Archive for the 'New compositions' Category

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The Pilgrim’s Happy Lot

11:34 pm, February 6, 2012.

The first of three tunes I presented at tonight’s monthly “Other Book Singing” in Berkeley. The delightful text is by Charles Wesley, and appeared in The Southern Harmony with a pleasant three part tune by Rev. Andrew Grambling. My setting of this text is meant to be one of those bouncing uptempo songs with a shout-it-out chorus, that sound best with maybe a hundred people singing it really loudly.

When I presented it today, there were still only about ten people present, but the class seemed to have fun with it. (We had just been singing from the Cooper book, which helped — this tune is more in the style of the Cooper book than the Denson book).

The Pilgrims Happy Lot. 8.8.6.

(I wrote this tune for David, as he recovers from knee surgery.)

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Market Street

7:13 pm, January 14, 2012.

The second of two compositions I presented at the “composium” held after the first day of singing at the All-California Convention. This wound up sounding a little bit different than I had expected — the class tended to swing the tune just a little, so instead of being on the stately end of the spectrum (where I’d expected it to fall), it rocked.

Market Street. 8.7.8.7.

After the composium, Karen Willard came up to me and suggested a couple of changes. After I thought about it for a bit, I decided she is absolutely right, and I’ve incorporated both her suggestions into the sheet music above.

One final comment about the composium: I am so grateful to Julian for organizing this event, and even more grateful to the many singers who showed up to sing these new compositions after a full day of singing. It’s very rare to get to hear one’s tunes sung by a large group — and they definitely do sound different when sung by, say, 50 or more people rather than ten or a dozen people; I learned a lot by listening to today’s class sing my tunes. An event like this is an important way to keep the Sacred Harp tradition alive beyond just singing the tunes we already know and love.

Update: Revised again, based on comments by Will and Jeremy:

Market Street, revised

Categories: All-day singings & conventions, New compositions and Singing at home | Tags: . | 3 Comments.

San Carlos

6:52 pm, January 14, 2012.

Julian Damashek organized a “composium,” a short singing featuring new compositions right after today’s session of the All-California Convention. He received 14 compositions from 11 different composers. A good strong class of about 50 people stayed to sing, and we sang through all 14 compositions. All the compositions but one were led by the composer; and all of them sounded very good. Of the tunes that I hadn’t sung before, three stood out for me: “Mechanicville” by D. M. Montogomery with its lovely matching of tune and text; “Wiley” by R. L. Vaughan with its exciting rhythms (led by Karen Willard), and “Ruth” by Shelley Phillips with its repeating 2-bar motifs in the middle of the fuguing section (mm. 14-19). (Ruth gets extra point in my book for using one of my favorite books of the Bible.)

I presented two new tunes, both completed a week ago. The first was “San Carlos,” a tune I’ve been working on for some time that finally came together just in time for the composium. The class gave it an excellent reading, though I think I could have led it a little bit faster.

San Carlos.

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Shattuck

11:23 pm, January 2, 2012.

At the Other Book singing on January 2, I presented a new composition with simple harmonic structure and melody, that was intended to be in the style of shout-it-out late nineteenth century revival tunes. The class gave it a decent reading, but the tempo dragged, and no one sounded enthusiastic, so I did not repeat the chorus. I’ll probably try rewriting this to make it even shorter and simpler:

Shattuck

Also at the Other Book singing tonight, Julian presented two new compositions, including a very nice new tune titled “Bala Cynwyd.” With any kind of luck, he’ll submit it to “The Trumpet” so that lots of people can try singing it.

Posted a week and a half late due to blog database problems.

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The Winepress

9:01 pm, December 11, 2011.

At the Palo Alto 2nd Sunday singing, I presented a new composition based on a text from the book of Revelation. It was a small class — only six singers! — yet the class gave the song a really good reading.

It was actually helpful to me to hear a new composition sung by such a small class. It can be easier to hear how the the voices are interacting with each other; it’s much easier to hear where individual parts are struggling with a passage that I could have made easier or better; and often small classes are more willing to work through a stubborn passage and get it right.

Having been given such gracious attention by the class, I wish the tune turned out better than it did. But as for that, I’ll let you judge for yourself:

Winepress. Anthem.

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Valencia Street

11:59 pm, November 7, 2011.

During the Other Book portion of tonight’s singing, I presented the following new tune:

Valencia Street. L.M.

