About Songs For All Seasons

Songs For All Seasons was born of a sudden inspiration about two years ago: There must be an awful lot of public domain poetry just lying around doing nothing when it could be set to music and given a new lease of life. So after some consideration, I thought I would see if I could find poems to cover the events of an entire year, from New Year’s Day to New Year’s Eve. Then I reflected further and thought “What about all the significant events in people’s lives that aren’t tied to a specific day, such as weddings, birthdays etc.?” I included those in my list as well. It took some time to find a selection of poems that I was satisfied with and that were suitable for musical adaptation – poems that were neither too long nor too short, with the right rhythmic structure and so on. But eventually I started writing my first song in February 2023.

I decided to set them for SATB as it is versatile and the most common choir setting, I enjoy it, and it can be easily adapted/arranged. Well, I say SATB; I divide parts willy-nilly, to avoid awkward part-writing, to fill out the chord, or just to make it sound like it sounds in my head (or all three!). In actuality, I think every single song has at least one part that divides at least once. Some parts divide into three, and there is one song that features SSAATTBB in two separate choirs. However SATB will suffice as a short-hand. They are also all written to be performed unaccompanied, although I provide a piano part for rehearsal, which can be used to support the performance if necessary. Additionally, there is a mix of difficulty levels – some songs are quite simple and hymn-like, others are more challenging.

Averaging about a song a week (the quickest one was about five hours from start to finish) I finally wrote the last note in June 2024.

Throughout this time I had also been planning what exactly I would do once I finished. I would like to get the songs published but I need a bit of help along the way.

So, I may have invented the concept of beta choirs. I certainly didn’t invent the concept of beta testing – that’s been around for a long time – the concept involves sending a new product or piece of software out to a selection of intended users so they can try it and provide feedback. I don’t know if anyone’s ever done it with choirs before, but I currently have a list of choirs that I will be emailing to invite them to beta test my songs. Hopefully I will receive a good response and each choir will get a song each and be asked to video record themselves singing, which they will then send back to me along with their feedback.

Then the plan is to refine the songs and find a publisher!

So, welcome to the journey! I’m very excited about it, and I hope you will be interested enough to follow along and see how things develop.