"O SING THE GLORIES"
The Musicians of Melodious Accord gathered at Immanuel Lutheran Church in New York City in mid-April, to record a set of seventeen anthems. Composed over the past twenty-five years, they were each written on commission from churches of six denominations, in nine states.
They range from the bright, joyous sounds of trumpet, organ and chorus in Easterdays, to the solemn a cappella sonorities of the shape-note hymn In all my vast concerns with Thee. Destructive Sword is an anti-war protest from the Civil War, while For the Fruit of all Creation is a child-like hymn of thanks. The texts are drawn from such poets as the Elizabethans Samuel Wither and Thomas Pestel, as well as our contemporaries Jane Marshall, Fred Pratt Green and Carl P. Daw, Jr. There are five traditional American tunes as well as the familiar Bryn Calfaria and Darwall's 148th.
GIA publishers plan to release the CD in their winter catalog, and to publish the complete set of anthems like those available with Take me to the water and Sweet Manna. We are grateful for their generous support of our work.
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Musical Analysis: Discovering What's There.
Editorial
In recent weeks I have had three clear examples of advanced students writing reports on my music who seem to have little idea how to approach, examine, and reach conclusions about it. They are fine on biographical detail and historical genre, but woefully weak on the fabric of the music itself: what are the generating forces, how do they inter-relate to propel the work, what is being communicated and by what means. This leads me to ponder what musical analysis is, and its value to the student.
The student begins with 10 to 100 pages of musical symbols and hopes to end with a coherent idea of the work. The composer begins with imagined sound and ends with 10 to 100 pages of written symbols. The composer is erecting a structure in sound which has not previously existed; the student's aim should be to determine that structure, thereby retracing the composer's path.
The architecture is the skeleton of the music. When I conduct, I need to be clear about this structure: not only the large divisions of the work, but how each single phrase relates to the next. I begin not by playing the music, but by looking at the first page, noting the title, composer, tempo, key, meter, performing forces, and any markings which help me to place the work in time and place, in intent and function. Then I turn all the pages quickly, noting changes in tempo or performers, and places where the motion stops: fermatas, movement ends, etc. (In a multi-movement work, I go through the whole piece at this stage.) I like to end up with a list (including page numbers) which shows me at a glance the mega-structure of the whole.
The next task is to flesh out that beginning, to discover the phrase structures within the whole, to find where the music 'breathes' (Julius Herford's term). I place a tiny check-mark beneath the staff at each clear cadence point. This is easy with homophonic music, but can be really difficult or confusing in polyphonic passages, where each voice seems to breathe at a different time. The student must try and re-try to find where the aggregate sound coalesces into an implied ending, or a new surge of energy. Now I go back and count the measures between each check-mark. This shows instantly whether phrase lengths are symmetrical (i.e. 4+4) or odd (i.e. 4+5), which in turn reflects the amount of energy needed to go from cadence to cadence. When the measures are numbered throughout the work, one can diagram the relationships from phrase to section to movement to whole. Again, this does not yield an exact equivalent: it fails to account for changing meters within a phrase. But added to the information above, it yields increasing information about the structure of the work.
Now, I begin a search for the meaning of the music: what is its affect or mood, and how is this produced? With any vocal or choral music, the text must be the beginning point: I must study its own structure, poetical devices and meaning. Then, how does the music relate to the words: is the setting sympathetic to the spoken and/or sung syllables? Does it reflect, intensify, comment on or reveal those things that the text hints at but can't say?
I believe that melodic analysis is essentially far more meaningful than harmonic. What is the structure and affect of the melody, or thematic material? How is it extended: which musical devices of color or structure or voicing are used, and to what effect? The melody is what we remember, and looking for its statements and transformations leads one quickly into the heart of the piece.
But any analysis is of far greater value to its maker than to any subsequent reader: the search through the score is its own reward. It should be a conversation with the creator, leading to deeper insights with each new exchange. And the resultant understanding must rest on an uneasy balance between what can be stated and what is implied. Far more is going on than meets the eye. What is seen and written must be translated into an inner-ear audialization (step one) which must then be translated into actual sound (step two). If human beings are making that sound, there is a scrim of infinite variety (step three) between the vision and the reality. The heard music is different each time, but the architecture remains the same. The great conductors reconstruct the composer's vision; the great listeners co-construct (in Hindemith's phrase) the work as it flows into their ears.
All of which is to say that the craft of composition and the craft of analysis are opposite sides of the same coin. The writer's creative journey should be just as fascinating and revealing as the reader's re-creation of it. We balance each other, and need each other for a complete musical experience.
Alice Parker
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January in New York with Alice Parker
January 11-15, 2005
Open to conductors, composers, teachers
and church musicians interested in four days
of Choral Studies in New York City,
culminating in a Saturday night
SING with ALICE
Spend the day in relaxed but intensive score study with Alice Parker and colleagues.
In the evening explore theater, opera, museums, Broadway shows, or restaurants.
Accommodations and seminars are at St. Hilda's House, West 113th Street near Broadway, where you will enjoy the warmth, simplicity, and meditative environment of the Sisters of The Community of the Holy Spirit.
