Program NotesLocation (grandparent | parent | this page): RodMer Arts Home Page | Rod's Music | Now You're to Lie Down Program Notes
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The Basics1996 -- This piece was written for Gregory Ward (an accomplished novelist and a good friend), who also plays oboe in the Northumberland Orchestra in Cobourg and, at that time, also in a small amateur group: the Clarington Consort.
Like all the MIDI files here, it is in General MIDI form. The General MIDI patches (on the 0-127 numbering system) are:
| Part | General MIDI patch | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| name | # | ||
| Oboe | Oboe | 68 | |
| Violin | Violin | 40 | |
| Violin pizz | Pizzicato Str | 45 | |
| Soprano | Choir Aahs | 52 | |
| Piano | Grand Piano | 0 | |
On my own synth I used the following patches:
| Part | Sound Module | Patch | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| name | # | |||
| Oboe | Roland XV5080 | Oboe 6 from Bank 10 | 2 | |
| Violin | Roland JV880 | Solo Violin from OEB | 51 | |
| Violin Pizz | Roland JV880 | Pizzicato 2 from OEB | 76 | |
| Soprano | Roland JV880 | Choir 1 from OEB | 227 | |
| Piano | Roland RD500 | Gr Piano A1 | 0 | |
Structure notesThis is the first time I have composed music specifically to fit pre-existing words (with only a couple of minor adaptations). In this case the pre-existing words were a poem of the same name from my book Sky Falling Sunny Tomorrow (Wolsak & Wynn: Toronto 1989). In 'Still Winter Moon' I had proceeded, instead, in the reverse direction (composing the music and then writing the words to fit the mood (and, of course, the notes). The result with 'Now You're To Lie Down' is that the musical structure arises out of the language and its moods rather than from some grand musical symmetry into which the words are forced to fit. Inevitably certain musical themes coalesce in this process. Merely for ease of reference I have numbered them 1 to 6 and the various instances of each 1a, 1b, 1c, etc. The mood of the six themes is something along the following lines:
Working with both the words and the music one has only oneself to blame if things don't fit. The situation is somewhat different from librettists and composers 'negotiating' compromises which often leave both sides unsatisfied. I do believe that words and music ought to pull together and not compete - that accented linguistic syllables should fall on musically accented beats so that the speech seems natural. Henry Purcell was a master at this. In modern times, Menotti and Britten come to mind. And I confess I was treated kindly by Harry Somers when he turned my libretto Mario and the Magician into his opera of the same name. But there are counter-examples where the music and words seem to tussle to see which must give way so that the other will be understood. Partnership ought to be better than competition in these matters.
Although I started by staring at the words and fooling around on the keyboard to uncover what expression of them might be hidden there, inevitably some musical ideas begin to percolate as well. In this piece one of the driving forces (to my ear) was the various progressions which seemed to suggest themselves.
Making these chromatic harmonies work depends of course on the melody - or maybe it's the other way around. At any rate, it's certainly easy to construct examples of the above progressions which don't work (wrong inversion, wrong melody, or whatever). And equally it is easy to render this piece's melody insipid with more traditional harmonies. I hope performers will find that the two elements (vertical and horizontal) work for them in this piece. In the end it is the ear, and not erudite theory, that counts. Or maybe that's the excuse of a beginner.
The Intro begins with the alternating G major and Ab major chords which occur fairly regularly throughout the piece (certainly in the Theme 1 and Theme 2 sections). The violin trills and the piano high staccato are part of the jarring interruptions to which life in a hospital is typically subjected.
| Year | Title ... Instrumentation ...... Excerpts | Min: Sec |
Complete MP3 files (better sound)** file size |
MP3 file extracts (better sound)** file size |
Complete MIDI file (not as good sound but quick)** |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The complete piece: | |||||
| 1996 | Now You're to Lie Down ... quartet for oboe, violin, piano, soprano |
6:26 |  4.4 MB |
||
| How the MIDI file sounds depends, of course, on your playback mechanism. On my computer, MIDI files are played by the QuickTime PlugIn and the violin sound can be rather tinny, the oboe occasionally too soft, and the soprano (wordless) sound quite unvoicelike. As well, a few portamenti don't seem to work. In comparison, the mp3 file (recorded from my sound-module patches) sounds much better (even though the computer still can't sing the words). Of course, if you have a synthesizer, you can download the MIDI file and set the instruments to your own preferred patches, and do the volume balancing -- but that's much more work than downloading the complete mp3 file. | |||||
| |||||
| Short extracts: | |||||
| ...... opening excerpt of Now You're to Lie Down | 0:35 | 0.3 MB |
|||
| The mp3 excerpt of the beginning is better (mellower piano) than the usual embedded MIDI sound playback. But of course it's still constrained by my original and wordless synth voice patches. | |||||
| ...... an excerpt of one version of Theme 2 from Now You're to Lie Down | 0:22 | 0.2 MB |
|||
| Again, the mp3 excerpt of a version of Theme 2 is better (better piano, better oboe, better balance) than the embedded MIDI sound. But of course it's still constrained by my original and wordless synth voice patches. | |||||
| ...... an excerpt of one version of Theme 3 from Now You're to Lie Down | 0:25 | 0.2 MB |
|||
| Again, the mp3 excerpt of a version of Theme 3 is better (particularly if played through external speakers) than the embedded MIDI sound and the final violin portamento works. But of course it's still constrained by my original and wordless synth voice patches. | |||||
** If you have a high-speed connection, forget about the MIDI files and just use the MP3 files (better). If you have a dial-up connection, consider the faster (but not as good) MIDI file only if the MP3 files seem to be taking too long to play or download.
| Year | Title ... Instrumentation | Description | No. of score pages |
Score (pdf file) file size |
No. of text pages |
Text (rtf file) file size |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1996 | Now You're To Lie Down ... quartet for oboe, violin, piano, soprano |
Complete score * | 23 |  0.4 MB |
6 |  36 KB |
| * email me if you would like any part extractions | ||||||