Willows, part 4

The second of my Wind in the Willows songs is "Mr. Badger." And that's what I'll be talking about today.

First, I'll introduce you. Here is the score: page 1, page 2, page 3.* The performance notes which I posted earlier should clarify any questions about the peculiarity of the score.

And, for those of you who can't read music, this is what it sounds like: (click).* Well, not really what it sounds like, but a rough approximation via my crappy pseudopiano. The higher part (which starts solo) is the "Instrument" part, the lower part is the Voice part (sorry, I can't sing). The Instrument serves primarily as a drone (which you can't hear in the recording -- pianos don't drone).

The songs are somewhat tonal. For non-musicians: "Common Practice Tonality" is a musical system or theory which is used by most Western music -- everything from Bach to Beethoven to the Beatles is tonal. These songs aren't tonal in that way (they don't have "chords" or "scales" etc.), but they have a tonal center, which means there's a pitch on which the melody will inevitably end, and it wouldn't sound finished if it ended on a different pitch. The Instrument reinforces that center (and, arguably, creates it) by droning it constantly over/under the Voice.

Now, how the melody constructed. There's a series of pitches which for convenience sake I'll call "the OPCS." (Short for "ordered pitch class series." Essentially, it's an ordered list of note names, separate from rhythms and register/contour and anything else musical.) It's stated in its entirety at the start of the song by the Instrument. Each song starts that way -- with a statement of its OPCS by the Instrument.

"Mr. Badger"'s OPCS: B, D#, C#, A, B, E, F#, B, E, F#, G#, C#, B

Everything in the song, except for the drone, is part of a statement of the OPCS. But usually notes are missing from it. For instance, the Voice starts with the notes B, F# (notes 1 and 7 of the series) immediately followed by B, C#, F# (notes 1, 3 and 7 of the series), which are then followed by B, C#, B, F# (notes 1, 3, 5 and 7). It keeps growing this way, adding a note or two every time, until the entire OPCS is stated. Then, for the second half of the song, it shrinks again, one or two notes at a time.

It's my intention that you can hear this process happening. The complete statement of the OPCS at the start lets you know what the partial statements are a part of. And at the start of each (partial) statement, the drone is reiterated. Hopefully you could hear it without my explaining it first; I think it's fairly clear. A lot of composers like to play games and make rules for themselves to follow, myself included. But unlike most, I have a strong inner Steve Reich. He wants processes to be transparent.

As for the rhythms and contours that I've given the melody, they're taken fairly literally from the text. If your voice drops on a word when you speak it, the corresponding pitch is contextually low. If a word has a strong emphasis, it'll be longer and fall on a downbeat. And so on. That sounds kind of obvious, but it's rarely done.

I like the sound of language. It has unique and interesting rhythms and melodies, and it's my inclination to use and respect those sounds. When I first wrote the OPCS, I started with the middle of the song, the complete statement by the Voice (measures 39-43 if you're reading the score). I had some restrictions as far as what I wanted the tone of the melody to sound like; I knew I wanted to emphasize the intervals of the major 2nd and the perfect 5th. And I wanted to keep the rhythm simple with a constant quarter-note pulse. Beyond that, I basically just followed the text: spoke it out loud and mimicked the sound as best as my restrictions would allow. And the result was what I find to be pretty darn beautiful.

I plan to play with the sound of language in this way (that is, following the sounds but simplifying the rhythm similarly) in the future. Specifically, as a piano solo based on the sounds of Gertrude Stein's Tender Buttons. Interesting copyright issue there: are you reproducing part of a book if you don't actually reproduce any words?


* Oh, and it goes without saying (legally), but everything I post here is copyrighted, including (and especially) any music and media files I post. Don't keep anything on your computer, or print anything or anything like that. Copyright Gremlins will stab you in your sleep. If you want something, email me (comfypants@gmail.com) or comment, and I will get you a non-illegal copy.