The class gave it a superb reading (we had some really good sight singers in tonight’s class). The singers seemed to like the tune pretty well.

I wrote the tune for two singers in the Berkeley singing who recently got engaged. One half of the couple is a tenor, and the other is an alto; and I wrote this tune so that the tenor and alto parts could be sung independently of the other parts as a duet. While the tenor carries the melody, the counter melody sung by the alto is somewhat more interesting (until, alas, the final two measures, when the demands of harmony and resolution force the alto into a less interesting line). When sung in the octaves indicated in the score (i.e., a male tenor), the two lines cross and separate, symbolizing how the lives of a couple are both intertwined and retain their independent existence.

It was interesting to write the tenor and alto lines first, and then add the bass, and finally the treble; different from the usual order of tenor first, then bass, then treble, and finally alto. The bass and treble lines are as simple as I could make them, given the demands of the harmony; they’re just there to support and amplify what the tenor and alto lines are doing, just as the families of a newly married couple provide support for, but don’t interfere with, the couple’s life together.

OK, that’s way too much symbolism for such a simple tune. I’ll stop now.

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The Golden Calf

11:44 pm, November 7, 2011.

During the Other Book portion of tonight’s singing, I presented this new tune, based on a text by Isaac Watts:

The Golden Calf. C.M.

The class gave the tune an excellent reading. But I was not entirely happy with the tune itself; it was fine, but not exciting.

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Talitha

11:26 pm, October 31, 2011.

Joanne suggested that tonight we could do a special Dias los Muertos theme for the singing: it’s easy enough to find Sacred Harp songs pertaining to death, and Joanne suggested that those who want could come in costume. Emily came as a dinosaur, complete with large dinosaur feet; David came as Leonard Breedlove, one of his favorite Sacred harp composers and also a possible ancestor of his; Joanne also came in costume. Costumes are not in my skill set, but I brought a new tune on the theme of death.

Talitha. C.M.

Tonight’s class gave this new tune a really marvelous reading, especially given that the singers were sight-reading it; by the last two verses, everyone sounded just wonderful.

A final note: I wrote the text based on the healing of Jairus’s daughter in Mark 5.22-23, 35-42. A feminist interpretation of this story (which also explains why the tune is called “Talitha”) appears on my other blog.

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The latest issue of The Trumpet

8:54 pm, October 26, 2011.

I’ve been reading through the latest issue of The Trumpet, the year-old online publication that features new tunes in the Sacred Harp tradition. The new issue meets or exceeds the high editorial standards of the first two issues, which is to say all the tunes seem well worth singing.

Several of the tunes caught my attention, and I spent a little more time on them, playing them through on the piano and/or singing individual vocal lines (within the limits of my narrow range). I’ll discuss them each briefly in the order in which they appear in The Trumpet. Continue reading ‘The latest issue of The Trumpet’

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Stow, 7s.

7:52 pm, October 9, 2011.

The regular Palo Alto singing was kind enough to sing through a new composition of mine today. My partner’s father is getting married this coming Saturday, so of course I had to write a wedding song in the Sacred Harp style. The marriage will take place in Stow, Massachusetts, so I called the tune “Stow.” The poetry is by George Sandys, and is a metrical paraphrase of a portion of the Song of Songs.

Stow. 7s.

I had some doubts about this tune, but the singing went extremely well. I forgot to explain the unusual structure to the class — it’s a da capo tune with a fuguing section in the middle, in the form A-B-A — so the class got a little lost the first time through. But once I explained the structure adequately, the class sang it strongly and with spirit. The tenors, altos, and trebles seemed to enjoy the eight-note runs in the fuguing section.

It sounded better than I thought to come back to the A section to finish each verse. I had also worried about the final chord — it’s not a strong ending chord, with the tenors and trebles on the fifth note of the scale (sol), the altos on the third, and only the basses singing the tonic — but in the context of the tune it worked well. And I think it adequately communicated what I wanted it to communicate, the idea that a wedding is a beginning — a strong final chord would have been too final.

Carolyn asked me how the tune was going to be sung at the wedding, and I said that it won’t be sung: I wasn’t going to be able to come up with enough Sacred Harp singers to attend a wedding 3,000 miles away in Massachusetts. So Ed and Nancy will get the sheet music, and maybe some day I can make a field recording of it for them.

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