Subject: Any betas willing to look at my Permission attempt?
Author:
Posted on: 2019-03-27 12:36:00 UTC
As on the tin, I'm looking to do my Permission attempt soon and a beta or two would be very much appreciated.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1pCdAEsfchBfbHT8tyK8WXqP0Xg2ttW16TZQrRdI2u9w/edit
I don't compose my own very much, but I am trying to do an original piano/vocal arrangement of the funeral song for Boromir from chapter one of The Two Towers. So far I've only written the vocal part, and I'm pretty happy with where it's at, but I'd like a second opinion. So if anyone knows sheet music I'd be much obliged if you could take a look and tell me:
1. Does it make sense?
2. Does it sound good?
3. Does it seem like a good melody that works with the words instead of just kind of existing alongside them?
4. Anything else you think needs said about it.
Thanks in advance! (And yes, I know my real name is in the PDF. It's okay.)
I don't read music well enough to get the tune just by looking at it, but as someone who's sung in choirs my whole life, I do have some thoughts!
The first thing that jumps out at me is the slurs/melismas. Most if not all of them are probably unnecessary; the reading of the text will give the proper phrasing to any director or singer worth their salt. What you might do instead is mark places where your intended musical phrasing is different from what it might seem to be, for instance if you don't intend for a pause someplace there's a comma, or if you'd suggest a breath somewhere other than at a comma or a rest.
The next thing I noticed is that the spacing between the staves is inconsistent. This might be an issue with the program you're using, so I don't know how much you can do about it, but if there's any way to get them evenly spaced on every page, that would be nice.
Possibly related to this, your dynamic marks seem to be closer to the bottom of the staff above them than the top of the staff below, which is kind of odd. I'm not sure if you placed them there deliberately or if it just looks that way because of the spacing of the staves, but normally dynamic marks go above the staff.
A couple things on the last page:
1. The staccato marks at 105-7. Do you actually intend for those notes to be sung short and detached? Seems surprising, maybe even out of place, since there's nothing like that in the rest of the piece. If you intend to emphasize those notes, maybe marcatos or tenutos would be better? Or, instead of suddenly marking up a cluster of notes, perhaps a direction such as once more, with feeling accentato?
2. The bunch of fermatas at the end. I'd suggest simply indicating a ritardando instead, with a single fermata on the last note. Much cleaner notation, same effect.
I do have MuseScore, so I'll see if it'll read the PDF and let me hear the actual tune. {= )
~Neshomeh
Thanks for the advice. I'm working it in now. That's a good point with the slurs. It's been so long since I've sung in a choir that I didn't really remember what they were for. As for the spacing between the staves, well, I use MuseScore. If you can tell me a way to change the spacing between the staves, you'll have won my undying respect and admiration. (This one also looks a little weird because I pulled the vocal part out of a document that also had space for a piano accompaniment that I haven't written yet. I didn't want to waste space.)
I'm going to be perfectly honest, I took one basic music theory class that only got as far as chords and everything else I know about music is what I could pick up from reading it. (A lot of this honestly seems to be that I simply didn't know there was a better option.)
Anyway, since we both have MuseScore, here's the .mscz. I mean, the .pdf was made with MuseScore so MuseScore can probably read it. Theoretically.
Thanks for the input!
What's the tempo? I don't think it's marked down... I'd imagine it's somewhere in the 60-80 bpm range, but a more exact number will help.
Actually, when I wrote it I was thinking 120. I wasn't really setting out to write a dirge, though I also experimented with slower speeds. It also works pretty well at 80, I think (although there's a very small chance of me attempting to sing it at 80).
But this is why I'm looking for other people's opinions. Is that too fast? Would it sound weird, given the content, to go at that speed? (I've been singing this song to myself, to almost this exact tune, for over fifteen years now, so I really wouldn't know if I'm going too fast at this point.)
Thanks for having a look, anyhow! :P
No, 120 is fine. I don't know the tune off-hand, so I kinda assumed it was on the slow side.
Now that I think about it, it makes more sense at a faster tempo.
Here's one piece of advice right here and now, however: Posting the link to your document publicly BEFORE the beta-reading process generally isn't recommended. Public links on the Board generally mean that a work has already been reviewed by several people who have agreed to inspect it beforehand, as opposed to putting up a public link asking for reviews via crowdsourcing. The latter MIGHT be more applicable on a Discord server for example, but as a means of general feedback rather than a full beta-reading.
Since the link is already out there, though, I assume your permissions on the doc were set to "anyone can read, but only you can edit"? This would minimize the risk of people coming across the link and tampering with the document without your consent. Then when certain people agree to check for issues such as SPaG, you can give them permission to edit as well.
That's just my two Pokémon Dollars, and I'm not sure about others' reactions (though I doubt there'd be much disagreement tbh). If it's any compensation, though, I'll still be willing to check out the Permission attempt itself as a beta-reader if only for grammar-checking purposes (though canon familiarity always helps, of course). My Discord is also available on request if you want feedback a bit sooner.
I have it set to "invite only". I've been working with Google Docs as a platform for writing for a while, including collaborations with others, so I know a bit about how it works.
Sill, thank you for the concern. I'll add you, if you'd like.
I'm not exactly the most experienced of beta-readers but I should be able to spot anything obviously wrong and pick up on some SPaG errors.
Could I have your email? It's so I can allow just you to see the doc.