Hearing voices…
One of my favorite classes in college was 18th Century Counterpoint. Loved it! Here, finally, were the rules I wanted to learn to follow and live by when writing parts for choirs, instruments, etc. As a young student I was determined NEVER to stray from these ‘proper’ techniques. Everything I would write or arrange would be correctly voiced from here on out.
Yep. Sure.
Well, aside from not having enough voices in my parish choir to carry full SATB on a regular basis, or the ability for all the singers to learn it quickly enough (especially for weekly liturgical songs), or simply because the song didn’t require it…I had to learn how to adjust, and fast.
A lot of contemporary liturgical and worship music, for example, is voiced for SAT, leaving the basses wondering what they are supposed to be doing. Often times we are looking at a lead sheet with 2 or 3 voices written in. The first few times you give that to your choir the basses think they are part-less, and the tenors complain that their part is on the treble clef! However, I think this can actually work to our advantage when singing and learning liturgical music.
The following excerpt from “O Saving Lamb” by Tom Booth can help me illustrate a few points. Here we have a beautiful melody with some simple, nice, harmonies surrounding it:
If I were to use this arrangement (and I do very often) I would teach it to my singers like this: sopranos sing the melody, altos take the bottom harmony, and the tenors take the top harmony an octave lower. It would look like this in lead-sheet format:
I would tell the basses to sing the melody in their octave/range. It would look like this on two staves:
Or like this in actual choral format:
Now that breaks a lot of 18th Century Counterpoint rules. There is a lot of parallel motion, improper doubling, etc. But what are we trying to accomplish? For me, this does a few things:
1. Having the basses sing melody instead of writing a separate bass ‘part’ adds the lower register to the melody, which makes it stronger and easier to hear, which makes it easier for the assembly to sing along. I want the assembly to sing with the choir on this song. If that’s what we are trying to accomplish, this really helps. The melody is now sung by the highest and lowest voices.
2. Often times we find ourselves with fewer men in the choir on Sunday mornings. Asking for full 4-part singing is often difficult. Singing/arranging in the way I’ve described helps the guys ‘hold their own’, while helping out the assembly as well.
3. Having the tenors sing the upper harmony in their range (instead of the sopranos) keeps the voices closer together. If the sopranos sang that part in their range, they would be ‘out-voicing’ the melody, making it difficult to hear.
I am, in no way, suggesting that we abandon all classical training and skills in singing OR arranging SATB for choir. I am merely saying that sometimes simplifying the arrangement can be very helpful for both the choir and the assembly.
SATB in 18th Century Counterpoint is awesome, but is not always the best method to apply. It depends on the song, and, perhaps what you trying to accomplish.
In addition to the traditional Christmas hymns which are often sung on this day, here are a few other suggestions:
Suggested use: Song of Preparation/Offertory, Second Communion