The Colby Echo

Issue date: 4/30/08 Section: Arts & Entertainment

Media Credit: Courtesy of Shaelyn Germain

On a rock far out at sea sat Greek mythology's sirens, singing the most beautiful music ears could hear. Passing sailors felt compelled to jump ship and swim to them. Some like to think that the sirens then ate the sailors. But it's not clear that they were malicious. Rather, sailors may have simply died of starvation: the sirens' song was so enchanting they never wanted to leave.

Since the sirens were in the middle of nowhere, and Homer doesn't mention instruments, it's fair to assume that they sang a cappella, much like their descendents-in-spirit here on the Hill. These sassy-but-silly songstresses let us continue living by cutting us off after 40 minutes or so at their concerts. But how, exactly (cheesiest intro ever, I know) do they go about making this gorgeous music of death?

"It makes it a whole lot easier if you have a [music notation] program" like Sibelius on your computer, Kathleen Fallon '10 said. "Then you pretty much just listen to the song... pick out the voice parts and decide what to do with it."

"Everyone does it differently," Catherine Woodiwiss '09 added. "Bass line is usually easiest do first"-as Fallon typically does, writing it through the entire song, following with other parts one at a time-"but ... I do the whole song as we go through," a few measures at a time for each voice part.

"Then you have to find the syllables that you want to use," Fallon said, like "doos and dims."

"For our intents, we usually try to work in the syllable 'meow' whenever possible," Woodiwiss added.

"You can kind of play around," Fallon said. "You get to change [the song], make it your own." Whitney Simmonds '07 liked writing in parts resembling nothing from the original songs; Piper Haywood '10 once wrote a "Hide and Seek" arrangement totally different from one the 2006 Sirens sang; and this semester Fallon had to decide how she wanted to interpret electric guitar sounds. It was a learning experience, but a mixed blessing. "Arranging's fun, but you also feel like you're procrastinating from doing work, but it has to get done, so you're not really procrastinating, and it just gets confusing."

The next step involves this group's distinguishing trait. "The Sirens always switch around the solo, so it makes [arranging] a bit more difficult," Fallon said. Woodiwiss recalled that "Hurt So Bad," a 2006 arrangement, "was so bizarre to look at, because it's one person [alone for several measures] and then all of a sudden everything jumps in, and there's all this line-switching and stuff."

Continued...

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