Sheet music for voice and piano

By Karen Shell

Sometimes, when everything seems to be going along just fine, for no obvious reason you wake up with an unsettled feeling – an emptiness that you hadn’t noticed before.  Nothing has changed, but your mind has definitely shifted.  Old memories resurface, but not to solve any problems or clarify life’s journey – they just hover in the back of your mind in a vague way that causes a yearning for something you can’t even name.

When Will You Come Home? was born out of such a mood.  The “you” in the title never meant someone I actually knew; rather it referred to that feeling of longing – possibly for a person, or maybe for a past moment, or even for a way of thinking that was once a part of daily living and, unnoticed, slipped away.

The song came into being while doodling abstractedly at the piano, my hands falling into a repetitive line in mixolydian mode, reminiscent of a steady, hypnotizing rainfall.  Then came the vocal line, almost a sigh, starting on the minor seventh and falling like rain, over and over.  Lyrics tumbled out, as vague and haunting as the music.  The bridge expanded into other modes, with sweet dissonance and unexpected resolutions.  If it weren’t for the bridge, I may have abandoned the song; but to me it’s the beautiful country you can only reach through the narrow river of the two hypnotic verses before it.  When the bridge rounds a corner into the last verse, you appreciate the known landscape, remember the journey, and let the current pull you all the way through the tag line, which ends one note lower than every previous phrase, reminding you that you’re still unsettled, still unsure.  The long syllable “home” becomes “om” if you choose to slowly turn the diphthong until you reach closure.  

The trance ends.  You listen a moment to the silence, and then go back and sing it again.

So is it a pop song or an art song?  Have a listen to this rough cut and decide for yourself! 

Musical Particulars: 

When Will You Come Home? seems to be in the Key of D, but the key signature shows only one sharp instead of two because it’s in mixolydian mode, which is like the major scale with a lowered seventh.  The vocal range is mostly from Middle C to the C above, dipping down to B once at the very end, and rising to Eb once in the bridge.  The piano difficulty rating is pretty much medium, although lots of accidentals in the bridge might cause a beginner some consternation.

You can find When Will You Come Home? in Vocal Music for $3.25 per copy. Printed on 12x18 paper produced with wind power.