Week 10: Voices Playlist and Reading Response Questions If you choose to write up and print out a formal response to this week’s playlist and reading,

1. choose one of the questions below and answer it in 200–300 words. 2. write two thoughtful questions of your own and 3. choose one of your own questions to answer in 200–300 words.

Practice polished, clear, and effective writing for the formal responses. The quality of your writing contributes to your success on the assignment. Provided Questions

1. Choose one of your favorite vocalists and song he or she sings. Think about Barthes’ description of the “grain of the voice” and/or the materiality of the voice in Rabelais’ story from Gina Bloom’s introduction. Give a rich description of how these ideas relate to the vocalist you chose in the specific song you chose (give details such as specific lyrics, time stamps, and vocal effects). Then tell how your description and these ideas from the reading contribute to what the song means or what it is saying.

2. How is voice related to poetry? Use the ideas from the reading and perhaps the experience

of going to Poets Out Loud to think about the differences between reading and hearing text and the resulting differences in their meaning. Cite examples from a specific poem or poems in your answer.

3. Think about the various solo and ensemble vocal music we have listened to this semester as well as ideas about them including the Counter-Reformation priority on understanding words, text painting in madrigals, the Florentine Camerata developing the ideas and guidelines for opera, Bach’s use of soloists and chorus in his St. Matthew Passion and other works, the Beggar’s Opera, romantic art songs, and the music from this week’s playlist. What kind of meaning can solo vocal music create and what kind can ensemble or choral vocal music create? Are they different in their effects? How so? Cite specific examples from the music and ideas from the reading to support your answer.

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Week 10: Voices Playlist Listening Guide Meredith Wilson: “Pick-A-Little, Talk-A-Little/Goodnight, Ladies,” 1957 recording from the Original Broadway Cast Recording of The Music Man I think of Meredith Wilson’s musical The Music Man as a love letter of sorts to early 20th-century America. Besides numerous Americana elements in the musical such as the setting in a small Midwestern town, marching bands, conservative morals, and a Fourth of July celebration, the music itself incorporates trends from the period including patriotic bands, new dances and dance steps, and the beloved barbershop quartet. This selection features dialogue and singing from the women in the chorus later combined with the barbershop quartet. The women are explaining to Harold Hill, the salesman and band director that the town’s music teacher, who is also the librarian, is suspected of a relationship with the town’s older benefactor. The barbershop quartet is made up of members of the school board who are looking into Harold Hill’s credentials. As you listen think about how much you can learn about the characters simply by hearing their voices. What kind of voices are these? Jackson Berkey, “Isaiah 44:3,” from Thoughts and Remembrances, post-1994 What effect do the opening lines have? They combine whispers and singing. How does this and structure of the piece contribute to the meaning of the lyrics? I will pour water on him that is thirsty. I will pour floods upon the dry ground. I will pour my spirit upon your seed and my blessings upon your offspring. Eric Whitacre: “Leonardo Dreams of His Flying Machine,” lyrics by Charles Anthony Silvestri 2001 Eric Whitacre writes, “We started with a simple concept: what would it sound like if Leonardo DaVinci were dreaming?” Enjoy this tour de force of choral sounds and watch for the word painting evoking dreams, pigeons flying one by one, the watchtower tolling, leaping, and, of course, flying. Hope you love this one. I. Leonardo Dreams of his Flying Machine… Tormented by visions of flight and falling, More wondrous and terrible each than the last, Master Leonardo imagines an engine To carry a man up into the sun… And as he’s dreaming the heavens call him, softly whispering their siren-song:

“Leonardo. Leonardo, vieni á volare”. (“Leonardo. Leonardo, come fly”.) L’uomo colle sua congiegniate e grandi ale, facciendo forza contro alla resistente aria. (A man with wings large enough and duly connected might learn to overcome the resistance of the air.)

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II. Leonardo Dreams of his Flying Machine… As the candles burn low he paces and writes, Releasing purchased pigeons one by one Into the golden Tuscan sunrise… And as he dreams, again the calling, The very air itself gives voice: “Leonardo. Leonardo, vieni á volare”. (“Leonardo. Leonardo, come fly”.) Vicina all’elemento del fuoco… (Close to the sphere of elemental fire…) Scratching quill on crumpled paper, Rete, canna, filo, carta. (Net, cane, thread, paper.) Images of wing and frame and fabric fastened tightly.

…sulla suprema sottile aria. (…in the highest and rarest atmosphere.) III. Master Leonardo Da Vinci Dreams of his Flying Machine… As the midnight watchtower tolls, Over rooftop, street and dome, The triumph of a human being ascending In the dreaming of a mortal man. Leonardo steels himself, takes one last breath, and leaps… “Leonardo, Vieni á Volare! Leonardo, Sognare!” (“Leonardo, come fly! Leonardo, Dream!”)

R. Murray Shaffer, “Snowforms” Drawing on multiple Eskimo words for “snow,” this piece is experimental in form and in its notation. It aims to suggest the sense and feel of snow both in its sound and by its appearance on the page (see below). Instead of using typical musical notation with a staff and notes, it indicates pitches and time stamps in a pictorial representation of the snow being sung. This song asks what the relationship is between the sense of sight and the sense of hearing.

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Eric Whitacre, “Ézeg shéleg!” from Five Hebrew Love Songs lyrics by Hila Plittman, 1996/2001 Of this set of pieces, Eric Whitacre writes, In the spring of 1996, my great friend and brilliant violinist Friedemann Eichhorn invited me and my girlfriend-at-the-time Hila Plitmann (a soprano) to give a concert with him in his home city of Speyer, Germany. We had all met that year as students at the Juilliard School, and were inseparable. Because we were appearing as a band of traveling musicians, ‘Friedy’ asked me to write a set of troubadour songs for piano, violin and soprano. I asked Hila (who was born and raised in Jerusalem) to write me a few ‘postcards’ in her native tongue, and a few days later she presented me with these exquisite and delicate Hebrew poems. I set them while we vacationed in a small skiing village in the Swiss Alps, and we performed them for the first time a week later in Speyer. In 2001, the University of Miami commissioned me to adapt the songs for SATB chorus and string quartet… The bells at the beginning of Ézeg shéleg are the exact pitches that awakened us each morning in Germany as they rang from a nearby cathedral. These songs are profoundly personal for me, born entirely out of my new love for this soprano, poet, and now my beautiful wife, Hila Plitmann. Here are the lyrics below:

What snow! Like little dreams

Falling from the sky. Ella Fitzgerald, “How High the Moon” Frank Sinatra, “I Get a Kick out of You” These two are on the list as representative of crooners and celebrated solo vocalists. Enjoy these terrific songs with great lyrics and settings in their own right, but think about what makes these two voices among those that are iconic. What are they adding to the words? How do they make the words special? What about their pronunciation, breathing, and improvisation? Can you hear this voice and know exactly who it is? Could your grandparents? What makes it memorable? If you choose to write on one of these, make sure to look up more of the details (date, composer, etc.) yourself. Manhattan Transfer, “Operator” Pentatonix, “Aha!” These are the ensemble equivalents of the selections above. What do they demonstrate about what voices can do, especially a group of voices together? How many different sounds do they achieve and how do they achieve them? Most importantly, how does the effect of these multiple voices create meaning?