In school we did a project where we interpreted a poem through art. Here is the explanation for the song I created.
X Poem: In Memoriam A. H. HY. OBIIT MDCCCXXXIII: 126
By Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Stanza:
And hear at times a sentinel
Who moves about from place to place,
And whispers to the worlds of space,
In the deep night, that all is well.
When reading this stanza, I thought of the sentinel mentioned in the first line as the moon because it moves across the sky “…from place to place/ … In the deep night” (Tennyson 10-12). Using this imagery of the moon moving across the sky, I decided to create a piece that adds layers to represent the moon waxing and rising across the sky. The song starts out with a simple chord and melody pattern and adds a new layer such as guitar or more piano every 8 measures. Eventually these layers are stripped back to just the piano melody and a simple guitar line, representing the waning and setting of the moon. Another part of the stanza that stuck out to me was the phrase, “And whispers to the worlds of space,/ In the deep night, that all is well.” (Tennyson 11-12). I used a simple melody that stays consistent throughout the song to represent the moon’s whisper that “…all is well” (Tennyson 12), using a soothing 3 note walkdown to mimic the three syllables in the phrase “all is well” with sonically pleasing intervals. Beyond the melodic structure of the song, the tempo and tone are very relaxed to represent the calm imagery of the moon moving across the sky at night. Through my use of simple instrumentation, melodic structure, and layering, I was able to recreate in my mind the image of the silent sentinel watching over the world at night, moving across the world and telling everyone that all is well.