Program NotesLocation (grandparent | parent | this page): RodMer Arts Home Page | Rod's Music | Nightfall Program Notes
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The BasicsSopranos (often with 2, sometimes 3 divisions)
Altos (sometimes with 3 divisions)
Tenors (with 2 divisions during the last 4 measures)
Basses (with 2 divisions during the last 4 measures)
Solo Alto (briefly in the middle)
Solo Tenor (briefly in the middle)
4 minutes
September 2004
This short piece, written in the fall of 2004, uses a portion of the words from an unpublished 1994 poem of mine, "Silence". The original poem begins with the "smoking or no-smoking" question from measure 22 (and goes on in that vein for verses and verses) but it seemed appropriate to base the main body of the music on an adaptation of the final verse of the poem - focusing on the non-urban silence of the night sky in the country where the stars form silent pinpricks of light in the black sky, reminding us of the final silence we all must one day face.
The harmony is generally atonal, except for a brief episode in A. At other times there may sometimes be a slight leaning, perhaps, towards C minor.
The words [in 2nd window] are adapted from a longer poem of mine. Of course, the computer doesn't know how to sing the actual words yet.
Like all the MIDI files here, it is in General MIDI form. The General MIDI patches are:
| Part | General MIDI patch | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| name | # | ||
| Sopranos | Choir Aahs | 52 | |
| Altos | Choir Aahs | 52 | |
| Tenors | Choir Aahs | 52 | |
| Basses | Choir Aahs | 52 | |
On my own synth I used the following patches:
| Part | Sound Module | Patch | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| name | # | |||
| Sopranos | Roland JV880 | V Boys Choir from Roland Sound Library Card "Rich Sound Collection 3" (RS) | 31 | |
| Altos | Roland JV880 | Choir1 from Orchestral Expansion Board (OEB) | 227 | |
| Tenors | Roland JV880 | Choir2 from OEB | 228 | |
| Basses | Roland JV880 | Full Choir from RS | 71 | |
Structure notes
Overall the piece is structured:
Country nightfall
Nightfall in the country (SATB)
"ping" section (SA)
Pinprick constellations (SATB)
Urban interlude
Restaurant conversation (A & T solos)
No junk mail laughter & conclusion (SATB)
Noise pollution
Ragtime episode (in A Major) (SATB)
Country nightfall reprise
Nightfall in the country (SATB)
"ping" section (SA)
Pinprick constellations (SATB)
Final silence
Rehearsal for silence (TB)
Basically each of the 6 divisions (3 divisions of sopranos and 3 divisions of altos) sing at a single pitch (F#5, D5, B4, Bb4, F#4, and E4) but at different intervals. It as if the sky were filled with pulsating stars each pulsing at its own rate; by chance occasionally there are some coincident pulses but not usually. The sections are pianissimo to give the effect of stars twinkling in a silent night sky.
If I was going to complain about noise pollution, I felt it would be not only ungenerous but outright inaccurate to parody some popular rock or jazz piece (which might seem like highbrow snobbery -- let he who is blameless cast the first stone, etc.), so I adapted a couple of measures drawn from a piece of my own (the 2002 choral piece, "A Ragtime Round").
Having the conductor beat a measure of silence is hardly a new device. Great masters have used it: John Weinzweig in his 1969 "Dummiyah" (Silence) and, of course, John Cage. But it seemed so necessary for the final unsung "silence" that perhaps a beginner can be forgiven for copying this device.
| Year | Title ... Instrumentation ...... Excerpts | Min: Sec |
Complete MP3 files (better sound)** file size |
MP3 file extracts (better sound)** file size |
Complete MIDI file (not as good sound but quick)** |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The complete piece: | |||||
| 2004 | Nightfall ... for unaccompanied SATB choir |
4:09 |  2.3 MB |
||
| How the MIDI file sounds depends, of course, on your playback mechanism. In addition, one of the serious limitations of a MIDI file rendition is that the synthesizer patches are each for a hypothetically universal pitch-sensitive voice. That is, the very high notes sound like a soprano and the very low notes like a bass. But there is no way to distinguish between middle C sung by a soprano at the bottom of her range or middle C sung by a bass at the top of his. They both sound identical on the synthesizer. Thus one loses considerable clarity of the intended vocal timbre. This limitation affects both the embedded MIDI file and the mp3 files. The mp3 files are not quite as bad because I have used four different patches (one for each of the S, A, T, and B) in order to provide some timbre difference. In addition, the embedded MIDI file tends to be a little unbalanced, funny in the tenor and bass notes (a bit like inhuman moans from outer space), and very beepy in the high soprano. Of course, if you have a synthesizer, you can download the MIDI file and set the instruments to your own preferred patches -- but that's more work than downloading the complete mp3 file. In any case, the computer doesn't know how to sing the words (a limitation on both the embedded MIDI file and the mp3 files). Finally, the MIDI file seems, for some reason, to truncate the ending by one syllable (though the mp3 file is accurate). | |||||
| |||||
| Short excerpts: | |||||
| ...... Opening (nightfall in the country) | 0:37 | 0.4 MB |
|||
| The separate voices (particularly the bass) are better in the mp3 excerpt than the usual playback sound of the embedded MIDI file. In addition, the balance of the four parts is much better in this opening mp3 file excerpt. | |||||
| ...... The "ping" section | 0:29 | 0.3 MB |
|||
| This is one of the two "ping" sections (the twinkling stars). Slightly better than the MIDI file rendition. And the return, at the end, to the SATB choir is much smoother on the mp3 file. | |||||
| ...... The urban conversation | 0:36 | 0.4 MB |
|||
| This is the brief urban restaurant conversation between solo tenor and solo alto (beginning "Smoking or no smoking?"). In the MIDI file the tenor has a strange timbre (as if shouting down a long hollow tube). The mp3 sound is much better - though, of course, not equivalent to actual human voices. | |||||
| ...... Closing | 0:37 | 0.4 MB |
|||
| The MIDI file closing is marred by the strange sound of the tenor and bass voices - and by the loss, for some reason, of one syllable at the end (in addition to the intended "silence"). This mp3 excerpt of the closing is much better -- though still, of course, not equivalent to actual human voices. | |||||
** If you have a high-speed connection, forget about the MIDI files and just use the MP3 files (better). If you have a dial-up connection, consider the faster (but not as good) MIDI file only if the MP3 files seem to be taking too long to play or download.
| Year | Title ... Instrumentation | Description | No. of score pages |
Score (pdf file) file size |
No. of text pages |
Text (rtf file) file size |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2004 | Nightfall ... for unaccompanied SATB choir |
Complete score * | 15 |  0.2 MB |
7 |  0.2 MB |
| * email me if you would like any part extractions | ||||||