Compose a song for medium voice (range B-flat to F, a twelfth) and piano using the style and harmonic procedures of either the Baroque era (17th C Italian song), Classical era (Mozart, Haydn), Romantic era (Schubert, Brahms), or Impressionist (Debussy). Use a simple poem with two or three stanzas (sample poems are below).

The style of the melody and accompaniment should fit the character of the words. The form should either be modified strophic or through-composed.

Checklist:

1. Make sure that the vocal rhythms correspond to the accents in the words.
2. Most points of punctuation (commas, periods, semicolons, etc.) should be set with a musical cadence
3. The piano accompaniment will most likely consist of chordal figuration appropriate to the tempo and mood of the words
4. Contrasting stanzas or sections of verses can be set off by modulations or mode changes
5. Write words below staff, dynamics and expression marks above.
6. Tempo indications are written once at the top of the system.
7. If a syllable is sustained under more than one note, slur the notes and use hyphens (if between syllables) or underline (if at the end of the word) in the text underlay:

8. Make sure that vertical alignment is maintained. (Finale will generally do this for you)
9. Voice parts and piano need to be completely edited for slurs, marks of expression, articulation, dynamics, and tempo

Poems

By the Rivers of Babylon

By the rivers of Babylon,
There we sat down and wept,
When we remembered Zion.
There on the willows we hung our harps.
For our captors demanded of us songs,
And our tormentors mirth, saying,
“Sing us one of the songs of Zion.”
How can we sing the Lord's song in a foreign land?
(Psalm 137)

Love Me Little

Love me little, love me long,
Is the burden of my song.
Love that is too hot and strong
Burneth soon to waste.
Still, I would not have thee cold,
Not too beackward, nor too bold;
Love that lasteth till ‘tis old
Fadeth not in haste.
(Anon. Elizabethan)

The Difference between Despair

The difference between Despair
And Fear—is like the One
Between the instant of a Wreck—
And when the Wreck has been—

The Mind is smooth—no Motion—
Contented as the Eye
Upon the Forehead of a bust—
That knows—it cannot see—
(Emily Dickinson)

A Farewell

Flow down, cold rivulet, to the sea,
Thy tribute wave deliver;
No more by thee my steps shall be,
Forever and forever.

A thousand suns will stream on thee,
A thousand moons will quiver;
But not by thee my steps shall be,
Forever and forever.
(Tennyson)

The courage my mother had

The courage that my mother had
Went with her, and is with her still:
Rock from New England quarried ;
Now granite in a granite hill.

The golden brooch my mother wore
She left behind for me to wear;
I have no thing I treasure more:
Yet, it is something I could spare.

Oh, if instead she'd left to me
The thing she took into the grave!—
That courage like a rock, which she
Has no more need of, and I have.