On editing my twenty-year-old scores

In the process of re-releasing my self-published works under the Resonanz umbrella, I'm beginning with some older scores that are tried, tested, and ready to roll. Among them is a very early song cycle (my first actually):  settings of hymn tunes from The Southern Harmony, an early 19th-century compendium of Southern and Appalachian hymns and folk tunes, as well as shape note songs (shape notation was an early music education system developed in colonial America).   

I was drawn to this volume at the beginning of a career as a liturgical musician, which would continue for more than a decade, encompassing singing, writing and arranging, music direction, working with children's choral programs, and developing a sight singing system which I taught to adult amateurs and students alike.  Having studied in the Deep South, modern arrangements of these hymns tunes were in heavy rotation. Aesthetically, they were fun to sing, emotionally varied, and lyrically meaty.  I would go on to write a total of three cycles based on tunes from Southern Harmony, The Sacred Harp, and other hymn books and collections from this time period. Plus, they just sound so American to me.  They don't write hymns like this anymore.

This particular cycle contains four settings for medium voice (meaning, the ranges are not leaning into tessitura extremes) and piano, or organ.  Actually, I think I originally categorized them to be for medium voice and “keyboard,” so as not to rule out any flavor of keyed accompaniment.  This was a suggestion from my first teacher. (There he is again.)  

These songs are almost twenty years old, carbon-dated to the very origins of my professional activities. They were the first steps toward opera as devised by myself in a sequential collection of works that would build the skills necessary to produce a fully realized stage show (or so I thought).  

In order. These steps were 

1. Song cycle settings with established melody and text - the present cycle being an example

2. Song cycle, with only text to begin with

3. Chamber music 

4. Larger ensemble works 

5. Oratorio 

6. Opera!  Hooray!

A good attempt. Looking back, I can see the concept (I was big on concept) and the trajectory, but there are obvious holes: aria work, voices in combo with chamber instrumentation, duets and trios, recit practice, plus regular contact with the repertoire through live performance and recordings. Oh well - maybe next time. (I wound up checking all these boxes except oratorio, by the way.)

With text, melody and phrasing established. My younger self was then focused on accompaniment and harmonic treatment. My training up to that point was to develop both from the melodic line organically, that is, to analyze the melody until falling upon or discovering a mini-motiv, rhythmic or phrasing gesture, or repeating intervallic pattern that could then be extrapolated into an accompanimental figure.  Then: try it out, see if it works, and explore it. If it doesn’t: trash it and try something else.  Harmonically, I got to flex a few muscles. With lessons from my 20th century harmony class still dancing in my head, I can now see my penchant for poly-chordal eyebrow moments. Oh La La, how daring! 

The songs are good and usable, and I'm proud of what they were and still are, and what they would portend. (I'm still talking about writing for singers, aren't I?) Also, these were among the first compositions to be publicly performed outside of academia, so they represent the first steps into that world.  

But, back to the title of this essay. 

In order to make them available through Resonanz, they needed a new engraving. Through a series of technological mishaps, I found that my only viable copy were twenty year old PDFs requiring manual input. So, I had to go through note by note, measure for measure, finding mistake after quaint mistake: parallel fifths, false counterpoint, nowhere for the singer to breathe, spelling errors, lack of clarity in performance directions, pitifully few dynamic and phrase markings, page turn mishaps.  There were a lot of technical fundamentals that had not yet been instilled in this hungry, eager, committed composer. 

So I immediately began to think, if this were my student, how would I proceed if this work was brought into lesson? What would this composer want to hear? Need to? What would he hear?  Back to the three Cs:

1. Craft. Use score markings to communicate exactly what is wanted. Seize the opportunity to contribute to performance by being honest and direct in the presentation of the score. The quality of the score is the beginning of a professional conversation, and clarity will save time in rehearsal.

2. Collaboration. Knowing that this composer would probably not have played through the piano parts - even at halftime - it would have been important to get a read through from a set of hands to double check for how the part laid. Similarly, a chat with a singer - or singing through the part himself - would have revealed the breathing errors, lack of rhythmic pauses, and where to find starting pitches.  

3. Connection. In how many settings could this work be useful? Talk to presenters, churches, voice students, concert programmers, church recital series (which is how this cycle got its premiere).  How can the cycle find legs?  Give it to people who can use it; let it live in the world. 

Sidebar: A word about the word, “exposure.” My wife's mentor was a bushy-eyed sage who laid the foundation of her vocal and professional technique in a calm, melodious tone peppered with dirty-old-man humor. He was fabulous and kind and supportive. His wife was - and still is - a fiercely loving ball buster who took zero shit, and still doesn't.  The two together were a model for my wife and I as married partners, educators, and professional standard bearers. In typical form, they introduced us to a phrase that will forever have a foothold in our own lexicon: 

I'll work for free, but I will not work for cheap. 

End of sidebar.  

There was a lot for this composer to be proud of with this set. I also know that the seeds of righteousness, as well as the lone-wolf composer mentality had already been sown by the time these songs were written. I can look at them from both sides now.  

Click here to listen to the premiere performance in 2007, and for purchasing information.