Location (grandparent | parent | this page): RodMer Arts Home Page | Rod's Music | Song No. 3 for Merike Program Notes

If you've already read the program notes immediately below, or want to skip them for now, you can click here to go immediately to:

• the computer-played MP3 and MIDI files, or
• the live-performance MP3 files

Complete Table of Contents (TOC) of these Program Notes

• The Basics
  • Instrumentation
  • Duration
  • Composition date
  • First Performance
  • Commentary
  • Vocal Range
  • News from Buenos Aires
  • Computer performers (when human ones are absent)
  
  
• Structure notes
  
• Computer-played MP3 and MIDI files
  
• Live-performance MP3 files
  
• Score Package
  

The Basics

Instrumentation

Duration

Composition date

This piece was composed in June 2004.

First Performance

Commentary

This is the third song written for Merike. The first ("Song No. 1 for Merike") was written in 2001 when she had just begun to take singing lessons and discovered that she had a great soprano voice. She sang it at a recital in June of that year. The second song ("The Darkened Voice") was written in 2002. It was sung by Merike (along with Song No. 1) at a house concert in February of 2003 and as a choral work by the Oriana Singers in Cobourg on April 24, 2004. This third piece was completed in early June 2004.

Although "The Darkened Voice" had words, Song No. 3 (like Song No. 1) is wordless. It is up to the performer to decide on the vocal style.

Vocal Range

I confess I wrote this with Merike's voice in mind. On the middle C=C4 system, the vocal part lies mostly between Bb4 and G5. But several times it goes up to Bb5 (which should be no problem) and only a couple of times drifts down near the dreaded passagio territory around G4.

News from Buenos Aires

In June I had sent (following his request) a score of this piece to my new Internet friend in Buenos Aires, Diego Spinelli, whom I'd initially met through his email about my Minor Suite. In early June I received his responding email:

        Hi Rod:
        The scores of your work "Song for Merike" arrived here last week,
        thank you very much. It's a beautifull piece with a sound like 
        jazz or music hall, it's a funny piece i like it very much, i'll
        try to play it with a soprano and a pianist (they are boyfriends)
        we're going to play some pieces of Albert Roussell for sopr, and
        a flute and a piece of Frank Martin for piano flute and sopr.
        Otro abrazo.
        Diego.

As I said before, isn't the Internet wonderful? How could a late newbie at this game have anticipated such encouragement? I'm very grateful.

Computer performers (when human ones are absent)

Like all the MIDI files here, it is in General MIDI form. The General MIDI patches are:

	Part	General MIDI patch
		name	#
	Soprano	Choir Aahs	52
	Flute	Flute	73
	Piano	Acoustic Grand Piano	0

How they sound will depend on your own playback software.

On my own synth I used the following patches:

	Part	Sound Module	Patch
			name	#
	Soprano	Roland JV880	V Boys Choir from Roland Sound Library Card "Rich Sound Collection 3" (RS)	31
	Flute	Roland XV5080	Concert Flute from bank 9	103
	Piano	Roland RD500	Gr Piano A1	0

These are what you hear on the computer-played mp3 files.

Structure notes

After playing with a couple of serial compositions, I have gone back here to tonality (and with a fair "skip" to it). Section A begins in C minor, visits Db, Ab minor, and Eb minor, but ends in Eb major. Section B shifts to F major, visits F#, Ab, Db but ends on a G dominant 7th leading back to the reprise of Section A in C minor, before a final coda in Eb major.

Computer-played MP3 and MIDI files
(Click on icons below to play MIDI and/or download MP3 files)

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 (computer-played):
2004	Song No. 3 for Merike ... wordless song for soprano with flute, and piano accomaniment	2:44	3.1 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 piano, flute, and soprano are OK -- but they are much more realistic on the mp3 file (recorded from my sound-module patches). Of course, if you have a synthesizer, you can download the MIDI file and set the instruments to your own preferred patches and rebalance the volumes -- but that's a lot more work than downloading the complete mp3 file.
	Short excerpts:
	...... Intro & start of Section A	0:47		0.5 MB
	This mp3 excerpt gives the opening: first the flute intro, then the piano intro, then the soprano, then soprano and flute together, etc. up to the end of the first line of theme A1.
	...... end Section A and start Section B	0:25		0.2 MB
	This mp3 excerpt gives the ending of Section A, then the piano intro for Section B, then the soprano alone, then soprano and flute together for the first line of theme B1.
	...... ending	0:33		0.3 MB
	This mp3 excerpt gives the ending of Theme A2 and then the extended coda.

** 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.

---

Live-performance MP3 files
(Click on icons below to play and/or download MP3 files)

Year	Title ... Instrumentation ...... Excerpts	Min: Sec	Complete MP3 files (better sound) file size	MP3 file extracts (better sound) file size
	The complete piece (live performance Apr 2/05):
2004	Song No. 3 for Merike ... wordless song for soprano with flute, and piano accomaniment	2:25	1.4 MB
	Here finally you have the actual human voice (still wordless, of course, because that's how the song was intended -- but you will here more vocal inflections than you do in the computer-played simulation. Merike had a lot of fun with her singing teacher, Anne Relyea, working out the specific vocal interpretation she ended up with. In addition, of course, Fred's real flute sounds more realistic.
	Short excerpts:
	...... Intro & start of Section A	0:45		0.5 MB
	This mp3 excerpt gives the opening: first the flute intro, then the piano intro, then the soprano, then soprano and flute together, etc. up to the end of the first line of theme A1. (main difference from the computer excerpt above is the live voice)
	...... end Section A and start Section B	0:21		0.2 MB
	This mp3 excerpt gives the ending of Section A, then the piano intro for Section B, then the soprano alone, then soprano and flute together for the first line of theme B1. (main difference from the computer excerpt above is the live voice)
	...... ending	0:29		0.3 MB
	This mp3 excerpt gives the ending of Theme A2 and then the extended coda. (main difference from the computer excerpt above is the live voice)

Score Package
(Click on icons below to download pdf and/or rtf files)

Year	Title ... Instrumentation	Description	No. of score pages	Score (pdf file) file size	No. of text pages	Text (rtf file) file size
2004	Song No. 3 for Merike ... wordless song for soprano with   flute, and piano accomaniment	Complete score *	16	0.2 MB	2	0.04 MB
	* email me if you would like any part extractions

(you will need the free Stuffit Expander for decompressing the rtf.sitx files)