The Road Not Taken

I'm back! But only for a few minutes. My life is extremely busy and I shocked myself by writing this in the airport a few weeks ago. Well, I hope you enjoy my song for Mezzo-Soprano. It's called The Road Not Taken. The Lyrics are as follows and are taken from the famous Robert Frost poem.

TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.


I can only attach a MIDI because I'm not sure how to make PDF's. Tell me what you think please.

Interesting text setting. I have a few problems - m. 53 "the" - is too long. It gives it an accent that it should not have - and since it's a rhythmic accent, it can't simply be corrected by the singer's vocal inflection. Some places, you have words on unstressed beats that could be solved by shifting meter, or you could instruct the vocalist that it's something like a hemiola, and speech patterns should take precedence over meter.

Your counterpoint is pretty strong - a few parallel fifths in a couple places, but nothing that detracts. However, the texture hardly changes at all during the course of the work. I still have a new chord on every beat 1. If you could vary your harmonic rhythm a bit, the piece would be much more interesting.

You have a section where you change keys three times in 7 measures - mm. 78 - 85. It would be a much stronger choice to change the key once and use accidentals. It gives more of a through-line to the bridge into the final verse. Similarly mm. 99 - 102 - it'd be better just to use the natural for the final flat than change the key for just those four measures.

I like your melody, and it's good use of motif.

I would be careful with using Robert Frost text settings. One mistake was made with Eric Whitacre. His choral piece Sleep was originally set to "Frostina" and he got in trouble for using it. Just a warning...

Not sure what you are talking about. Ever heard of Frostiana? It's a published choral piece widely known with 7 of Frost's poems.

Hi,

Attached is a PDF score for The Road Not Taken. If you're interested, I have written a tutorial on how to create PDFs from Notation Programs at:

Creating Free Sheet Music from MIDI Files

The instructions are for Noteworthy Composer, but you can use Finale instead of Noteworthy Composer to print to a file. Then, you use a free program called GSView to open the file, and create a PDF. If you have any more questions you can PM me.

Good Luck!

Originally Posted by oboehazzard

Not sure what you are talking about. Ever heard of Frostiana? It's a published choral piece widely known with 7 of Frost's poems.

Yeah, but that's seven Frost poems that Randall Thompson got permission to use. Whitacre began writing before he got the rights to use the poem, and got zinged by the company when he applied.

You only really need to be careful about Frost poetry that's written post-1923 (on account of anything before is public domain) and only really in music that's going to be published.

Who you really have to watch out for is e.e. cummings. His estate gives NOTHING. Same thing with Pablo Neruda.

My biggest problem with this piece is simply the setting of the text. I think it is probably more difficult to set a text that is so well known. Certain problems are sure to creep up on you. For instance, if a piece is known so well to the point that everyone has it memorized, the setting might have a tendancy to be rhythmic and choppy. Or it could be difficult to decide on an interpretation since there are so many available. Regardless, popular text like the one you've chosen will either be the greatest asset or the downfall of this setting.

In strictly a poetic sense, you the composer must make some decisions of your own in regards to interpretation. What are your thoughts when reading this poem. Do you actually think it's about an indecisive hiker? If the entire scene is based on choosing to traverse one path as opposed to another, then the poem shouldn't really have to be so long at all. Do you think the path is a metaphor for life, and the pass he comes to is like a crucial turning point for him? This is a popular interpretation of this poetry, and is almost as trite as the poem itself. You might decide on an interpretation that is unique to you. The only thing left to do then is express your interpretation through song.

Now let's talk about some really basic things. Whenever you work with a language (foreign or domestic) you have to be sensitive to the way the words are formed and how the poet chose them, and the order in which he chose to place them. The first thing you should do is lay out the text in front of you. Not in line and stanze form, but in one continuous line of text. Read through it and underline the strong syllables in the text. Then go through and find all the words that lead into the words that follow them. Do it a few times and consider different inflections and how they change the meaning of the text. You have to be completely familiar with the poetry in every way before you set pen to paper (or rather, notes to staff).

I notice that there are quite a few awkward usage of text that were more inflected by the music than the music was inflected by the text. For instance, the appagiatura on "long I stood". A better mellisma would be "long I stood" because English speakers tend to linger more on the word "long" than on the word "stood". Also, beat three is a stronger beat in 3/4 than beat 2. So resolving the appagiatura on a strong beat will sound odd unless you are striving for an effect. Similar in measure 49 you have "the passing there" with the emphasis on the word "the" which is actually one of the least important words in this poem. A much more important word is "passing", so "the passing there" with "the" on beat 3 preceeding the measure, and a mellisma on "passing" would suit quite nicely. Same thing in the next measure "had worn them" would be better than "had worn them".

I hope that makes some sense. Often thimes poetry is less about the words you say and more about the way you say them. Haphazardly placing words to notes will only set your singers up for failure.