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Timothy C. Takach
Timothy C. Takach Publications
Where Beauty Comes From (Cycle)
Texts inspired by the patients at the Children’s Hospital, with music that’s thoughtful, funny, and lyrical.
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Paper Cranes
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Twenty Questions
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Before We Get Dusty
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Where Beauty Comes From
SATB choir and piano
A stunning cycle of pieces written from the thoughts and ideas of the patients at the Children’s Hospital. This first collaborative effort between poet Julia Klatt Singer and composer Timothy C. Takach solidified their collaborative relationship, and you can hear why they’ve been so prolific. Julia’s words and poetic form have a matched home in Takach’s sweeping, lyrical vocal lines. Each phrase is considered, and these individual movements come off as songs – with repetition in verses and choruses, but with enough attention to detail to show off Takach’s adept skill at setting text.
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. The text of “Paper Cranes” has a couple different meanings. While we were there, the hospital was under construction, so each window of the patients’ rooms offered a view of the cranes nearby. But there were also origami paper cranes hanging from the ceiling in many rooms, made by the patients. The presence of these cranes hints at the Japanese legend which states that anyone who folds one thousand paper cranes is grated a wish.
In “Twenty Questions” 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.
One of the visits took Julia into the play room, where the patients had unstructured free time. The energy in the room was palpable. When you think about a child in a hospital, the first image you see is probably the hospital bed with it’s tubes, machines, generic art on the walls. But we forget that in most ways these kids are just regular kids. The text of “Before We Get Dusty” contrasts the energy of the patients with their desire to leave the hospital and get back to their regular lives.
The thoughts and ideas in “Where Beauty Comes From” cast these kids as unique individuals – people who won’t seen as a patient number or as someone to be overlooked. They will stand out, chase their dreams, and be loved. The meaning and power of these words, though, is carried beyond the context of the Children’s Hospital. Anyone can hear themselves in this story.
– Timothy C. Takach
Text
I. “Paper Cranes”
Wings made of paper, wishes made of air
One sits by the window, so quiet
The world out there
Made of buses, made of clouds
Made of steel, made of cranes.
One sits by the window
Listens to the dreams
we dream, hears the hum
of each machine,
knows that
If you could see
the way my mind moves
You’d hear the music in me.
In my head, an endless number,
A bear with no name.
Some things will always be here
Do not need a name or end
Some things we’ll never
Ever understand.
Blue’s my favorite color
Ruby and Rose, my favorite names
The day after we’re born
Is when our real life begins.
How does the crane carry
my wish on its wings?
How does the star rising,
hold my handprint
In its blaze?
A thousand cranes tied together,
left hanging cloud to cloud,
until tattered by the breeze,
and when they are broken
our wish begins.
II. “Twenty Questions”
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.
III. “Before We Get Dusty”
wish I had some bubble wrap
To pop with my feet
Want to jump, poke holes in paper
When it’s you, visiting me.
Feeling shy and thank you
Did you know my insides glow?
I swim like a fish, I dance like the wind
In the banana tree leaves.
I like pushing things
I like fighting and watching tv
I wish right now I was a bug
Climbing up your knee.
We’ll leave before we get dusty
We’ll run and climb every tree
Maybe tomorrow we’ll find some answers
Maybe we’ll all turn into bees.
I like to laugh and play with my grandpa,
I like ants in my p.j.s.
Do you wish you were a ball,
could roll and bounce off the walls with me?
I wish I was a builder
I’d build a house we’d decorate
With books and tickets, with money and dogs
With stickers and popsicle sticks.
On the ceiling we’ll find thoughts
Drifting and changing like the day,
We’ll lie on our backs and watch them
gather and carry our fears away.
We’ll leave before we get dusty
We’ll run and climb every tree
Maybe tomorrow we’ll find some answers
Maybe tomorrow we’ll leave.
Maybe tomorrow.
Maybe.
IV. “Where Beauty Comes From”
Lying on our backs, somewhere a guitar plays
we sing along, no words,
just a song all our own.
Sometimes the only thing moving
are your eyes,
blinking
to the beat of a drum.
What song do you see?
A darting bird? The sun’s hello?
Where beauty comes from?
We flicker like fireflies, we shine
Stars to guide us above,
we all want to matter, just want
To be loved.
Breathe in and hold it
breathe out and let it go
Sometimes we’ve got to improvise,
just sing a song all our own.
sometimes I’ve got to back away
sometimes I need to hear you say this with me
sometimes my life’s
an uncertainty
but one day I’ll make
all the difference,
you will see
in the world
you will see
close your eyes now, imagine
how this world could spin
open them and tell me
where beauty comes from
breathe in
and hold it
breathe out…
– All poems by Julia Klatt Singer (2010)
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