Do not wish for any other life: or how to write music for the spoken voice

Before I begin, let me give you a heads up that this entry will be a tad technical in nature. I delve into the working parts of composing and the thought processes involved. There won’t be many journeys into the inspirational and emotional (I have saved those for the end). I hope you find it interesting nonetheless.

I have a premiere coming up on April 19, 2024. This piece is a tad unique in its scoring and performance. It is experimental for me, but the experiment is in service to its conception and execution. The piece is called Do Not Wish For Any Other Life. It is scored for instrumental ensemble and speaker. The commissioning ensemble is The _____ Experiment. They are a quintet made up of oboe, clarinet, tenor saxophone, bassoon, and harp (unfortunately, the harpist will be unable to perform at the premiere because of an injury).  You may have noticed that the piece calls for a speaker and that an actor or speaker is not listed in the ensemble. This could be a conundrum, but I enjoy these kinds of challenges as they force you to flex your creative muscle and think a bit outside of the box. From my work on my interdisciplinary pieces Variations on Gestalt, Tilt!, and River Flow I have built up a bit of a tool box for dealing with instrumental music and spoken text.

Setting spoken text with music is always a challenge.  There are many examples out there. Beatniks reciting poetry over a jazz trio, and narration over a soundtrack are two quick and stereotypical examples. Those examples, for the most part, place the spoken text in the forefront with the music as a background that is performing a role even less supportive than an accompaniment. I want  the full integration of spoken text into the score akin to a sung text. Setting a text to be sung involves an imposition of interpretation that is expected and necessary. When text is spoken it moves at a very different pace and leaves inflection and interpretation completely up to the performer. The challenge is allowing that dynamic to emerge to the foreground.

There are many ways of handling it, and some are better than others depending on the situation.  These include. at the simplest, having the narration outside of any scored music, for example having a poem spoken then the music performed as a complement to the poem, to having the actor speaking in rhythm. Speaking in a rhythm that is either scored (parlando, recitative) or even improvised (rap ) can work when it is aesthetically appropriate. While the technique integrates the text into the composition, I often want the text to have its own place beside the instrumental music, but to still part of it. I always prefer the natural flow and rhythm of the words that an actor can bring to the piece, rather than an imposed rhythm. Also, many poems and prose do not reveal an obvious rhythm that would be suitable to this approach. Why not just write the music for a singer? The obvious answer is that it wasn’t part of the commission because a singer wasn’t available

So how did I choose to handle this? First off, there is no dedicated actor or reciter in the ensemble. I did not want to determine who would take on that role. It is best for the ensemble to make that decision. Secondly, The _____ Experiment has a very unique instrumentation. This can be a limiting factor in the piece’s dissemination. These two factors actually helped me to surmount the major roadblock of how to notate the entire piece. The solution was obvious. Open notation; no specified instrument on any part. Each part could be played by anyone. The pitches could be transposed, if need be, to fit into a register. While the ensemble is a quintet, there are four instrumental parts written out allowing the fifth performer to be the speaker. As can be seen from the example below, there are letters above the text and the parts in the score. These are used to coordinate the instrumentalists and the speaker. You will also note the number of repeat signs in the score. These indicate that the performer may repeat the given bar as many times as they wish. This applies to each instrumentalist individually allowing the instrumentalists and the speaker the freedom to work through their respective parts at a pace that flows with whichever interpretation of the text is taken by the speaker. I have used this technique quite often and I lifted it directly from In C by Terry Riley, the seminal minimalist work from the 1960s. I had the pleasure of performing it in my undergraduate days and it had a profound effect on how I approached the scoring process and the relationship between performer and composer. In the case of this piece this technique became invaluable. It allows for much improvisation and malleability for any ensemble that chooses to perform it.

One of the joys of setting texts is the opportunity to dwell for extended periods of time with the poems. If I enjoyed them and were attracted to their potential when I first discovered them I inevitably fall in love with them as they continually reveal their secrets. Each of the poets I have worked with have very distinct styles, but they all amaze me in the thoughtfulness and craft that they bring to their work. I am always inspired.
 
The text of the piece is by Richard Jeffrey Newman, a poet from New York City. It is made up of a series of short sequences that take us on a journey of healing, from a sense of urgency to positive self-reflection. They are quite remarkable, powerful in their conciseness and vivid imagery. The writing drew me into a personal world that was wrestling with the spiritual decision of moving on from one stage of life into another. How does one deal with past events that contain wounds and regrets? How can one rise above these while acknowledging them? Richard takes us on a fascinating journey with a wide variety of emotional responses to these questions. I decided to treat each sequence as an individual musical movement, but there is a continuity that moves from one to another. There are musical links between the sequences and these vary tonally and texturally.
I am reprinting here, with the permission of Richard, two of the sequences from the poem Do Not Wish For Any Other Life. It was published October 2023 in his book T’shuvah by Fernwood Press www.fernwoodpress.com 
The world premiere by The _____ Experiment is at The Church of the Good Shepherd, Kitchener, Ontario on April 19, 2024. Tickets are available here   numus.on.ca/tickets/
                                           
6
Force a fledgling’s language from your mouth.
Pry open the long crease where shame settles.
Console yourself that fear is a god’s first gift.
 
7
The past you grieve will rise. Wrap your tongue
around its root and pull. What draws you forward
through the faith you’ve lost will not desert you.
Interrogate the love it implicates.
What leaves the body leaves itself behind.
 

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