Making Poems Sing

Savoring the original texts as poetry is the way to the heart of songs.-PHILIP L. MILLER1OF ALL PEOPLE, singers need to know about poetry. Without poetry, there would be no art songs to sing. Poet Maya Angelou said it well: is music written for the human voice.2 In an art song, the poem existed first, complete with its own that of distinctive word sounds carefully juxtaposed into designs of resonance by the poet. David Mason, Colorado's Poet Laureate, writes, creates a pattern of sound and that sound has meaning. Poetry is a dance that lives in the nervous system.3The birth of an art song goes something like this: a poem with its arrangements of unique word sounds appeals to a composer who decides to set those words to music. In doing so, he adds another layer of sound to the mixture. Now the words are encased in musical sound, which adds its own pitch, rhythm, and textures to those the poem already possesses. An art song emerges from the resultant fusion. Words and music are equally important. In the best art songs it is difficult to think of the music without the words, and vice versa. Composer Lori Laitman says, and music is a DNA combo.4It only remains for a singer and pianist to recreate the song in performance, adding the unique timbre of their instruments to produce the ultimate product. In a sense, the singer becomes the poet, recreating his poem in a texture of musical sound. We are not just singing words, we are singing poems. It is storytelling par excellence. Each and every singer who recreates the song has his/her own distinctive vocal qualities, so the art song will change minutely in sound quality depending on the performer's musical choices of weight and articulation in performance.Adding one's self to the mix happens rather spontaneously in performance, but not without careful preparation of the poetic and musical material beforehand. Distinguished baritone and pedagogue Pierre Bernac described it this way: I think the first duty of an interpreter is to be, as Stravinsky has said, a flawless executant, that is, perform the music exactly as it is written. This is the basis. Beyond this, if you can add something of yourself without compromising the music, then you are an artist. If not, you are just a performer like all the other performers.5What sort of opinions do you have about the poetry you sing? Is it simply a number of lines of words strung together that somehow relates to the title of the poem? Did you choose the song because you were especially drawn to the title? Perhaps to the poem? Or did you choose the song because you thought the music would make you sound fabulous? After you have internalized poetry and music, you most probably will sound impressive, but only as a result of having read and studied the poem, then its musical setting. Once this information is internalized you will use it subconsciously with your imagination as you perform the art song.Poetry is the art of using words charged with their utmost meaning.-DANA GIOIA6As you read poetry, you will find that your imagination stretches and becomes an active part of the work. Imagination is one of the most essential abilities in interpreting art songs; the information you collect from working with poetry integrates seamlessly into your study of the art song as a fusion of poetry and the composer's musical setting.How do we become proficient at experiencing poems? Where do we start? Obviously, the first task is to choose a poem to read and work with. There may be a specific poet whose work you have heard and liked; if not, take a poetry anthology and browse through it until you see a poem you mink you might like to read. It will be easier to take the poem from an art song in English that you especially like to sing. Copy out the poem away from the musical setting and begin to look at the poem for word sounds and imagery. It is important to read the poem in its original format. …