Нич яка мисячна (What A Moonlit Night)

This is such a beautiful traditional folk song from Ukraine. As most songs are, it’s a love song but when a country’s culture and identity are at risk of being lost, the song becomes even more heartbreakingly poignant. This is how I came up with the introduction and interlude of the audio track.

I met a Ukrainian lady who is seeking refuge here, and had a conversation with her. It is always difficult to relocate from one’s homeland, and I cannot imagine the emotional turmoil the Ukrainians are going through with the war going on and their separation from their loved ones. When I asked her to suggest to me a popular folk song from her country, she recommended this one.

Listening to this song for the first time, I already knew I wanted to create a bass play-along for the song. The melody is lovely, but I know that for many classroom mallet instruments, the availability of accidental keys is rather limited to F# and Bb; perhaps a C# if we teachers are lucky. so a bass play-along it was going to be.

Planning for student learning objectives and teaching points, I kept the key of A minor to minimise accidentals for beginning musicians, and mapped out the parts that would provide a good level of challenge to Orff pitched percussion players. The bass notes were naturally positioned apart enough such that left and right hand mallets could be distinguished quite instinctually. The progressions made up of I, IV, and V chords would also be familiar to students with some experience playing music.

I debated with myself if I should create a ukulele play-along, as the E chord was a potentially difficult position on the instrument, but finally decided not to confine my expectations (students can surprise us with what they are able to achieve).

The visual part of the video was a little more tricky. As an individual, I do have strong feelings against the suffering caused by war, and the sacredness of a country’s sovereignty. It is not my intention to have this video as a political statement of actions that are right or wrong, but rather, to bring awareness and appreciation to parts of Ukraine’s culture and traditions in the form of music and visual aids. To this effect, I chose the sunflowers as a symbol representing the people, and the colour palette from the Ukrainian flag. I also searched for traditional Ukrainian instruments and selected the Kobza, a string instrument similar to a lute, for the melody of the audio track I recorded. Of course, bearing in mind the title of the song, I had to add a full moon to the video, and falling stars to indicate the timing of the bass notes. I like the idea of the contrast of the moon and the sunflowers in the field. When the clouds and mist clear, the sunflowers remain, bravely standing in the field.

I created this video to introduce this song to students and colleagues all over the world, and in doing so, raise its visibility and preserve some of the cultural and musical aspects of Ukraine. We can do this together.

The YouTube link for this video can be accessed for free at https://youtu.be/fFk5HDH1lQQ.