Micro-Dramatic Songs from Prague I (2009)
by Dan Senn

      
for soprano, marimba, and string trio (BMI)

      

      
This song cycle was
      written in the Spring of 2009 in the countryside near Prague,
      in Libušín, and then in Prague itself at my Břevnov flat. It is based on my own texts and presented
      as four musical vignettes that are humorous, and
      both socially and personally reflective. The duration, with breaks, is about 13 minutes if presented sequentially. (see Micro-Dramatic Songs from Prague II.)
The Gathering (3:27) (text) is about an experience I had with artist friends at a villa just outside Prague. For hours we had been discussing politics and art while drinking Czech beer when, suddenly, a single cell phone rang. In a snap the language switched back to Czech, my friends bolting to their cars all within 30 seconds. It was odd, even funny, for sure, but also mysterious as I was suddenly alone still sitting. A minute earlier, we had been ready to march on Parliament and then, "buzz-buzz", and they all vanished as if into thin air. I don't remember the excuse given later on.
The Chubby Little Czech (3:25) (text) describes a bus ride over the hill from Břevnov to Anděl for groceries in Prague. Most of the text is true, some of it invented. On this particular trip, on a crowded bus, I observed a small man seated, his feet not quite touching the ground, who seemed to want the attention of the sullen Czech mums surrounding him all holding bags of groceries on their laps and on the floor. His neatly combed head was moving to and fro as he smiled like a car salesman trying to catch the woman's attention but the they could not have cared less. Czech woman have seen it all and now their indifference was killing him! Scribbling in a notebook, I later embellished the text to create a character with a high squeaky voice, Czech nationalistic sentiments and a bent toward WW2 to boot.
The Lonely Child (3:39) (text) is not intended to be humorous. It evolved from watching a mother and her three children interact in a public park, the emotional dynamic between them as presented. This was not a happy family. And then I filtered the experience through those of my own childhood. The piece remains a little mysterious to me.
The Belle from Brno (1:45) (text) is describes a student who kept chickening out of a project she had proposed--a light ending to this song cycle. She eventually completed the project returning to her city of birth.
These works have been performed as written but accompaniment here only by
the notation software voices. An alternative performance arrangement that would be for the string parts to be played by a small string orchestra.
See note below on the use of compound
time.


      


      
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      Performace Note: The Use of
Compound Time

      
When working with speech and music, I am uncomfortable with
simple time that inevitably necessitates the use of tuplets to
accurately represent a natural flow of language. Also, there
is a martial
undercurrent to 2/4 time that does not fit natural speech. My heart does
not beat in simple time. My brain does not flex itself and amble along
as such. The anatomic base of human speech is grouped in 6 or 12
beats to
the count and never 4 or 8 or 16. In these songs simple time appears on
top of a compound sub-pulse. To notate it otherwise is inefficient
and feels contrary to the natural flow of human speech.

      

The process I used to compose these songs begins with writing the texts, all based on real life experiences,
collecting many of them, and then going over and over each until the
natural speech rhythms are clear to me. These arise in threes and
not as often in groupings of four. Simple
time often feels simplistic and untrue. Awkward. Like a metrical lie
where
compound time feels precise, flowing and correct. From here I intone
the
line using a similar process... with the resulting text acting as a
kind of tonal DNA which drives the surrounding accompaniment.
Everything is connected, a unity which is important to all of my work,
both visual and aural. 

      
And then there's a more modern and technical reason. With midi versions
of
new music being common now, a piece can be learned, in part, by rote,
and even online. Using myself as a guinea pig, I have adapted
to my own use of compound time. It is not difficult to read.
If the "dots" are too small, a larger score can be made from the pdf.