'Going Forth by Day' goes forth by night

The halls of churches were alive with the sound of music last month as the work of senior Nick Giebel was premiered at the Marietta College Fall Choir Concert.Giebel's composition piece, titled "Going Forth by Day," is a four and a half minute song written for four vocal parts and sung entirely in Ancient Egyptian.

"The project was a combination of study in music composition and linguistics," Giebel said. "It used an ancient text derived from the original hieroglyphs from the 'Book of the Dead.'"
The piece was the end product of about a year of work and in-depth study. Giebel received a grant from the investigative studies program to dedicate more time toward his love of music and composition.

He began work on the piece last year, completing it this summer. It was a long process, he admitted, translating and composing the piece, especially considering the fact that Ancient Egyptian writing contains no vowels, leaving Giebel to interpret the hieroglyphs himself. This is a challenge for writing a choral piece, as choirs sing on vowels and not consonants. Giebel credits several professors with helping him overcome these obstacles.

"With help from the linguist on campus, Dr. Janie Rees-Miller, I was able to obtain the phonetic components necessary to use as the text for a piece of music," Giebel said. "Dr. Brent Yorgason helped guide me through the composition process, and Dr. [Daniel] Monek was kind enough to consider it for rehearsal upon completion."

Giebel notes that he spent a great deal of time researching Middle Eastern music, which he says "is quite different from the western music that we are used to."

"I used a modern Egyptian-Arabic mode, called a maqam, as the basis for my melodic material," Giebel said, "and it took some work to get the system to work."

The choir concert was a well-attended event, and the churches were filled both nights with students as well as community members. Giebel professed himself to be extremely happy with the turnout and was also touched at the show of support from fellow classmates.

"I can't really describe what it was like to have it performed," Giebel said. "It was a breathtaking experience for an amateur composer and one that very few are lucky enough to experience."

Giebel plans to revisit his piece and adjust it some more and says the reaction to the piece has cemented his desire to continue composing.

"As for the piece itself, I will be tweaking it and ironing out some rough spots that became apparent when it was in rehearsal, and then perhaps considering sending it off for publication," Giebel said. "It seemed to be well received by the crowd and inspired me to continue pursuing composition as a career.