Samuel BARBER, 'Sure on this shining night' - practice

This performance demonstrates the early stages of my learning a new song. I began learning the lyrics one week ago - before learning the tune. Currently, I am working on getting correct timing, and matching the words to the melody.

I am not concerned about interpretation emphasis, and voice quality. Those effects will come later after I have memorised the song.

In order to get maximum feedback from my voice coach, I record the voice with no equalisation or other modifications. However, I did transpose the song down five semi-tones from its original starting note of "d" ("Sure"). I learn in a lower transposition then raise the pitch as I become more confident with all elements.

I record using Garageband and an old video camera shotgun mike through a Peavey micro-mixer (PV6) into my Macintosh.

The accompaniment might sound mechanical. It is! It is produced using Smartscore after having scanned in the musical score. (Schirmer, New York, copyright 1941.). I create a midi version of the song in Smartscore, then transfer the midi version into Garageband, where I complete the transposition.

On iTunes you can find some beautiful performances of the song. I bought a version performed by Robert White & Samuel Sanders.

I listen to performance versions very, very infrequently whilst I'm learning a new song, so that I can develop my own interpretation. I might listen once towards the end of my rehearsal to note hints of things I might be missing. I usually have at least two performances that I like.

I invite you to share comments about interpretation of the song and vocal production. (....more support on the top notes - I know!)

I am also curious to know more about the context of lyrics poem written by James AGEE. You can find the lyrics (an a performance) on this website dedicated to Art Song: http://lottelehmann.org/artsong/bios/bio_Barber.shtml

Information about James AGEE is on the PBS website: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/ihas/poet/agee.html. According to the pbs site, Agee appears to be a somewhat James Dean character (?): "Poet, novelist, journalist, film critic, and social activist, Agee would lead an unorthodox, hard-driving life that would result in an early death."

I'm rather intrigued by the man. Like me he has Huguenot heritage. And he died one day before I was born.

The images are from a fireworks display in Auckland, February 2006.

For more on my progress with this and other songs I am learning, visit http://mynstrel.blogspot.com/

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Samuel Barber
• James Agee
• Peter Mellalieu
• art song
• practice
• Huguenot