For information contact Kay Holt at:
Kay@aliceparker.com
Or phone: (413) 536-1753
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On Changing Hymn Texts
There are many ways to judge and classify hymns, from simple familiarity to classic excellence in tune and text. The wonder is that people can enjoy them on so many levels: they mean far more than what we see on the page. But our culture does not focus much on poetry - we're much more prose people, and want clear, concise information from that prose. When that kind of thinking gets transposed into a hymn text, the very qualities that we look for in a loved song become compromised. We're thinking, "What does it say?" rather than adding "and how does it say it?" Poetic values like metaphor, assonance and subtlety of expression are lost.
And when we think that we can bring older songs 'up to date' by willfully changing to words to reflect a current concern, we are apt to do violence not only to the poetry but also to a whole web of associations in our memories. When I sing a hymn learned from Grandmother, I want to sing it as she sang it, not be jolted out of that communion by another agenda.
Of course hymn texts have often been changed over the centuries, and for the better. But the changes must make the poem stronger, not weaker; easier to sing not harder. And new hymns must certainly reflect our understanding of God as Mother/Father and Creator. But when we give up the family image of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, with what shall we replace it? I'm still waiting for the new, poetical words.
Alice Parker
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Response to "Rethinking the Teaching of Music Theory"
I teach AP Music Theory to high school students. I try to make it "un-boring" by talking about real music. Unfortunately this generation has a very limited repertoire of "songs from childhood." Singing with the family at home, church, or around the campfire isn't part of their experience. They might have a few Barney, Raffi, or Walt Disney tunes that they recall. In fact, they are so steeped in popular music that is based on rhythmic and melodic loops that even the concept of a well-crafted melody eludes them. So we start by learning songs of the American experience (folk tunes, spirituals, patriotic songs, hymn tunes) as a home base.
It never occurred to me that American kids wouldn't even know the tune/lyrics to America.
B. Preston
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The View From Here
Wild Nights
"Oh give me a home where the buffalo roam/
And the coyotes sing all the night..."
Well, western Massachusetts doesn't have many buffalo, but we do have coyotes and they do sing - howl - vocalize - extensively and chorally in the darkness. I've only seen them once, driving at night and coming around the corner to see a pack crossing the road. But they are here, and so am I, and who is to say who really belongs?
It's been a good spring for animal watching. A few days ago, driving home at dusk, a mother bear and two cubs crossed the road in front of me near the town line. I stopped where I could look down on a meadow next to the river, and there they were, comfortable as all get out. And last Sunday on my way to church, two young deer crossed in front of me just south of my house ... fortunately I was moving slowly enough both times to enjoy the experience. All these animals were moving in a rather matter-of-fact manner, nor running, just going about their daily business.
I've never seen such a year for caterpillars - all over the road, the driveway, the steps and even a few in the house. Fortunately we're spared the cicadas - I just received a far- from-lyrical description of them from a Washington DC friend - but of course we have the black flies: nasty tiny critters with a savage bite, who can detect you from yards away and zoom unerringly into hair, eyes and ears. I finally got myself a hat with netting attached for working in the garden.
The birds wake me each morning with an almost deafening dawn chorus, and continue calling, chattering, echoing and scolding during the day. Small insects provide their food in plenteous variety, and my grandsons enjoy trout fishing in the brook - mostly 'throw-backs' of less-than-legal size. Porcupines and skunks wander the woods - there's an occasional small fox - and agile garter snakes have their homes here, too. In these lengthening Spring days we're reminded again that we share this world with myriad creatures large and small. And it's comforting to ponder humankind's place in this spectrum, as opposed to the way our societies treat each other in the political and economic world. How many wild nights will it take to bring us to our senses?
Alice Parker
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INTERESTED IN CHRISTMAS WORKS BY
ALICE PARKER?
Topical works lists for Christmas (and Easter) compositions and arrangements by Alice Parker are now available at a cost of $2.00 + shipping. Contact:
The Alice Parker Music Company
96 Middle Rd
Hawley, MA 01339
or alice@aliceparker.com
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A 'Shape-Note' SING with Alice
If your are in New England at the end of August, you might enjoy coming to Alice's first 'Shape-Note' SING. We hope to gather enthusiasts from a wide area at the superbly resonant Meeting House in East Hawley, for a day of exploring different traditions, southern and northern, as well as the traditional 'dinner on the grounds'. More information can be found at the web site www.honestday.com. Or you can just imagine the roof rising a few inches as our voices join on August 28th!
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© 2004 MELODIOUS ACCORD, INC.
All rights reserved. To obtain permission to reprint any part of this newsletter, send requests in writing to 96 Middle Rd, Hawley, MA 01339.
The Melodious Accord Newsletter is published three times a year, reaching 4000 musicians in the United States and Canada.
Send address changes, deletions, name changes, etc. to Kay Holt, 34 Ashfield Lane, South Hadley, MA 01075; (413) 536-1753 phone and fax; e-mail:newsletter@melodiousaccord.org.
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