Creative Programming: Beginning High School Choir Monday, September 09, 2019
recommended by Jen Sper and Lora Moore, School Choral Music Specialists
As you say goodbye to summer and begin a new school year, consider these sophisticated yet approachable selections for programming with your beginning high school choir. Building from unison, to four-part harmony, these choral octavos and harmonization resources will be sure to get your year off to a great start!
Tongo arr. Greg Gilpin, SATB a cappella with percussion
Here’s a traditional canoe song from Polynesia that sounds quite impressive with a cappella voices, handclaps, and percussion instruments. The call-and-response format of Greg’s well-designed arrangement suggests people communicating from canoe to canoe as they travel between islands.
Hey Ho, Nobody Home arr. Ruth Morris Gray, SATB with piano
Delightfully playful with contrasting short and legato singing, this English folk song is a gem for any program. Harmonic writing surrounded by a round conjures its genesis of the English caroling tradition passed down generation to generation.
Antiphonal Cantate by Greg Gilpin, SATB with piano
Whether performed on risers, as a processional, or encircling the audience, this celebratory fanfare is the perfect opening number for concert or festival and is appropriate for use throughout the school year. The middle section is in 3/2 and provides an interesting and fun contrast. The text is both in easy Latin and in English, and an optional English text is provided for sacred use.
Welcome Sweet Pleasure by Thomas Weelkes/arr. Christy Elsner, SATB a cappella
Lilting and dance-like, this popular Weelkes madrigal will be a delight to learn and perform with SATB choirs, especially developing choirs being introduced to the genre. With its brisk tempo, dynamic contrasts and flirtatious text, this is a wonderful teaching and performance piece for any program.
Harmony Handbook by Katie O’Connor-Ballantyne
A treasure trove of choral pedagogy! This step-by-step guide will take beginners from unison to two-part singing by focusing on the underlying aural and developmental skills necessary for success. Sequential chapters on unison, echo, round, and partner singing serve as benchmarks along the way to full harmony. Each of ten carefully curated songs is prefaced with a two-page rehearsal guide that targets essential objectives and suggests exercises and activities designed to introduce, explore, and master the pieces. Learn how to anticipate and address musical challenges for this repertoire, then transfer these masterful techniques to your entire program.
Eight Steps to Harmonization by Catherine DeLanoy
Lay the foundation for successful part-singing with this unique and valuable resource designed to aid music teachers by providing a step-by-step path for teaching young choirs how to sing harmony, building a bridge that transitions between elementary and high school music reading. Perfect for middle school, this resource can be easily adapted for younger and older singers. Each step in this book offers several songs that will give choirs the practice they need to master each type of harmonization. The enclosed CD-ROM includes mp3 recordings of piano accompaniments and PDFs of the piano/vocal scores for projection or printing. The progressive steps used to teach harmonization involve these familiar song styles: unison, ostinato, echo songs, descants, partner songs, rounds, polyphonic songs and homophonic songs.
Need more help? Contact us for more ideas or to brainstorm with us, and shop Stanton’s for all your sheet music needs!
About the Authors:
Jen Sper has been with Stanton’s since 2006. A former middle school and high school choral director, she holds a Bachelor of Music Education degree from Baldwin Wallace College Conservatory of Music. An active choral singer and accompanist throughout the Central Ohio area, she also enjoys good food, running (to counteract the good food…) and the Muppets.
Lora Moore joined the Stanton’s choral staff in July 2018. A former middle school and high school director of 32 years, she holds a Bachelor of Arts in Choral Music from Capital University and a Master’s of Arts in Choral Music from The Ohio State University. Currently she is a church choir director, operates a private voice/piano studio and is active as a clinician and accompanist. During the off hours, Lora enjoys scouting out new day trips in Ohio to balance what her budget allows for her frequent trips to New York City to visit family and take in a Broadway show or two!