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- Start “text hunting” This tip might sound like the biggest no-brainer. To write a choral piece, you typically need to have a text to set. And yet there are many people out there who want to write choral pieces and still haven’t given any regard to this matter.
- Join a choir (if you haven’t already) If you’ve spent most of your time in the past writing for instruments, you might not realize just how different of a beast writing for voices can be.
- Start by writing arrangements. If learning how to compose is like learning how to swim, writing a choral piece from scratch with a text that you’ve never seen set can feel a bit like getting thrown into the deep end of a pool while wearing ankle weights: all in all, it’s a surefire way to make life more difficult than it has to be.
- Take a poetry class. If you can’t tell me what “dactylic hexameter” is off the top of your head, there’s still more for you to learn about analyzing text.
Ravel: Orchestral works/Martinon. David Hurwitz. Artistic Quality: 10. Sound Quality: 8. Never mind that on the back of the CD, EMI calls the band the “Orchestra de Paris”; these much-lauded performances deserve the highest possible recommendation. One example suffices to detail the level of Martinon’s interpretive perceptions.
Bach certainly knew a good tune when he heard one. Johann Sebastian Bach: Cantata BWV 140 “Sleepers Awake”. Hymn tune by Philipp Nicolai. It may well be that Cantata BWV 140 “Wachet auf” (Wake, Awake for Night is Passing) is Bach’s most famous cantata and one of his best-loved works.
- Think horizontally, as Well as vertically.
- Choirs Don’T Have to Sing Words
- Offer Flexibility in Voicing
- Get Involved with A Choir
When we’re composing, we get a bit bound up in chords and harmony, but when you’re writing for choirs, although we hear the sound as a whole, each singer will sing (and learn) their part independently as a line of its own. I always try and make my individual lines just as singable as the line of the voice part which has the main tune. Altos don’t w...
When we’re writing choral music, I think it’s automatic to think of singing text, but remember, voices can be wordless. Sometimes, it can be effective for one part to sing the tune whilst the others hum, or ‘ah’, or ‘oo’. There are some pieces which have no words at all: Delius’ Two Songs to be Sung on the Water is a good example. Other composers h...
Choirs are all different. Where previously, most choirs were SATB as standard, this isn’t always the case. More music is being composed for SAB choirs (which reflect the shortage of tenors). My setting of Christina Rosetti’s poem Remember is scored for SAB and piano. Think about the flexibility you could offer choirs; for example, rather than writi...
The best way to learn to write choral music is to sing in a choir. Once you start singing choral music on a regular basis, you will appreciate all too well some of the challenges composers (and singers) face. You could also compose initially for a choir with whom you are involved. It’s a great way to try out your ideas to see if they work in practi...
- enthusiasm. A good choral director needs to have an enthusiasm for choral singing, for song, and for music in general. But more than this, their enthusiasm needs to be infectious and inspirational.
- fun. Any decent choir leader must have an excellent sense of humour and needs to maintain and atmosphere of fun in rehearsal and in performance. Most people join a choir because they want to enjoy themselves and have a good time.
- decisiveness. A choral director needs to be prepared and know what they are doing and what they want to achieve. You can’t be clear if you don’t know what you want!
- clarity. A good choir leader will be very clear with their instructions and directions. Choir members need to know what’s happening at all stages of rehearsal and performance without any confusion or ambiguity.
Feb 26, 2021 · Jean Martinon (Conductor, Composer) Born: January 10, 1910 - Lyon, France. Died: March 1, 1976 - Paris, France. The significant French conductor and compose, (Jean Franisque-Étienne Martinon, studied violin at the Lyons Conservatoire (1924-1925), and at the Paris Conservatoire with Jules Boucherit (1926-1929), winning the premier pnx.
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Keep in mind the basis of a nice accompaniment, whatever the pattern, is good SATB voice-leading. 5. Settle on a form. Here’s an easy approach to handling form: choose a piece you like and copy its form. Hymns with repetition (a refrain or an “Alleluia”) can be relatively easy to structure formally. 6.
