Hard Times Come Again No More

A banjo-like piano accompaniment and expressive fiddle stylings lend folk authenticity to this plaintive and moving choral setting of Stephen Foster's classic song "Hard Times Come Over again No More than."  The text is set in simplicity and in fullness, by turns, equally the expression of the words demand, with private vocal parts always retaining a naturalness of line that create a musically satisfying and rich harmonic composite when combined with the other parts. Contrast is provided by the presentation of the melody in minor style for the third verse, reflecting the grief of the text, before the major key returns in a final, total-throated expression of the text's heart-felt plea.

Background:

I've ofttimes said that the best arrangements event when you've known and loved a vocal for many years, but have somehow never gotten effectually to setting it!  Somehow this "creative procrastination" allows for a distillation of essence, and y'all hear clearly into the emotive heart of the vocal.  Or perhaps it's more about the mellowing of the composer with age, with life's tragedies and triumphs seasoning the soul, which allows for a fuller — though hard-earned — perception of the expressive possibilities inherent in the song.

At whatsoever rate, after singing this vocal many years to myself at the pianoforte from time to time, a request from Rick Bjella and the San Antonio Sleeping room Choir brought about the opportunity to capture a "take" in the amber of musical notation.

As I ready to piece of work, I discovered an odd but essential adjustment in the Foster text that I had, at some bespeak over the years, unconsciously made: I had reversed a give-and-take social club in that memorable phrase "many days you have lingered around my cabin door."  I had changed "many days yous have lingered" to "many days have yous lingered."

It might seem like a pocket-size thing, but somehow I feel that my whole setting is based on the phrase rhythm that comes with that reversal.  The little "snap" of folk rhythm that becomes possible with that diction aligning opens many things up in the piece.  Perhaps I exaggerate, simply little details similar this can sometimes set the tone for a whole piece.

I chose i of my favorite keys — B major — with its beautiful colour, for the setting, because of its low-lying vocal placement for this item melody.  And I allow the piano set a simple banjo-style wearisome groove with the aid of an imagined "drone string" in the height note of the accompaniment.  I do love the color of the violin on a folk piece, and then I added that likewise, on expressive interludes providing textural contrast.

For the voices, I kept things mostly elementary (if divisi into vi parts, every once in a while, is elementary!), but allowed things to combine in a manner that lovely contours and harmonies resulted.  Ane of my favorite things to do is to let countermelodies emerge from snippets of the text; often in the creative process of arranging, the omission of a word can create a possibility of a different melodic arc.  At several points in this system, the omission of the discussion "cabin" in the aforementioned phrase allows for a countermelody with an expressive octave spring: "Many days take you lingered A-Round my door."  The tenors first sing this material in the second refrain, later followed by the soaring sopranos in the slice'due south final refrain.

It'southward pocket-sized details like these that allow a piece to form its ain "face," its own distinctiveness inside the repertory — bound to be large — with a well-loved song, every bit many folks have put their own stamp upon it.  Stephen Foster captured the emotional truth of a universal feel — suffering — in his song, and somehow I call back that individual people feel that their ain hardships are "seen" and validated in the space that this song opens up.  How can a song practise that?  That is i of the continual mysteries.  And we, as arrangers, do our best to magnify the expressive power that the songs, somehow, already come with — elementary and unadorned — before we try to make something fancy out of them.

(And this is as well why, when I teach arranging, that I ask my students to continually ask themselves as they work: Does the song live? Nosotros can generally stay out of its way, and support information technology equally it does its chore of reaching us.  Stephen Foster, after more than than a century, is still reaching united states of america, straight from his middle to ours.)