[Gary Yoder]

Sorry, engraving error on the last system has been corrected. Corrected PDF’s attached.

Come-Take-The-Bread-SN-Perusal-1.pdf 63 KB PDF - Click to view

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Come-Take-The-Bread-RN-Perusal-1.pdf 62 KB PDF - Click to view

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[Gary Yoder]

Hi Evan! I’m really liking the natural minor/modal feel of this piece. I wish I was more knowledgeable about modal writing. I love the sound, and occasionally dabble, but traditional major and minor are safer territory for me! 🙂

I do wonder if the voice-leading could be a little cleaner in a few spots. The bass and tenor movement in measure two feels muddy to me, and uncomfortably much like parallel octaves. It also leads to parallel fifths between soprano and bass on beats three and four.

In measure five my ear likes it better if the tenor goes down to the a for the first two beats, doubling the bass. going up to the c immediately seems muddy to me because of the soprano line. Similarly, the last beat of measure eight, the alto jumps up to c, while the bass is on d without a resolution of the seventh.

Thanks for sharing!

Gary

[Gary Yoder]

Thanks for the feedback, Lyndon and Lynn! Good points all round. I definitely work out something better with a rhyme in that last stanza. In progress. 🙂

I think in this context that chord is functionally just a chromatic submediant (or bVI) expansion of the subdominant (Eb) harmony. It isn’t behaving as a Neapolitan ordinarily would, which would be leading directly to dominant harmony (even though it is in the typical inversion with the typical doubling for one). I’ve a mind to see what happens if I change the ending so that it does behave more as a normal Neapolitan. But then I risk losing the climax of the harmony and melody on the word “Jesus”, which I rather like.

We’ll see. I definitely want to improve that last stanza of text.

[Gary Yoder]

Thanks Lynn, I thought about that as well. One concern I have is that paralleling the rhythm in those measures could make it more “boxy”, or too predictable. But then, in a piece this short, consistency should probably be a higher priority than variety. Hmmm… I’ll muddle on this one a bit more.

Just noticed a sneaky parallel octave in measure four too…

I’ll probably do another round of editing on this one, although I think it’s getting pretty close to it’s final form.

[Gary Yoder]

Here is a drastic new draft. Do you feel like this an improvement?

It’s a lot busier, but less dissonant. I kind of like it. I think.

Gentle-Father-You-Have-Drawn-Us-draft-b-Full-score-Flow-1.mid 1 KB MIDI File - Click to view

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Gentle-Father-You-Have-Drawn-Us-draft-b-1.pdf 58 KB PDF - Click to view

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[Gary Yoder]

I think this is what I am settling on. Thanks again for everyone’s input!

Prayers-for-Repentance-draft-4-FINAL.pdf 144 KB PDF - Click to view

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Prayers-for-Repentance-draft-4-FINAL-Full-score-Prayers-for-Repentance.mid 854 B MIDI File - Click to view

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Prayers-for-Repentance-draft-4-FINAL-Prayers-for-Repentance.wav 5 MB Waveform Audio - Click to view

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[Gary Yoder]

Thanks Rachel! Writing texts is pretty new for me.

The line referred to is based on Hebrews 2:15 which tells us Jesus came to “free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.” I’m sure there’s a more elegant way to say it than I have it here, but I haven’t thought of one yet. 🙂

[Gary Yoder]

So I have two new drafts of this piece. Draft two is a drastic rewrite which has some things I like, but I feel it loses the appropriate penitential character and cohesion of the original. Draft three only has a few minor changes and corrections from the original draft, and seems the most successful to me of the three.

Lyndon, thanks for the suggestion regarding the melody going up to A–I think I like that better than what I had.

I’d love to hear feedback as to which of these drafts you guys prefer!

Prayers-for-Repentance-draft-2-Full-score-01-Prayers-for-Repentance.xml 59 KB XML - Click to view

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Prayers-for-Repentance-draft-3-Full-score-01-Prayers-for-Repentance.xml 59 KB XML - Click to view

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Prayers-for-Repentance-draft-2.pdf 149 KB PDF - Click to view

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Prayers-for-Repentance-draft-3.pdf 147 KB PDF - Click to view

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Prayers-for-Repentance-draft-2-Prayers-for-Repentance.mp3 966 KB MP3 - Click to view

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Prayers-for-Repentance-draft-3-Prayers-for-Repentance.mp3 988 KB MP3 - Click to view

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[Gary Yoder]

Thanks for the feedback, Lynn! Yes, the sharped re chords do give it a somewhat dated sound. I kind of like them though… 🙂 I’m not sure why, but I like the combination of them with the first measure’s falling alto line (and coincidentally that falling line is repeated in the bass in the very next measure).

Perhaps those chords don’t cohere well with the somewhat bland cadence at measure four? I feel like those chords (and that falling line) are a significant anchor point and would rather alter something else to make it more coherent. But I do trust Wendell’s instincts more than my own! I’d be happy for any more feedback on this aspect. I know it’s something I struggle with in my work–I’ve a myriad of incongruent influences that seem to randomly pop up in the same pieces.

The recording here is a bit choppy–I’m not sure why a few of the notes decided not to sound when rendering the mp3 in my DAW… I wonder if that isn’t making the harmony sound a little extra abrupt and muddy?

Thanks again, and any further suggestions are welcome!

[Gary Yoder]

Thanks all for the feedback! I’m hoping to spend some time on this this weekend.

I just noticed the missing third in the last beat of measure one–that was a mistake. That could be solved by just changing the bass of that measure to d, d, e, f. That’s probably the solution I’ll go with (although I kind of like the d being held with the dominant harmony above).

[Gary Yoder]

I just noticed the parallel fifths between soprano and tenor at the beginning of measure three and seven. Sigh. 🙂

[Gary Yoder]

Thanks Ryan!

[Author]

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