A Vision

I now have about twenty minutes of first draft music to show for two months of official work on the show.  That's about ten minutes a month, or .3 minutes a day, which I think is a pretty reasonable rate.  Honestly, if I knew that I could consistently write 1 second of really solid music per day, then that's all I would do.  After a decade or so I'd have a nice symphony and then what more would I need?

The most recent piece that I've worked on is a setting of Coleridge's Kubla Khan.  William sings it when asked to perform something old along with something new.

The text is as follows:

A damsel with a dulcimer

In a vision once I saw:

It was an Abyssinian maid,

And on her dulcimer she played,

Singing of Mount Abora.

Could I revive within me

Her symphony and song,

To such a deep delight 'twould win me,

That with music loud and long,

I would build that dome in air,

That sunny dome! those caves of ice!

And all who heard should see them there,

And all should cry, Beware! Beware!

His flashing eyes, his floating hair!

Weave a circle round him thrice,

And close your eyes with holy dread,

For he on honey-dew hath fed,

And drunk the milk of Paradise.

The challenge, of course, for any text that doesn't have some sort of hook, repeating words, or sections, is to keep the song interesting and consistent without seeming random.  That's the challenge for romantic folk music, at least.  What I've done so far, which I'm not sure I like yet, is to create a two variations on a guitar loop that last for eight or ten bars each.  The melody is never exactly the same, but the guitar is very familiar and repetitive throughout.  

The melody itself is very lyrical and vocally demanding- we're going to need a pretty good tenor for this role.  

I'm still debating whether or not to add in the string quartet to this song.  I think I'm going to, but at one point I think a guitar-only song could be powerful...