Assignment 27: A short song
Write a short song for voice and piano—or any other accompaniment instrument or instruments as long as they are together capable of expressing a clear harmonic progression.The harmony needs to include a diminished-seventh enharmonic modulation to a remote key area (i.e. a key that is non-adjacent on the circle of fifths) and should be expressive of the text in some way that you can articulate.
As with your Neapolitan song, can use a haiku or poem of similar length; you can also write your own lyrics. What is important is that your text includes a twist of some kind (as haiku traditionally do for the third line) which you will set meaningfully using your dramatic enharmonic modulation.
The song can be in any style: you do not need to follow Western classical practice in your progressions or voice leading. However, your harmony needs to be conventional enough that you can (a) clearly establish the home key and (b) clearly establish the modulation to the remote key.
Whether the song returns to the home key is up to you, but it should sound like a complete song (not an excerpt) and should end convincingly. There is no set length—songs can be very short!—just so long as it sounds conclusive and not like an isolated phrase or two.
Choose your text by Friday and tell me what it is. You should also have some sort of sketch or at least a compositional plan or notion you can articulate. (This can change as you write!)
Complete your song for Monday's class (following break) and come with a clearly legible score (whether by hand or computer) that includes a roman numeral analysis.
Below again are a few possible haiku texts. Feel free to choose elsewhere or write your own.
On a withered branch A crow has alighted; Nightfall in autumn. (Bashō) A world of dew, And within every dewdrop A world of struggle. (Kobayashi Issa) First autumn morning the mirror I stare into shows my father's face. (Murakami Kijo) Everything I touch with tenderness, alas, pricks like a bramble. (Issa) The snow of yesterday That fell like cherry blossoms Is water once again (Gozan) from Three Lockdown Haiku (Feurzeig) I hail the new day teeming with endless promise through this glowing screen “Welcome to the class!” I greet my eager students– thirty rectangles
