November 14, 2005
Call for written word
Besides my assignments of woodwind quintet and string quintet (and bassoon sonata for fun), i want to write a piece for solo soprano.
Please give me a original poem with sad/serious tone and subject of moderate length.
1, 2, or 3 parts.
If 1 part, no more than 200 words.
2-3, no more than 400 words.
Of course, credit for words will be given to you, but if you’re sending this to me on lj or email, you will be giving me permission to use it. Thanks in advance.
-Nick
my friend reid (composition student, third year) wrote a piece for piano/solo soprano his freshman year. his sister wrote the lyrics for it. the composition got performed in some thingy at the SOM and they recorded it. i’d looked over the piece before reid turned it in and i was like, jesus, this is really high. and he got kind of defensive and was like, i’m sure they can find someone to sing it. after it got recorded, he made me listen to it because it was so ridiculously funny. he took it down a little bit, i believe, but it was still really high, and of course he listens to lofty moody shit like bjork and i-don’t-know-what-else, but the vocalists all have those even, quiet voices, or..well…bjork doesn’t have an even, quiet voice, but she doesn’t sing like a classically trained soprano either. which is, of course, exactly what the girl who performed the piece sounded like. and when she got to the high bits she pretty much bellowed. i think reid was going for ethereal. this was like opera.
moral of the story: don’t write that shit too high. or if you do, don’t get a classically trained soprano to perform it. unless you’re going for the whole deafening opera soprano thing.
i’ve worked with classically trained sopranos with very good ranges.
You worry about the words. i’ll worry about the music. And trust me- it’ll be better than what-his-face’s ethereal stuff.
alas, i don’t write poetry. actually, what i write is very bad poetry. so i pretty much stopped writing it altogether. only prose for this girl.
prose works.