Beautiful vocals and interesting composition.

wonderfull, experimental, very nice with that vocals

"Song of the Open Road" is a poem by Walt Whitman from his 1856 collection “Leaves of Grass”. It has 15 sections, each with 3-4 stanzas. For the lyrics of the song that I have composed, I have chosen the most famous of these sections, which is the first. At the end of this introduction I have attached the lyrics of this section.

The intention has been to compose a small song to continue delving into the use of the singing voice synthesis software, Vocaloid. Since this software only sings in the English language (which is not one of my usual languages) I thought that it might be interesting to use a poem by an author of that language as a text and I decided on this American poet.

On the other hand, the most important issue in the harmonic-melodic aspect has been that I have considered it as an exercise in Modal Harmony. I have used a different mode for each of the stanzas of the poem and in this order: Phrygian, Dorian, Mixolydian and Lydian. It is an order that fulfills the elementary principle of going from less to more musical "brightness." I have also dispensed with the Ionian and Aeolian modes to get away from the tonal environment and enhance the modal color. In the use of each of these modes I have introduced a "strange" note, that is, it does not belong to the scale of the mode. In all cases this note is the one that corresponds to a semitone lower than the base note of the scale of the mode; it is also located in the last position of the melody of each stanza, closing it and coincides with the first note of the following stanza, but in this case it is not strange, on the contrary, it coincides with the characteristic note of the new mode. This is the way the different modes are chained together.

I attach the lyrics of the poem to facilitate your understanding: 


Song of the Open Road

Afoot and light hearted I take to the open road,
Healthy, free, the world before me,
The long brown path before me leading wherever I choose.

Henceforth I ask not good-fortune, I myself am good-fortune,
Henceforth I whimper no more, postpone no more, need nothing,
Done with indoor complaints, libraries, querulous criticisms,
Strong and content I travel the open road.

The earth, that is sufficient,
I do not want the constellations any nearer,
I know they are very well where they are,
I know they suffice for those who belong to them.

(Still here I carry my old delicious burdens,
I carry them, men and women, I carry them with me wherever I go,
I swear it is impossible for me to get rid of them,
I am fill’d with them, and I will fill them in return.)




Esta introducción en castellano:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1OqX5rUbuEkHBFP8MlUnpJfH2LaJIynP9/view?usp=sharing

Aquesta introducció en català:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1fKxXa2Ms5qZES9MdmYOnRT3894_cdC2r/view?usp=sharing

Song Of The Open Road

A piece of music is a mentally constructed entity, of which scores and performances are partial representations by which the piece is transmitted.
(Fred Lerdahl & Ray Jackendoff)

Any tone can succeed any other tone, any tone can sound simultaneously with any other tone or tones, and any group of tones can be followed by any other group of tones, just as any degree of tension  or nuance can occur in any medium under any kind of stress or duration. Successful projection will depend upon the contextual and formal conditions that prevail, and upon the skill and soul of the composer.
(Vincent Persichetti)

Music is a system of signs composed of complex forms which may be represented by physical sounds, and which in this way mediate between mental and psychic contents. To deal with such a system, semiotics are naturally evoked. To describe these forms, mathematics is the adequate language. To represent these forms on the physical level, physics are indispensable. And to understand the psychic contents, psychology is the predestined science.
(Guerino Mazzola)

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