Last updated 2015-11-12.

Comet, Comet, Shining Bright

I sit down to write some pieces deliberately, working from a thought or feeling I want to express, and sometimes musical ideas come to me while practicing or I like a bit of improvisation enough to want to write it down and build on it. No real story to this tune -- it's in that second category. I came up with this spookier spin on a classic childhood tune while noodling on a bass guitar in non-standard tuning. I didn't decide on a title until I came up with lyrics for it a few years later. I've put it in treble clef for guitar here because more people can read that, but if you've got a bass or a piano handy, try it down really low.

The vocal melody is simplified a little to fit the words I came up with, so if you play it as an instrumental, do use the guitar part. If your instrument doesn't do double-stops (or doesn't go low enough), it's just parallel octaves so pick either octave and go with it.

I've got ideas for more interesting thing to do with this melody, when I get around to sitting down and developing them. But in the meantime, enjoy this simple version.

Comet, Comet, Shining Bright
variation on "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" (or "Ah vous dirai-je, Maman")

creepily, 50-55 bpm or thereabouts

[[[ ** PNG image of sheet music goes
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Comet, comet, shining bright,
What news do you bring tonight?
Do you portend civil unrest
Or is it time for me to invest?
Comet passing in the sky,
As mortals below you live and die,
Omen foul or omen fair,
I am glad your kind is rare.

Of course, for English speakers, "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" is also recognizeable as "Baa Baa Black Sheep" and the alphabet song, and those take the melody in turn from an earlier French song.

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