At 11:24 PM -0500 5/15/11, Aaron Rabushka wrote:
Thanks for all of the input on my low f's! The situation is that I
have a men's chorus piece that has one pianissimo phrase that takes
some of the basses down to Sarastro's low F, and I would like to
make a version of it for women by simply transposing everything up
an octave. (If I would to a major 9th that would take some of the
sopranos up to c#''', where I don't want to go.) Owing to it's
melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic ruggedness I don't think that anyone
other than a professional choir will go anywhere near it.
With regard to Webern, the orchestration of his choral pieces makes
me think of the chamber choir model, but I have no evidence for
this--any Robert Craft fans know of any appropriate comments? I
don't know if his cantatas were written for any specific group.
Aaron J. Rabushka
arabus...@austin.rr.com
Aaron: Pianissimo you should be just fine with a low F in the alto,
although you're still better off knowing the voices you're writing
for.
However, your mention of the 1st soprano range reminds me of a point
that will only complicate your transcription. (Sorry about that!)
Classical singers, voice teachers, and musicians in general take it
as an article of faith that men's and women's voices are an octave
apart, and in a lot of situations that works just fine. But I spent
a good many years writing just for men's voices, and then a number of
years writing for just women's voices, and I found that simply
transcribing what sounds good for one ensemble with an octave
displacement does NOT always sound good for the other.
In pop voicings, nobody really wants to hear a real soprano voice!
So the interval between men's and women's voices is more like a 4th
or a 5th, with a BIG overlap right in the middle where teenyboppers
can sing along with the recording. And what I discovered when I was
learning to write for a women's barbershop chorus is that the open
voicings that can sound so solid and ring so wonderfully in men's
voices can sound ludicrous with women, who sound MUCH better in tight
voicings. In fact in a typical women's barbershop chorus the leads,
baris, and basses would ALL end up singing alto in a classical
chorus, while only the tenors have real soprano voices.
I relate this to the natural harmonic overtone series, whether it's a
valid relationship or not. Men sound best in the more open voicings
found in the lower and middle part of the harmonic series, while
women's higher voices sound best in the closer voicings found in the
middle and upper part. Whether it's valid acoustically or not, it
works well in practice.
Which means that music intended for one gender or the other might not
sound its best when literally transposed an octave. Worth trying, of
course, but listen carefully to the result.
All the best,
John
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John R. Howell, Assoc. Prof. of Music
Virginia Tech Department of Music
College of Liberal Arts & Human Sciences
Blacksburg, Virginia, U.S.A. 24061-0240
Vox (540) 231-8411 Fax (540) 231-5034
(mailto:john.how...@vt.edu)
http://www.music.vt.edu/faculty/howell/howell.html
"We never play anything the same way once." Shelly Manne's definition
of jazz musicians.
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