Listen to Brown, Brown Baby below. Purchase the accompanying book by Kisha Edwards-Gandsy here.

As featured in Harp Column Magazine, June 2024

Inspired by Nature

Shortly before taking an educational retreat to St. Elizabeth Jamaica, I decided to bring my harpsicle along with me.  While on the island visiting elementary schools, my friend/colleague and I took a little self care time on Treasure Beach.   There, she handed me a poem that she named “Brown, Brown Baby”.  It was a beautiful poem that she wanted set to music as a lullaby.   After reading it aloud a couple of times, I started to sing the words and was quickly able to hear what it could sound like as a melody.  It may be a sign of the times, but I used my voice notes app to document it all.  I heard it in 4 bar phrases; “Brown Brown Baby skin so sweet //  Tastes like a cup of honey bush tea // The sun loved you before you were born // Now sleep like the sun till the early morn…” My friend is a mother of 3 energetic children who owns and and runs a couple of preschools, so the need for a soothing lullaby was really important to her.  I could just imagine her lulling her own little ones and pre-school students to sleep with this.  

Make it Memorable - Create an Earworm

Since this was intended to be a lullaby,  I thought about the characteristics that would promote relaxation.  I created a simple and repetitive figure that was memorable, with very slight harmonic or melodic variations at the ends of the small phrases.  At the end of each larger, 8 bar phrase, I felt a natural fermata.  Maybe at the end of the larger phrases, there’s a chance that the baby has fallen asleep :) so it’s just enough time to pause and look to see if the song can end.  I wasn’t sure if full on fermatas were too much, so I decided to make them molto ritardandos, hoping that felt and sounded more natural.  It’s a melody that can be repeated endless times.  Actually, I recently recorded it for World Sleep Day and had to shorten it because the melody was “stated too many times” according to the streaming team at my record label.  This sheet music reflects the edited version.

No Accidentals & Choosing the range

Since I composed this on a harpsicle and was sitting in a less than ideal position, changing key wasn’t an option. Also, being limited to 26 strings influenced where I ultimately decided to notate and record it; and that’s primarily in the upper 2/3rd of the harp.  There are a couple of places where the bass reaches the 5th octave B but there is nothing composed lower than that.  This makes it playable on nearly any harp and that low B can be played up an octave for smaller harps.

Comfort for the Hand

I really wanted everything to fit quite nicely into the hand and I think it’s represented pretty well with few exceptions.  Bar 16 was a bit awkward to play on the 2nd & 3rd beats without buzzing so that’s something that I had to experiment with for a decent fingering. I do not put fingerings in my sheet music;  Partly because my Finale skills are limited but also because everyone uses such different fingerings and I find that many of my colleagues prefer to use their own.

My Biggest Challenge -

Dynamics were really a challenge for me.  On the 26 string harp, I had no choice but to lighten up my touch and play softly.  However, playing this on a pedal harp, with much tighter tension, it forced me to take a step back and assess my sound.  I am a pretty loud player so playing really quietly, while maintaining a rich tone was quite tough.  As much as I wanted to play loudly, I kept reminding myself that it is a lullaby and the intent is to be mellow and encourage dozing off.  

Be Yourself - 

Though this short composition is written out note for note, it’s important that the player knows that they can be themselves.  The chord structure is simple enough to create your own left hand accompaniment and the melody can be improvised openly.  The piece consists of mainly Bb, F and Eb major chords and a G minor chord.  It’s fun to play around with different inversions of those chords to hear how it changes the sound.  It’s also a good practice to substitute some of the bass notes.  Since it’s all diatonic, there are but so many options to play around with so you won’t end up sounding too out of bounds.  Overall, the idea is to keep the feeling and spirit of a lullaby in mind while playing it.  I truly hope that this short, easy read brings some joy to those who play it and some rest to those who listen to it.