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Welcome to the artissimo.gr pages of News ! 
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English Language : Classical Music : News : Summer 2005 Saturday 9 July 2005 : The tricky task of harmonizing the human chorus |
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Experiences It seems as if the most difficult task - from a theoretical point of view - is to harmonize a human chorus of four or more voices : it is not at all a coincidence that this is exactly reflecting the method used at every harmony class. In all the other cases where harmonization of music text is being used - name them compositions for piano, harpsichord [the string quartet case is rather more close to the human chorus from that perspective], or even orchestra!, there are certain facts making the whole task easier : use of doublings, deliberate parallel moves, pedal notes technically feasible, weak harmonies and weak harmonic connections being "strengthened" by using certain effects [yes! things like that definitely exist! our world is by no means perfect! 8-)].  On the other hand, in the case of the chorus you are just on your own : each voice must be sounding nice by itself, nice when sounding along with all other voices [regarding all possible voice combinations], well-balanced as the whole chorus is concerned, with a variety but a discreet presence as well [bass and melody excluded]. It sounds hard : it is hard indeed ! It is not without an excuse that in a recent harmonization of a song for a 5-voice chorus, in a phrase that was written as a sketch and rather roughly, I later found out 7 parallel moves between the voices (**) ! [which I corrected of course - without any difficulty actually - because they were there by mistake and were not deliberate ones!]. An advice to the younger ones : if you learn how to easily and efficiently solve difficult harmonic exercises, then the corresponding harmonic connections found in the real-world compositions will be a piece of cake for you [with rather only a few exceptions] ! Anyway, in the actual composition process you will have to face other difficulties of a higher quality (except for the one of eventually finding the musicians to perform your own writings ! 8-)) ) (**) Serious harmonic error which has to do with each voice's correct movement and behaviour in general. |
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