How do I know?

Well, I don’t REALLY know this, but here is my core belief surrounding our National Anthem Arrangement:

  1. The amount of time it should take our choir to learn the Star-Spangled Banner should be so minimal. We should be able to perform it that it after one rehearsal.

  2. Every year, new members of our ensemble should be able to pick up their part, practically through osmosis.

  3. A last minute, make-shift choir can still be successful. The ensemble should sound full and balanced regardless of which students show up.

If your arrangement has passed all three of these parameters, it is probably not too difficult. However, I still invite you to understand my rationale, as it extends far beyond the Star-Spangled Banner.


How to Train the Student’s That Can’t Sight-Sing – a simple system


Trick or Treat Halloween Round (4 part) – they will love it at ALL ages!


Why does this even matter?

The Star-Spangled Banner is perhaps the most important, and most frequent song most of our choirs will sing. My choir sings it at dozens of school and community events each year. The purpose of each National Anthem performance is to honor others. We MUST always have this piece ready-to-go in our repertoire, and it must sound polished, regardless of the circumstances.

Here is the cold-hard truth about our performance: the more traditional our Star-Spangled Banner Arrangement is, the better it will be received by varying audience.

Some of my readers don’t believe me; Eric Whitacre has an awesome Star-Spangled Banner arrangement. I love the Patriotic feel mixed in with the occasional Whitacre-esque chords. I especially love his “Cloudburst pitches that lead to the final cadence, leaving us with an unresolved, murky chord, probably intended to embrace the fact that our National Anthem ends with a question mark.

With the sophistication, creativity, and beauty of his arrangement, does it suit a school pep rally in an open gym or on a football field? How about singing it outdoors at a Memorial Day Parade? Of course, the answer is no. Eric Whitacre’s piece is meant for a select and well-balanced college or professional choir in an indoor performance. Sure, an honors high school ensemble could perform this piece, but it would be a big time commitment; would this commitment really be an investment or would it just take time away from learning other repertoire? Does a complex National Anthem honor our country any more than a tight, simple and well-written Star-Spangled Banner arrangement?


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What a challenging National Anthem can do is take time away from our opportunity to expose students to better repertoire.

Even the “best” arrangements of the Star-Spangled Banner cannot compare to the best quality repertoire in the choral world. There are thousands upon thousands of choral works with more poetic lyrics, a better melody more interesting harmonies, etc, that would be a better use of our singers’ rehearsal time. At the same time, there are very few pieces of higher importance than the National Anthem. In fact, we probably perform that one piece more that all other pieces combined through the year.

 


Self-Assessment Rehearsal Participation Rubric(s)


Serving our Community  

I have a choral colleague of mine who was once asked by his building principal if his choir could sing holiday songs in the lobby as students entered the school. The choral director was deeply offended; as a result, he responded to the principal by asking if he believed the math teacher should sit in the hallway and have his students perform math equations.

My dear friend is correct in his comparison, if the principal was referring to the purposeful educational repertoire that he had chosen for his students for the Winter Concert, Spring Concert, or Adjudication Festival. But the principal was not asking the high school choir to sing their educational repertoire; he was asking them to sing holiday tunes.

To this director, the prospect of singing a song like “Jingle Bell Rock” was an insult. I view it as an opportunity to make a positive impact within our community…..with minimal effort. If my choir was asked to sing “Jingle Bell Rock”, we would learn the melody in 5 minutes and add a few simple, yet effective harmonies on the fly. Our choir would positively impact the school community with very minimal preparation. For a few days in a row, we would break-up our rehearsal for a few minutes and improvise an arrangement….when in doubt, we would stay on the melody. That is how I created my arrangement of “Dreidel” and “Oh Hanukkah”.

Pitch-Matching Rubric – get ALL students to match pitch!

Our role of community performer is very important, BUT it does not need to take away from our primary focus. Our primary focus is purposeful repertoire and high-quality instruction.

This concept brings me back to our National Anthem. Sure, we know that we will be singing this piece throughout the year, and every year; but we also know, that the amount of students at each performance may vary, the size of venue, microphone situation, type of audience, etc., will be different each and every time. If we learn an arrangement that is concise and easily adaptable to varying situations, our performances will be set up for consistent success.


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Star-Spangled Banner (SAB –  Unaccompanied)

Star-Spangled Banner (SSA – Unaccompanied)


An Ideal “Star-Spangled Banner” Arrangement

My idea of a perfect arrangement is one that provides the opportunity for all parts to have shape and line, one that can be sung with a limited number of men, and one that can be both heartfelt and patriotic. In my “mixed” arrangement, the sopranos have the melody with a melodic alto harmony and a men’s part that fills out the chords. A treble ensemble can sing this arrangement in two parts, leaving out the baritone part completely. My arrangement and any other ideal arrangement can be conducted by our students, due it it’s traditional and simple form.

I also wrote a brand new “treble” arrangement for SSA, which is quite similar to the “mixed” arrangement, but intended to focus on treble voices. It too is patriotic, easy to learn with smart voice-leading, concise, sounds full, and has a vocal range of G3-F5. This allows for all grade levels of treble choir (elementary, middle school, high school, college, community) to perform this well.

A traditional, and compact arrangement will sound patriotic, will lock well, will allow for pure emotion, will clearly state the famous melody, and will effectively serve each audience as well as our country. Less is more.


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The Complex Star-Spangled Banner Arrangement is Symptomatic of a Larger Issue

My choir sings God Bless America, mainly in unison with a few harmonies near the end. We also have several rounds in our standard repertoire along with many holiday pieces (for Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa) in well-written and concise 4-part arrangements. We also have a dozen pieces of standard repertoire that we perform year after year, where we invite our alumni to come back and join us.

All of the pieces I mentioned are easy to learn, sound great, are easy to balance, and are hard to forget. They take up very little rehearsal time and have great impact on our community. As a result of these well-constructed, standard repertoire, my choirs are always ready to perform!

The “perfect Star-Spangled Banner” arrangement for Treble Voices – SSA – It is patriotic, easy to learn with smart voice-leading, concise, sounds full, and has a vocal range of G3-F5.

The “perfect Star-Spangled Banner” arrangement for Mixed Voices – SAB (this WILL work with SATB too!) – It is patriotic, easy to learn with simple voice-leading.

Back to the program

If we keep the primary focus of patriotic, holiday, and traditional music to appeal to our community, we can then spend the bulk of our rehearsal time focusing on our educational goals. These goals can include developing aural training skills, sight-singing skills, building vocal technique, and learning fantastic choral repertoire. The “fantastic” repertoire I’m alluding to is whatever we, the director, believe our students will benefit the most from. Each year, we should expose our students our students to new repertoire that expands their emotional, intellectual, and musical capacity.

We must always remember the impact we can have on our community what our primary goal is to emotionally connect and serve them.

K.I.S.S. (Keep It Simple, Star-Spangled Banner)!

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