Six Songscapes by John Washburn

These songs are intended especially for young of beginning singers. Many of the technical aspects of the pieces, like range, tessitura, tempo, duration, and difficulty, have been carefully circumscribed with the young student in mind. The piano part, too, has been limited in case it is entrusted to other students or teachers with modest keyboard skills. As well, many musical considerations reflect concern for developing musicians and the concerns of their teachers. The songs offer many useful passages for establishing the basics of diction, resonance, and phrasing. I have recalled useful exercises from my own days as a voice student and tried to provide some devices and passages whicih will allow the teacher to bridge directly from technical exercise to interpretive song. The songs are short, not only to suit the brief poems, but to suit the purposes of both teacher and student. In both study and performance, it is fine for one to use the songs singly or to combine them in any possible number and order. The poems were written in 1999, a year before the music, and are mostly sheer wordplay - full of puns, rhyme, assonance, alliteration, and other linguistic fun. The words have moods, too, that I've tried to uncover with the music. Especially notice "Wind, wind" where the noun and verb have different pronunciations, and "Mountains, bend" where the words "be, 'neath", "be low", and "be friend" could be hyphenated, but aren't (the double meanings being intended.)