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Vou Com Você
Nathan Smith’s Vou Come Você was written as a love letter from the perspective of a young girl from Brazil. She expresses her longing for a boy named Charlie singing, “vou come você,” which in English means “I will go with you.” As a songwriter, Smith encourages performers to treat this piece as a song rather than an academic exercise. This piece will be an accessible way to highlight the versatility of the marimba in a ‘singer-sonwriter’ format rather than an academic performance setting.
The vocal part, with lyrics in Portuguese, includes an English translation. Furthermore, this part can easily be used as a lead sheet so other melodic instruments like flute or violin can play the lead part as opposed to just limiting it to vocals.
This piece comes as a professionally printed and bound score and includes individual parts in PDF format for printing or for tablet viewing.
• Alto voice
• Marimba (low C)
It is not often that music shows up in this portion of Percussive Notes in which the percussionist is not the feature. This piece falls under that category. Translating from Portuguese to “I Will Go With You,” “Vou Com Você” is a love song written from the perspective of a Brazilian woman. Being a vocal work, the marimbist is given the role of accompanist while the feature performer is the alto voice.
The work is in a basic song form, consisting of a short intro in the accompaniment followed by two verses, a chorus after each verse, and an eight-measure marimba interlude. The piece ends with an extended chorus. Each verse or chorus has nearly identical arpeggiated gestures, making it rather repetitive for the marimbist, which is to be expected from an accompaniment part.
The most difficult section for the keyboardist is the eight-measure interlude. Here, just like a solo work, the melody is present in the right hand and the left provides the accompaniment. While more independence in the hands is required here, this portion follows the same chord progression as the verses, so even though the level of activity increases, the notes will be familiar.
The unique challenge this piece presents is to work as an accompanist, a skill that percussion- ists are not typically taught. This requires listening to the singer and letting the tempo be slightly flexible to match the lyricism and emotion that the singer puts into the melodies. Being exactly metronomic in music like this can take away from the desired effect. Depending on the percussionist, this can be a tough lesson to learn, but it is a necessary one as it is commonly employed in chamber and large ensemble work.
“Vou Com Você” is a great addition to the repertoire for voice and mallet percussion. The warmth of the marimba complements the singer’s beautiful melodies in this piece, and the skills of an accompanist are those that all percussionists would do well to learn.
—Kyle Cherwinski
Percussive Notes
Vol. 58, No. 2, April 2020
Nathan Smith’s Vou Come Você was written as a love letter from the perspective of a young girl from Brazil. She expresses her longing for a boy named Charlie singing, “vou come você,” which in English means “I will go with you.” As a songwriter, Smith encourages performers to treat this piece as a song rather than an academic exercise. This piece will be an accessible way to highlight the versatility of the marimba in a ‘singer-sonwriter’ format rather than an academic performance setting.
The vocal part, with lyrics in Portuguese, includes an English translation. Furthermore, this part can easily be used as a lead sheet so other melodic instruments like flute or violin can play the lead part as opposed to just limiting it to vocals.
This piece comes as a professionally printed and bound score and includes individual parts in PDF format for printing or for tablet viewing.
• Alto voice
• Marimba (low C)
It is not often that music shows up in this portion of Percussive Notes in which the percussionist is not the feature. This piece falls under that category. Translating from Portuguese to “I Will Go With You,” “Vou Com Você” is a love song written from the perspective of a Brazilian woman. Being a vocal work, the marimbist is given the role of accompanist while the feature performer is the alto voice.
The work is in a basic song form, consisting of a short intro in the accompaniment followed by two verses, a chorus after each verse, and an eight-measure marimba interlude. The piece ends with an extended chorus. Each verse or chorus has nearly identical arpeggiated gestures, making it rather repetitive for the marimbist, which is to be expected from an accompaniment part.
The most difficult section for the keyboardist is the eight-measure interlude. Here, just like a solo work, the melody is present in the right hand and the left provides the accompaniment. While more independence in the hands is required here, this portion follows the same chord progression as the verses, so even though the level of activity increases, the notes will be familiar.
The unique challenge this piece presents is to work as an accompanist, a skill that percussion- ists are not typically taught. This requires listening to the singer and letting the tempo be slightly flexible to match the lyricism and emotion that the singer puts into the melodies. Being exactly metronomic in music like this can take away from the desired effect. Depending on the percussionist, this can be a tough lesson to learn, but it is a necessary one as it is commonly employed in chamber and large ensemble work.
“Vou Com Você” is a great addition to the repertoire for voice and mallet percussion. The warmth of the marimba complements the singer’s beautiful melodies in this piece, and the skills of an accompanist are those that all percussionists would do well to learn.
—Kyle Cherwinski
Percussive Notes
Vol. 58, No. 2, April 2020
