Repertoire Project Piece 8: Crucifixus

"Crucifixus" is a great way for a beginning women's group to gain experience singing the Latin mass text. It's two-part texture offers a wide yet accessible range for both the soprano part and the alto part. The piano accompaniment could probably be played by someone with little piano experience with some practice, making this piece a good choice for a program that does not necessarily have a daily accompanist in its budget. Working with the Latin language allows for focus on good vowel shape and tone production, since there are a very limited amount of vowels in the language. The vocal parts are independent from each other for the most part, and only move in parallel motion with each other twice. There is some voice crossing that could be tricky but also a cool concept, as altos will find it really fun to sing above the sopranos, although if in a middle school, hopefully the groups aren't labeled by voice part.

Repertoire Project Piece 7: La Lluvia

"La Lluvia" could be a great way to start exploring music from around the world, or in this case, from Ecuador. The lack of text, or rather the lack of English, would be a great way to work on really pure and unified vowels and would side-step a the challenge of singing in English. This also allows for some creative thinking on the part of the teacher and the students to give meaning to the piece. One idea would be to assign ideas based on what each musical theme could be personifying. Each part has a relatively large range, but the ranges are expansive in an attainable way, making this piece perfect for an advanced middle school or early to intermediate high school mixed groups. The themes get passed around often, making all four parts very interesting to sing. It also has some really cool and accessible percussion parts, including use of the vibraslap. Other musical concepts that can be taught include phrase shape, tuning minor chords, and learning parts on solfege.

Repertoire Project Piece 6: Rise Up, My Love, My Fair One

This text is another one that would be great for a men's choir simply because there aren't a lot of choirs that take advantage of texts that aren't drinking songs or sea shanties or some other stereotypically "manly" piece. The TBB piece allows for more specialized parts, particularly for the tenors, who will be able to work on using different parts of their voice when working on this song. It would be best for an advanced middle school men's group or a high school men's group. There are unison, two-part, and three-part textures, and the baritone part (where it's added) is very protected and allows for expressive singing in a small range. The choir can work on feeling the hemiolas when going from a 6/8 measure to a 3/4 measure, and will also be exposed to an unusual unpaired meter, 7/8. Dynamics can also be a teaching focus with this piece, as well as rubato. There is a flute part that could be given to a band student, and opportunity for a short vocal solo.

Repertoire Project Piece 5: Circle 'Round the Moon

This piece is arranged for 2-part treble voices, and would be great for a beginning choir that is exploring singing in multiple parts. There is a lot of unison singing, and when it breaks into 2 parts, the alto part is written using a lot of contrary motion and movement when the soprano part is not moving. It sits a bit low, so it'd be important to have singers who have a good grasp of head voice drop down to that part, so as to prevent singers from trying to push the part out in an overly chest voice-y way. The text is full of really vivid imagery that would be engaging for the students to sing, and the song itself is really beautiful. Since it is mostly diatonic, it would be a great piece with which to apply sightreading skills by using solfege in the learning process.

Repertoire Project Piece 4: When Jesus Wept

Exploring early American music is something that's very important to me, and I think that this piece is a great way to do that. This particular arrangement would be best for an advanced mixed ensemble, but parts of the piece could be adapted to better suit younger choirs, such as making a round out of the main theme. There is some unison singing for the women, but not for the men. In fact, the amount of divisi that exists for the men probably calls for not only an advanced group, but a large group. The ranges are also not suitable for very young singers, and the bass part is probably to low for even high school students as it stands, though there are many places where popping up the octave would work just fine and would actually make approaching some dissonances easier. Working on achieving a forward, bright tone would be really fun, especially because it will help with tuning the many open chords that are a characteristic of this music.

Repertoire Project Piece 3: Set me as a seal upon your heart

This piece would be great for a beginning to intermediate mixed group. It includes a lot of different textures in which to sing, including unision, 2-part, and full SATB. The ranges include no extremes to the voices, yet allow for each voice part to explore more of their voice than many tradional SATB parts. Phrasing is extremely important in this piece. Also, the unison sections will require listening across the choir and working toward a unified vowel scheme. The text discusses love, a concept that can be relatable to everyone, especially in such a safe place as a choir classroom. There are not many texts that allow men to explore love in this sensative way, which makes this particular setting of this text a really valuable tool.

Haslett Internship - Visit 8

For my final visit to Haslett High School, Mr. Boyce asked me, "So am I warming them up or are you?" Thanks to the discussion we had in Choral Methods last week about taking advantage of every opportunity your mentors give you, I decided that I would lead warm ups, but I was really scared. I'm happy that I was able to follow the warm up process pretty closely, even when put on the spot. My piano playing went much better than last time, and I was much clearer when I introduced each exercise to the men. I tried to focus on listening to the sound that they were producing, and I think I could have stopped to adjust more often, but I know that is something that I'll get better at with time.

I'm hoping that I remember how much of an impact these young men have had on me if I ever have the option to teach an all mens group. I am still the most uncomfortable in front of this type of group, but I hope that I'll want to challenge myself and help to make it more normal for a woman to be teaching TTBB choirs in the future.