The poem I chose to compose musically was her 494th poem, with the first line "Going - to Her!" It has an interesting rhythmic pattern; it is essentially iambic, but it falls out of meter very, very often, making this poem a great example of Dickinson's stylized rhythm. The poem also has a lot of dashes, causing the reader to pause at each one to consider why he or she is stopping. There is a dash at almost every word, it seems. By using her irregular rhythm and all of her dashes, she has created a poem that seems to walk, with an occasional skip-step.
The song also has a very stylized rhythm. It is in four-four time, but the main riff is long, and it seems to extend past the point that it should. I did this to make the time of the song more interesting; the main riff extends past the normal four-four time. The song tries to mirror the walking feel of Dickinson's poem, also, with the occasional skip-step.
I decided to read the poem over the song, although the music wasn't written in accordance with the words of the poem. In reading the poem, I tried to keep the time with the music and also pause at certain important parts of the poem. By adding the effect of my voice, I was able to make certain parts of the poem stick out more than others. I also did this because it takes the focus off of the actual words in the poem, and makes the rhythm more audible.
This is the first song I wrote from a poem. It was a lot more difficult than I had imagined. I write songs pretty often, but usually I don't have a template to go by. I wanted the poem to shape the song by incorporating certain things, and although the song wasn't originally written with the intent of having the poem read over it, I feel like it has become a very important part of the piece. It was more difficult than I had expected, but I think that the song came out as a decent, yet different, representation of Dickinson's rhythmic styling.
Listen to Nathan's Song