Eva

The folksong is one of the most valuable, still largely untapped musical sources available to today's musician; they provide insight into the values of various cultures around the world and, in many instances, reflect the struggles and triumphs common to all people. Folksongs take on many moods from the sad and mournful to the light, flippant, and in some cases, even the nonsensical. “Eva” is an old and popular J amaican song that describes a young woman's unique personality evident even as an infant. Each verse is treated differently in order to express, musically, meaning in the text. The harmonic treatment of the first verse is fairly straightforward while the treatment of verse two paints the image of Eva walking to Kingston and then running right back. The final verse uses chromatic descending lines in several voices to depict the image of the baby Eva being gently laid in a bed. The 5/4 measure in this verse paints an image of Eva sleeping peacefully on the floor. This piece requires a free and flexible approach to tempo. Shorter note values imply the speeding-up of the tempo while the longer note values indicate the reverse.

Paul Tucker

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