Lynn Martin
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Lynn MartinAdministratorVincent, I like the changes. Measure 7 feels a bit longwinded to me, at least when the first part is repeated. But otherwise I really like it and would love to sing it sometime.
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Lynn MartinAdministratorI’d say I like draft 3 better, though the first measure of draft 1 seems a bit stronger. Draft 2 is good too, and I like it just fine, except for measure 6, which seems to appear out of the blue.
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Lynn MartinAdministratorI really like this, Lyndon! It fits the text quite well and it’s very tender. It feels like it wants to end in minor rather than phrygian, so you could consider a root-position chord on the third to last note to satisfy our ears and make us ready for a different chord at the end. Just a thought.
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Lynn MartinAdministratorAgain, a very nice melody. This would work great in many contexts. It has considerable beauty and movement. For the harmony, I think it’s overly sophisticated for the simply elegant melody. A traditional harmonization without most of the pedal tones and chromatics, and with more selective use of counterpoint, would in my view work better.
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Lynn MartinAdministratorOk, this is working better now.
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Lynn MartinAdministratorVery nice! The soprano in measures 5-6 is a little drab, and the timing could probably get plodding, but I really like the harmony. Sounds great overall.
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Lynn MartinAdministratorVery nice, Vincent! It flows well and speaks to the text very expressively. Each phrase builds on the last one naturally. Two things. Measure 11 felt a little bit tacked on, like it didn’t move the song forward as well as the rest of the phrases do. Maybe that’s my perception, though. Also, measure 15 felt unsatisfying for some reason. It didn’t seem like a natural end to its phrase, even though I could tell it was intended to open the next phrase.
Measure 4 will be hard for the bass, but I think it’s singable.
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Lynn MartinAdministratorI don’t know that I have the expertise to critique this, but my main thoughts are that the melody sounds good and hangs together, but that the harmony sounds a bit muddy in a few places. As in, dissonant without an obvious purpose. That may just be my perception.
In an earlier conversation about this, Wendell Glick had said, “The harmony in this song comes across as a bit of a walk through the last century; ergo, the harmony feels internally incongruent in a few places (mostly the sharped re chords).”
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Lynn MartinAdministratorWow, Richard, I really like the Early American feel to this. With the synthesized piano, it’s a bit hard for me to hear the voices. Would you mind sending it as a MusicXML file, so I could play with voices and speeds?
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Lynn MartinAdministratorNice poem, Rachel! I think it fits the tune really well.
- The last line of the first stanza doesn’t fit well with the tune. That’s because it needs to end with a feminine rhyme (something to rhyme with “ALL men” and not just “men”) and otherwise it doesn’t fit the rhythm of the tune.
- I think the second stanza is the best of the three. The ideas and the rhythms flow really well.
- I would suggest not using the same “ever” rhyme the whole way throughout the third stanza. It can start sounding a bit overdone.
- The first and second lines of the third stanza are basically repeated in the fifth and sixth lines. I would try to find a different idea that builds on the same idea rather than repeating it.
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Lynn MartinAdministratorYou use some really good images, Rachel, which makes a big difference to whether a poem works or not. In general, this has a flowing rhythm, and I think it’s got a predictable enough rhythm that it could be sung easily. It’s not your typical hymn subject, but it’s devotional and thought-provoking, so I think it would work well as a church song.
Two things. I would suggest shortening the poem. You could make the same point using only three or four stanzas rather than seven. Too much repetition of the same idea can cheapen a poem, and just having two or three examples of the need for truth would get the idea across well–and perhaps significantly more powerfully. You could choose your best stanzas and get rid of the rest. Of course, that’s hard to do!
Also, there are a few lines that don’t flow well, like “That by faith man should not walk alone.” The rhythm is a bit bumpy, and I would suggest making it more predictable. Here’s a tip. If you find it hard to spot the bumpy lines in your own poetry, have a friend read the poem aloud, and see what they stumble over or find hard to say. If they find something hard to say the first time, that might not be a problem. But if they find something hard to say after two or three times of reading through, that line should be fixed.
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Lynn MartinAdministratorI love that this text goes through all the things that we value, even very legitimately, and puts them in proper perspective.
A few notes:
“That I may love more truly than before!” is a bit ambiguous. I assume what’s meant is “That I may love them more truly than I did before”–which of course doesn’t fit the rhythm. But if it could be clearer that placing all loves beneath the love of Christ is actually heightening and sanctifying those loves, that would be nice.
Rhythm is a bit wonky in this line: “The joy of knowing Him whom I long for!” Especially since it’s the final line in the text, it should have a rhyming syllable that is naturally accented.
I’ve always found pentameter hard to write music to. But this text flows well enough naturally that I’m sure there are tunes out there that would work.
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Lynn MartinAdministratorOk, I realized there was a setting it needed to change. It should work now, and I’m uploading what you sent me.
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Lynn MartinAdministratorInteresting idea, Rachel. I don’t know that I want to make that change, since I was aiming for a specific tune. But I should look at it further to see if it might smooth up the rhythm a bit.
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