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Today I wrote this piano accompaniment to a melody. I first filled in the bass notes and tweaked it a bit to find the best possible bassline. Thereafter, I just chose a random register that sounded good on the piano and filled in the right hand chord shapes trying to keep the voice leading smooth going from one chord to the next. I like it but I am not sure if I should have voiced the chords differently? Perhaps higher or lower so that the vocal line would stand out more. What are some guidelines and tips regarding this? Is what I have done ok or would a better register have been more suitable and why?

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  • Are we meant to play the melody and the accompaniment on the same instrument at the same time, or sing the melody and play the accompaniment at the same time? – Dekkadeci May 18 '22 at 17:49
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    lets say sing it or have a solo player play it on another instrument.. the melody is separate by a different instrument –  May 18 '22 at 19:03
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    This question is too broad IMO. The guidelines & tips are what you're taught in a composition course. And that's literally just the basics. There's just too many topics to cover. – Creynders May 18 '22 at 20:11
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    Too broad? I have already filled in chords. how can it be too broad to tell me why another voicing would work better than the one I have chosen? –  May 18 '22 at 23:45

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Maybe it´s not extrictly speaking the same, but SATB writing and accompaniments follow the same principal of spreading voices in search of independence, specially when talking of the main voice.

Personally I would take the melody an octave up. I was starting to work it but suddenly I end up making barely the same as you but an octave lower, so yeah here´s wonderwall:

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Derion Mukhztalfa
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  • Thank you but the whole point was to use that register and that melody as specified in the OP. SATB writing is not the same as an accompaniment because the melody is the soprano in SATB. This is not the same as what I did –  May 19 '22 at 09:19
  • Ok but the main focus should be the melody and that can be made just by raising the volume up. At the end of the day what really matters is what sounds good for you. In my case I´m more used to hear melodies in a higer register. That doesn´t mean there couldn´t be concertos for tubas and basses. It´s up to you. – Derion Mukhztalfa May 19 '22 at 10:32
  • @armani I agree that changing the octave is probably not strictly within the constraints of the exercise, but it's not clear from this question that this is an exercise. Not everyone has read your earlier question. Anyway, it's certainly possible to write an SATB accompaniment for a melody without having the soprano part carry the melody. For example, a choir can accompany a solo singer or even instrumentalist, or SATB voicing can be used for a band accompanying a soloist. Whether or not this is within the bounds of the exercise, it is certainly an interesting exercise in itself. – phoog May 19 '22 at 11:06
  • so when the SATB choir is acting as the accompaniment the role of the soprano no longer is to provide the melody right? The soloist or singer will have that role and the whole choir will be further away more like a background instrument right? –  May 19 '22 at 11:49
  • That's what happens in most of concertos, like in Tchaikovsky's Violin concerto in D, where the main violin is different to the soprano violín on the SATB. Here and in many other concertos the main violin is higher than the rest of the SATB accompaniment, but again bass concertos are a thing, maybe less popular but still existent. – Derion Mukhztalfa May 20 '22 at 14:27
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You don't need to worry about the piano accompaniment being higher than the solo melody. The tune will come through. When a song is published for male or female voice, an octave apart, the piano part remains the same. And when accompanying a sonata for string bass, the piano isn't restricted to the bottom octave of the keyboard!

Write each instrument where it sounds good.

Laurence
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    "You don't need to worry about the piano accompaniment being higher than the solo melody": I recently attended a recital by a truly excellent flutist playing various historical flutes. The accompanist played a small pipe organ. The slow movement of a sonata played on a baroque transverse flute was ruined because the solo part was in its lower reaches, and the organ was playing well above the flute, obscuring it almost entirely in places. It may frequently be acceptable for the accompaniment to be higher than the solo part, but it can also be a problem at times. – phoog May 19 '22 at 10:58
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    @phoog Probably as much about levels and choice of stops as about registers. Was the music intended to be played on organ? – Laurence May 19 '22 at 13:02
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    A solo flute playing in its lowest register could easily be drowned out by a carelessly composed and/or arranged and/or performed accompaniment. – ibonyun May 20 '22 at 19:06