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The Ballads, Songs & Vignettes (BSV) Collection [Part 11]

Found in: Miscellany & Merriment, Neil Moore

In the BSV series, each video will have a description, written by Neil–some of them are brief and some are longer. To watch the introduction read the first installment in this series “The Ballads, Songs, & Vignettes Collection [Intro]”.

 

Song #18: “The Mirron”

I really like this simple piece. It’s the first song we present to our students when they begin the Jazz Clues program.

From a compositional perspective, the melody of this piece is oriented entirely around the 3rd interval of each and every chord that’s being played. Chord voicings are very simple and very open – just 3 or 4 notes at any time – and I think that the piece is well represented when played simply, sparsely, sensitively and slowly.

Students of all ages, consistently, over decades, would ask about the title – “What is a Mirron?”, or, “what does Mirron mean?”, or, “why is it called The Mirron, what is that?” etc. I would say to them, “Well, let’s just imagine that there’s one word in the dictionary that doesn’t yet have a meaning or a definition – and it’s the word ‘Mirron.’ It’s an undefined word at the moment. And let’s just imagine that it’s your job to define or describe what the word ‘Mirron’ means – it could be a person, a feeling, a place, or a thing – whatever you want it to be – and here’s what I want you to do. I want you to come back with a definition, or a description of the word ‘Mirron’, however, whatever description you assign to the word, I want you to come back and be able to play the piece in a way that represents your definition or description.”

What I found very entertaining and interesting about this was how consistently so many students (regardless of what country they were in, and regardless of their age), would come back with a response that was very similar. They would commonly say (some version or other), that The Mirron was a place – a perfectly still pond, or a river, or a vast lake, that was set in a beautiful and scenic forest, and reflected the trees or mountains in the background. I would ask them what time of day they were imagining, and most commonly they would say sunrise or sunset. I found the commonality of this to be rather fascinating.

Anyway, I don’t ascribe too much meaning to all of this, it was more so a means of helping students to create an internal imagery that would support their ability to play the piece with the emotion and expression that was consistent with the picture in their mind’s eye.

Anyway, I really like this piece. I hope you enjoy it.

(PS. For all of the lyricists out there, I’d love for someone to write some lyrics for this. It would be fun to do a studio recording of a vocal arrangement of this, with a much higher production level.)

 

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