It’s a lullaby inspired by William Roberts’ painting “The Pigeon Carriers” for single line voice with optional harmony parts and descant.

One of the most popular formats for my Musical Sculptures workshops at the Hepworth Wakefield is when there is a song to learn then incidental music is composed to accompany or perhaps surround the song. Pigeon Hands was composed for such workshops when Roberts’ “The Pigeon Carriers” was hanging in the gallery a couple of years ago. The painting (which I am unable to reproduce here, but which you can see on this website http://www.users.waitrose.com/~wrs/pigeoncarriers.html ) depicts a bundle of what seem like working class people, many of whom have pigeons in their very chunky hands. Other figures have a whistle and a baby. I was taken by the contrast between the uses there characters’ hands would be put to in their working lives, and these very delicate and tender uses in the painting. I wrote three verses about the working lives of three of the characters, imaging them to be a miner, a washerwoman and a shipbuilder or riveter. The chorus is a lullaby to be sung to the pigeons, which includes a round (just in case confident singers turned up at the workshops!)

Unfortunately for this song, my Musical Sculptures workshops and this painting only coincided for one weekend, so the song received only two performances at the time in early 2012. Both workshops were large groups and they composed gentle lullaby-like accompaniment patterns to accompany the verses of the song performed by me, as well as learning the chorus to join in. The second of the two groups included a 15-year-old chorister and GCSE music student, as well as a Dad who could read music and sing very confidently. Due to the presence of these two unrelated participants, the group as a whole was able to sing the chorus as a 3-part round – a very satisfactory and gratifying thrill indeed.

Later in the year I taught the song to the members of Yew Tree Youth Music, and they too performed the song at the Hepworth Gallery in May 2012 to help celebrate the gallery’s 1st birthday. The song was then subsumed onto Yew Tree Youth Music’s production based on the history of the Lupset area of Wakefield, the shipbuilder being replaced by a general labourer, and included in their performances in June 2013.

It now has optional harmonies for the verses, and also a descant for the 3rd verse. These harmonies could be sung or played on instruments, making the song a very versatile one.