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Timothy C. Takach
Timothy C. Takach Publications
Twenty Questions (from “Where Beauty Comes From”)
A natural 5/4 meter, delightful lyrics, a ton of character. A poignant message wrapped up in a lovely piece.
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Where Beauty Comes From
2-part treble, piano
This movement from Takach’s larger cycle “Where Beauty Comes From” certainly stands on it’s own. The intervalic melodies drive this piece forward, and the meter changes are musically natural and exist because of the emotional shifts in the text. Idiomatic piano writing supports the choral writing, which stays in unison for most of the piece with some splits into 2 parts to great effect.
Composer’s Notes
In 2010, poet Julia Klatt Singer and I spent time talking with some of the patients at the Children’s Hospital of Minneapolis and St. Paul. Our project was to listen to their words and stories, and create music from their experiences. “Twenty Questions” is part of the 4 movement cycle “Where Beauty Comes From,” written for the Minnesota Boychoir. In this song, questions become a fun means of escape – the “yes or no” queries from the electronic game Twenty Questions seem so trivial when compared to the more ambiguous questions hanging in the air. The patient makes up their own questions – silly ones to help pass the time. Musically, the escapism of making up questions happens in a jaunty 5/4 meter, while the 4/4 sections bring us back down to reality.
– Timothy C. Takach
Text
When you’re in a hospital bed
There’s not much to do
So you study the numbers,
follow the tubes,
ask yourself questions, like
Do elephants have belly buttons?
Do pandas like peanuts?
Do you think I’ll lose my smile,
when I’m a grown up?
The nurses keep going
home every day.
Just stay for one,
then a new one comes.
Twenty questions, it’s just a game
It says it can read my mind
But it doesn’t even know
what I’m talking about.
Don’t want to think about
all the things I’m missing,
all the time I’m spending here.
Don’t want to think, so instead
How many flavors of ice cream
Are there in the world?
What would a red whale look like,
in a red sea?
When you’re in a hospital bed
There’s not much to do
So you memorize your arm band,
the tune the I.V. sings.
Daddy ate a birthday candle
Just for fun.
Mom tells me she’s seen me
do the bravest things.
You ask me if it’s hard
to be here in this bed.
I tell you life is hard, no matter
where you’re living it.
I do know this
No game can prove me wrong
There is so much happy
and sad, so all of a sudden
& there isn’t anything
we wouldn’t do
for each other.
– Julia Klatt Singer (2010)
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