Neil Ginsberg - Kumbaya

Topic: Pedagogy - Vocal Rhythm
The dichotomy persists between schools that insist children must read music to sing and the musical aesthetic children absorb by listening to radios and watching videos. When choral composers wanted to do something modern, the best they could imagine was adding percussion instruments to traditional vocal arrangements.

Thus, Neil Ginsberg’s version of "Kumbaya" began with a piano arpeggio to sound the tones needed by the singers. He added a conga when the lower male voices began singing "kumbaya, k-k-kumbaya." The score showed the conga pattern for one measure, then said "conga repeat pattern ad lib." By the sixth measure, three parts were singing, and the score was marked legato, meaning "in a smooth flowing manner, without breaks between notes." [1]

When the group began the "someone’s crying" verse, the score showed the conga and shaker parts for one measure with the comment "continues pattern." The percussion didn’t appear again on the conductor’s version until "someone’s singing when the triangle was added, and again the instrumentation was shown for one measure. Rhythm details reappeared on the last page for the final two measures when the group was repeating "kumbaya" twice.

The sporadic appearance of the instruments with the instructions to continue left some room for interpretation by a conductor. Most of the high school groups who uploaded performances of Ginsberg’s arrangement followed the score and had the drum begin on the second measure, but Martin Luther High School in Greendale, Wisconsin, began with the drum.

Most stopped the drum in places, then began it again when they reached the last line of a verse. Bonita High School in La Verne, California, made this obvious because the singers moved to diagonals during the verse, then stood still. They resumed moving with the drum.

Ginsberg created his arrangement in 2001 when African instruments were scarcer than they are today, and so specified drums associated with Latin music. Illiana Christian High School in Lansing, Illinois, and California’s Mission Viejo High School used djembés instead. [2]

All four high schools had pianos, but differed in their choices of shakers. Martin Luther used a metal instrument shaped like a maraca, [3] while Illiana used a Native American gourd rattle. A young man in the back row of the Bonita choir shook a metal circle like a small tambourine. Mission Viejo used only the drum.

Only one high school, Martin Luther, recognized "k-k-kumbaya" was a rhythm vocal part. The others simply sang "kumbaya," perhaps thinking the repeated "k" was offensive to people who stuttered. The rhythm part ended when they began the "someone’s singing verse," and the lower voices took over the melody while the upper parts sang a descending descant during the held notes. The final verse, "someone’s praying" used four part-chords, then expanded to more parts in the final repetitions of "oh Lord, kumbaya."

The percussion parts fit within the confines of a 4/4 measure, but with some complexity in accents. The drum alternated an eighth note and two sixteenths with two sixteenths and an eighth. The accents were on the first eighth note and the first sixteenth of the last set, making the strong beats "four one." The triangle underscored the pattern by playing the last two sixteenth notes of a measure and the first eighth of the next bar. The shaker played even eighth notes.

The drummers who could be seen used their right hands for the accents and their left hands for the other notes. Because of the acoustics in the concert halls and capabilities of the individual video cameras, only the strong drum beats and the shakers could be heard on YouTube.

Performers
Neil Ginsberg
Vocal Soloist: none
Vocal Group: SATB
Instrumental Accompaniment: piano
Rhythm Accompaniment: conga, shaker, triangle

Credits
Neil Ginsberg
arr. Neil Ginsberg
© copyright 2001 by Santa Barbara Music Publishing

Bonita High School
No credits

Illiana Christian High School
arranged by Neil Ginsberg

Martin Luther
No credits

Mission Viejo High School
by Neil Ginsberg

Notes on Lyrics
Neil Ginsberg
Language: English
Pronunciation: k-k-kumbaya in places
Verses: kumbaya, crying, singing, praying

Vocabulary
Pronoun: someone
Term for Deity: Lord
Special Terms: none

Basic Form: four-verse song
Verse Repetition Pattern: none
Ending: Oh Lord, oh Lord, kumbaya, kumbaya
Unique Features: none

Notes on Music
Neil Ginsberg
Opening Phrase: 1-3-5
Time Signature: 4/4
Tempo: Andante, quarter note = 92 beats per minute
Key Signature: four sharps
Basic Structure: theme and three variations

Singing Style: clear, pure tones with one syllable to one note, except for one "singing" in the descant

Notes on Performance
Bonita High School
Occasion: concert, 2009
Location: auditorium stage
Microphones: floor mikes

Clothing: white shirts and black skirts, shorts, or slacks. The male director was wearing a black shirt and slacks.

Illiana Christian High School
Occasion: fall concert, 28 October 2008
Location: acoustic shell in the gymnasium
Microphones: none

Clothing: mint green robes with long white stoles. The female director was wearing black slacks and white shirt with a black overtop.

Martin Luther High School
Occasion: Sacred Concert, 2013

Location: Hales Corners Lutheran Church. Hales Corners was the village directly west of Greendale. [4]

Microphones: floor mikes

Clothing: sage green robes with white V-stoles and white borders along the robes’ front openings

Mission Viejo High School
Occasion: closing number of Spring Festival concert, 2014
Location: acoustic shell on stage
Microphones: two floor mikes

Clothing: cerise robes with white V-stoles. The female director was wearing a black jacket and slacks.

To be continued in next post

End Notes
1. "Legato." Oxford Dictionaries website.

2. Martin Luther used a conga-style drum. The boy playing the drum for Bonita was seated below the stage and his instrument didn’t appear in the video. Djembés were discussed in the post for 28 August 2017.

3. I couldn’t see enough in the video to know if the shaker was a calabasa.

4. Wikipedia. "Hales Corners, Wisconsin."