Hey Vincent,

Sorry I haven’t had a lot of time to study this but here’s a few quick general observations. Also a disclaimer, I don’t claim to be an expert in writing modal music.

I like the overall flavor of the piece. There’s some places that feel like they could be better fleshed out to me.

Measures 7 – 14 feel a bit awkward in terms of…

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Sorry, I believe it’s actually measure 14 (last note on the second line). Looks like maybe your software numbered the pickup to the next measure as 15 and I was going off of that.

Sorry, Not exactly sure what I was going to say. I think it was something about wanting to hear the melody land on notes other than the So.

One other note I was going to add, my ear was listening for the half note in measure 15 to be a Do. The leading tone (Ti) in the previous measure sorta suggests that the Do is forthcoming.

Good morning Austin,
I agree with Lynn. It seems that the refrain in the pdf and mp3 have some differences.

One thing that stood out to me was how much the melody hangs out around the Bflat (So). Each 7 measure line (except for the last) begins and ends on the Bflat. My ear wants the melody to

On your question of repitition. The beginning of…

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Good morning Ben,

This is a nice piece. I love the pedal tone. Like you mention it could be sung between scripture readings. I could see even singing it multiple times, as a call and response type of piece where you have someone reading scriptures and the congregation responding with this song. It has the flexibility of many of my favorite…

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Over the last year or so I’ve had a growing interest in the history of hymnody and have done some research on some of the earliest known hymns. I’ve sung “O Gladsome Light, O Grace” in the past but never had paid much attention to the age of the text. It is a translation of “Phos Hilaron” a greek hymn from the 3rd Century and is one of…

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Ben,

This is very nice.

Two small suggestions I might make:

1. If you started the opening soprano pickup with a Do-Re eighth note slur, it might have a touch more continuity with the beginning of the second half of the song.
2. I might suggest changing the first chord in measure 12 to a vii chord instead of the IV. It would prevent the V -…

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Gary. At the congregation I grew up at, this would totally be a youth group favorite! And if it were in the Hymns of The Church, it would also get chosen by someone in the audience at every hymn sing, whether or not they had a history of being able to sing the Neopolitan, well.

I did find measures 2-3 and 8-9 a bit awkward. Having the…

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I personally enjoy draft 2 the best. One thing that took me slightly by surprise was the 2 eighth note slurs at the end. I like them but they might be slightly less shocking if that figure was introduced earlier in the piece. Just a thought.

Thanks for your thoughts, Ben. I’ll give them some consideration. I was curious for some clarification on 2 of your points.

You mention:

“and in the last measure of the second line, my ear wants to hear a V chord.”

Are you saying your ear wants to go to a V in the Phrygian mode or a V of the relative Major?

Also:

“maybe just putting a I chord…

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Clarification to my initial note. I intended to say Phrygian mode.

Evening’s Shadow Falls is a new hymn I’ve been working on that I thought I’d share for feedback.

My goal when writing this was to compose an easily singable hymn in the Dorian mode.

Richard, this melody is delightful! It has many of the same qualities that have made the Early American folk tunes stand the test of time. I applaud you for that!

The three Ti’s in the melody at measures 5, 6, and 7 are the only thing preventing it from being a pentatonic melody. This is something you could experiment with if you really wanted…

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Gary, I really like the harmonies in this piece!

Every time I sing the melody, I want to go up to the A on the last note of measure 4.

Personally, I think the weakest part of this hymn is measures 5 and 6. I like what you’ve done harmonically, but melodically it feels like it prevents the piece from having a very satisfying climax.

Overall I…

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Vincent, I too can really appreciate this piece!

After listening to it, I’d say my thoughts line up much with Lynn’s.

Some additional thoughts: Going from predominant harmony in measure 4 to dominant in measure 5 and then back to predominant in measure 6 felt a bit awkward to me. Similarly, going directly into predominant in measure 13…

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Thanks Ben for the kind words and also for the thoughts. I’m definitely going to think over them a little here. I want to workshop this hymn with some real live humans at some point so those will be some points I’ll try!

I’ve always loved the poetry of Christina Rossetti. One day I was reading through some of her work and thought this one would make a great hymn.

In working on the piece, the composition ended up going places that I recognize will make this piece harder than some congregations will want to attempt. However I felt it communicated the text so…

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Vincent. There’s some things I love about this hymn. I think the mood of the music matches the text very well.

I agree with Lynn on both of his points. I might expand a touch on his point of repetition.

I think, while the piece flows fairly intuitively, a bit more coherence between the lines would help make it stronger. I definitely don’t…

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I’ve recently set out to write some more hymn tunes again, after spending a lot of my composition time recently doing choral pieces. One of my goals going into this was to create a setting that would be musically interesting, while also having enough strength in its form and signature musical ideas to feel coherent.

“Join All The Glorious…

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Ben, I like this hymn! It’s a nice departure from the mood and style of the original hymn that we all know very well.

I would echo Lynn’s point about the ending being a modulation. It works very well with the plagal (Amen) cadence at the end, in my opinion.

The main thing that jumped out to me was the V-IV progressions, especially in measures…

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Lynn, I love the Early American feel of this! Good work.

Two minor thoughts I had after a quick listen:

Changing the fourth note from the end in the bass to a C would eliminate the parallel octave (though with folk type music that is slightly less of an issue.

Measures 11-12 felt slightly problematic to be, because of the sudden change in harmonic rhythm.