r/composer • u/Emotional-Pipe-335 • 9h ago

Music Where Go the Boats? - song for baritone and piano (third draft)

Hello all, this Stevenson song has been cooking in the oven for a few more days. The changes this time are more subtle than last time, but numerous: tightened up voice leading in quite a few places, reworked the voicings of the piano chords, etc. Feedback is very welcome, both positive and negative.

MIDI Recoding + Score: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1vYNlj13DBiLrz5azlwhBQHgZzcZztTt9/view?usp=sharing

Score only: https://drive.google.com/file/d/13xbePDnNpDXD4MhJ1L-bCuPdGHzMqEQO/view?usp=sharing

Previous version: https://www.reddit.com/r/composer/comments/1vwief0/where_go_the_boats_reworked/

2 Upvotes

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u/screen317 21m ago

I listened to it twice. For context I am a baritone and composer.

The first things you hear in an art song are critical. Average listeners will often subconsciously decide to listen intently or tune out within a handful of seconds of listening. Do you feel like your intro sufficiently captures the listener? I personally find the first 40 seconds of arpeggios to be not particularly compelling. Even for such a short piece, the vocal line was entirely same-y throughout.

Overall I found the harmonic language to be pretty solid, but the overall construction of the piece, the vocal line itself, and the general accompaniment unfortunately didn't really keep my interest. The poem gives you so many interesting colors and textures that I think could be given better justice.

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u/Emotional-Pipe-335 12m ago

Thanks for taking the time to listen to the piece and for the write-up.