Self-Sufficience

I wrote this for a wonderful singer friend of mine at Oberlin. She loves musical theater, and has bugged me for a while about writing her a theatrical song, so finally I came up with this. It's very strongly keyed to F Major, but includes my love of sudden chromatic modulations.

It's my first time writing the lyrics as well as the music, and I don't think they turned out half-bad. The lyrics are based loosely around a discussion that this singer and I had at the end of this past semester. I started with just a premise, and the first three lines, and the rest sort of wrote itself.

Enjoy, and leave many comments, particularly about the music (I'm going to have my librettist revise the lyrics )!

's nice. Nice harmonies.

I like it. It's very nice and self-contained. The lyrics aren't really that bad. They could use some tightening, but it's still a solid song. More thoughts when I have time to really look at it.

Christopher, I promise I'll look at this properly when my exams are over (Thursday! whoo...) but I love the tone you create, it's exactly right for the lyrics (I can't say there's anything wrong with them I notice, I think they're very charming). The lovelily, yet subtly energetic end is a great example of this, you convey the change that this encounter has brought about beautifully - something I think you're really skilled at, looking at your opera. I thought the only place your focus for this slipped was bb.20-21 - I love the concept, but I feel like we need an extra modulation in the last four beats of b.21 so that the emphasis isn't lost, somehow. I thought it was going to Db here; that in itself could be made more interesting though, if you played around with it as you so obviously have to get the interesting movements throughout. I can't explain it well, but I wonder if you see what I mean.

I love the accompaniment figure - executed skilfully, reminds me a lot of Bob Chilcott / Richard Rodney Bennet. And my favourite thing about it is how singable the melody is, it's lovely - there's a rare melodic quality of brightness and meaningfulness there that you don't come across in many songs; look at Warlock's 'Yarmouth Fair' for an example of what I mean, again it's hard to explain but it's very theatrical anyway. Something to do with the way you use sequences rhythmically and come down thirds onto the sixth after dramatic moments. I would love to sing this... if I was a girl. I'd probably sing it anyway lol. And I agree with DrPangloss, it's certainly self-contained in a really pleasing, self-satisfying way - like a short aria from an opera.

Er. Stuff that about not looking at it properly now, I guess. Lol. I've said a lot of positive things on YC so far, all of them genuine, but one of my favourite things I've seen so far is the way you treat words. It's lovely, and feels effortless and beautiful.

(Now I really better go and do some bloody revision haha).

Hi Christopher!

Congratulations on this piece, it's quite lovely. I do have a number of comments about it but on the whole it's a wonderful little song.

To begin, the piano accompaniment is effective enough and carries the rhythmic liveliness of the piece well enough, but it ended up feeling stale to me by the end - you started it out with that pattern but then it seemed like you were hesitant to depart from it as the song itself evolved. I would have liked to see an evolution in that part. Come m.36, for example, you have an interesting call and answer in the more subdued piano accompaniment which leads into a very cute and musical-esque ending. To be more precise, after m.24, I would have liked to see you present that piano accompaniment in a more developed and interesting form instead of just repeating the same from the beginning.

Moving along, the jaunty rhythm suited the lyrics nicely and the time signature changes help to keep listeners on their toes without confusing them utterly, which I find can sometimes happen when a composer goes trigger-happy with the time signatures. The brief section in 6/8 time at m.20 was really nice - though I would have probably made it staccato myself - and I would have liked to see that developed more fully; perhaps even in that section between m.24 and m.36.

Melodically, the song is solid and the harmonies support it well, though the tune ends up undergoing some unusual mood shifts because of your frequent modulations. That usually works well with the lyrics, it just makes the song a little harder to grasp and relate to the first time listening through it.

Otherwise, it's short, it's fun, and it'll be extra fun when/if you get it performed live. The lyrics aren't bad at all - they're nothing particularly special but then they don't have to be, and they're not quite as hopelessly tacky as some songs in this style inevitably seem to be. Maybe make some revisions in the accompaniment (vocal line is fine) and then you'll have a real gem on your hands.

Thanks for sharing!

This is a very nice piece. As for it being a part of the musical theatre rep, I think its fits in fine. I enjoy how its not so obvious that its "musical theatre" because there are ways to do that but you did it in a very subtle way. (If that makes ANY sence.) The melody is very nice and the chromatic nods are very sweet, and overall the harmonies are very good. The setting of the text is very nice and I think the lyrics flow nicely.

Nice work, hope she enjoys it.