. But that is another problem, certainly not one of playability.

In fact, I agree. It is only a matter of time; there are periods when one has less of it.

Obviously, it won't take me two months to make the appropriate corrections; mine was a hyperbole, moreover since I already have the suggestions available....

The problem for me is something else. Many things among those indicated, I understand them on a theoretical level, but then I clash with what "I like". As Rstrauss said before, being constrained by the instrument for which you write is a fact, even if it unfortunately limits you. When I write a piece, I constantly clash (and in this case more than other times, obviously being a choir) with the fact that I would like it this way, but I understand that this way it is difficult or impossible for those who must perform it, or perhaps that this way I go against certain rules. If I don't immediately find a compromise that pleases me, my choice is not Solomon-like. There are many cases where none of the compromise solutions (that I find) "please" me as much as my initial idea and probably, in many cases, they are actually less effective from an aesthetic point of view (certainly, assuming one has at their disposal instruments or voices with unlimited potential).

For example, last night I began to re-examine the movements of the parts according to Rstrauss's indications: in some cases I even found (perhaps) solutions that were even better than the original draft, while in others I was unable, or rather, I know that I will have to swallow them anyway if I want it to become something more human...

This discussion obviously only applies to "playability", not to "understandability".

Destroyed wrote:

...I understand ..., I was hoping for other easier solutions

Even if the result seems functional anyway for some experts to grasp. Of course, a real performance is another thing... but just hearing the text and the interlocking parts, I assure you it's a very positive thing.

with voices there are few easy things, I think

thallo wrote:

i fully agree with the “it's a matter of not understanding” :-)

yesterday evening I also re-read your notes

first thing: regarding the mulieribus of the female voices, you are perfectly right. To avoid it, I had searched for a solution that I didn't like rhythmically and melodically, and in the end, I preferred to leave this. Anyway, I will come back to it.

On the other hand, I am quite interested in the reasoning regarding the ease of intonation of certain passages...

But now I have to go.

Well guys ... I am definitely happy to hear that the lab (as well as the others) works exactly how I, Frank, Ale and others had thought back in the days of the first forum.

More experienced or less, we put ourselves to the test without any problems, which is, I assure you, anything but common.

Well done.

Bianca wrote:

When I write a piece, I constantly clash (and in this case more than other times, obviously being a choir) with the fact that I would like it this way, but I understand that this way is difficult or impossible for those who must perform it, or perhaps that this way I go against certain rules. If then I don't immediately find a compromise that pleases me, my choice is not Solomon-like.

The extreme synthesis is that every choice has a cost, not only in life, and the composer must know how to (also) renounce. Composition at a certain level becomes a "game" of choices and renunciations, but when you are at this point, you are also quite advanced... probably you need to consolidate the work you have already done until now. Watch out because character also often plays tricks (I don't know you here, so this is a general discussion), many problems related to compositional aspects are linked to character traits. Imagine horror vacui, you meet composers who for a lifetime must use the eraser more than the pencil... if one doesn't find the strength to do it, however, they will only propose blotches... think of Liszt, how much eraser he consumed in his life, but he did it.

In my opinion, you have good ideas, part of the technique necessary to arrive at making your works credible... I remember that Geppino wrote to you in an initial workshop: "decide what to do" (or something like that). If you think about it carefully, there is a sort of indecision at the core of the writing; I don't know if it's the fear of appearing too traditional, or the ambition to be too innovative... or I wouldn't know. The fact is that music is detached from these types of factors, even if it is obviously conditioned/determined by them; everyone must find their own balance.

It happened to me once that a student brought me a microtonal piece; the violin sections had to move around certain sounds with great precision. I told him it was unperformable, and he "showed" me a score. I told him that score was performable. And he asked me: "How? It's the same passage."

Well, it turns out that on the author's score it said "solo" and he had assigned the same task to a section, which obviously cannot (even if they wanted to) divide the tone in the same way into, I won't say 16, but not even 8 parts.

Sometimes little is enough; one reads scores and tries to get the most out of them... but then, if one is lucky enough to compare with someone else (I don't know, someone with experience), one can expand their point of view or their way of seeing the subject matter. Even with the same compositional methodologies, composers have always delivered different works to history... even facing the same text. Now there are 4 more Ave Marias.

An extreme example that, translated into the choral field, can make you understand how, in the case one seeks a certain softness given by a moment in the text, one cannot use, for example, the extreme high note of a voice... even if on the synthesizer, at the end, I don't know, on the piano... or in Open Music it appears to us as the most beautiful thing in the world.

Alternatively, there is always audio processing, an area very neglected by composers linked to the world of acoustic instruments... there you can do whatever you want. The "clip" is already the finished product; the score is still just a compositional project, very detailed, but translating the discussion into architecture, once the skyscraper is built it must not collapse... otherwise, a CAD simulation is better.

rstrauss wrote:

Whether more expert or less, we put ourselves to the test without problems, something that, I assure you, is anything but common.

I agree, another great workshop. I understand that it is hard to be "criticized," it has happened to me several times as well, but it is part of growth... alone on our home PC we are always number one... "problems" arise when you stick your head out of the shell. In this, I find the workshop initiatives, although based on the goodwill of the participants (who writes, who listens, who comments, etc.), very formative... I repeat, if something technical also comes through, okay, but nothing compares to the growth of autonomy in terms of self-criticism and criticism of unpublished works. It is not always easy to listen... it is more comfortable to re-listen.

And I also think that a composition competition can never manage to provide value like this, even if sometimes we delude ourselves that investing in that direction is somehow useful...

I thank Thallo for his comment on my piece; obviously, it is easy to say thank you when an opinion is positive, but I would like to point out a couple of things.

On one hand, he is used to reviewing unpublished works, so in addition to having a lot of (let's say) never-before-heard music passed through his ears, he has developed considerable autonomy of judgment and is able to quickly trace the structures of a piece.

On the other hand, even though he is not a composer, competence shines through his judgments (...all the more so in an area that he should know very well, given that he is an active singer); precisely that competence which, if transformed into self-criticism, can be a means for us to improve.

Obviously, we composers always hold the hammer and chisel in our hands... it is better to know what we want and how we want to say it...