Topic: Pedagogy - Vocal Parts

Topic: Pedagogy - Vocal Parts
Older children can sing two parts and simple harmony as demonstrated by the concert performance of the Pleasant Hill Christian Elementary School described in the post for 18 July 2018. The belief they cannot may go back to Lowell Mason. In 1864 he published the first graded series of music books in this country for use in public schools. The second volume, for the "more advanced grade," used rounds to instill "the habit of part singing" so "the ear will be trained thereby to chords and their progressions." [1]

At the time choral singing in church was moribund, and he was seeking to reintroduce it. It had been eliminated in two phases by the Anglo-Scots Reformation. As most know, the mass disappeared during the reign of Henry VIII. Less well known was the fact motets and other forms of a capella part song replaced the mass. They were banished during the English Commonwealth of Oliver Cromwell.

One consequence of the emphasis on singing psalms to the simplest melodies was mentioned in the entry for 1 July 2018, the difficulty children had learning to perform in groups because they hadn’t been exposed to complex music when they were younger. The idea persisted part singing was so challenging, children needed to be introduced to it through stages. The only change since Mason was the quodlibet replaced the round as a medium for middle schools.

In quodlibets, groups sing two different songs at the same time. We sang "Row, Row Your Boat" against "Are You Sleeping" when I was in sixth grade at school camp in 1956.

One of the more popular contemporary combinations was one by Jean Anne Shafferman that began with "someone’s praying" from "Kumbaya" followed by the first verse of "I’ve Got Peace Like a River." The two were combined in the third section with the higher voices singing "Kumbaya."

Middle school and early high school choir directors had particular problems finding appropriate concert material because voices of young adolescents were undergoing biological changes. Girls’ vocal cords were becoming thicker and their voices fuller and richer in tone. Boys’ vocal cords were lengthening, so their voices were becoming deeper. [2] During the period when muscles associated with the larynx membranes were acclimating, a choral group’s sound could vary day by day.

Schafferman’s arrangement used two parts. The upper part spanned more than an octave from middle C to high D, a stretch for many girls. For this reason, Schafferman suggested the opening "Kumbaya" section could be a solo. Pekin High School in Packwood, Iowa, assigned the role to one tenor.

The lower part in the second and third segments, which ranged from C to B, was within the abilities of most singers. This allowed a musical director to assign parts unequally. As a result, the "Kumbaya" part of the quodlibet sounded like a descant when sung by the Freeport, Illinois, High School Treble Choir.

The descant sound was partly inherent in the arrangement. "Peace" had actual words, while "Kumbaya" was a series of open syllables that could just as easily have been la la’s.

Performers
Jean Anne Shafferman
Vocal Soloist: an option
Vocal Group: two parts
Instrumental Accompaniment: piano
Rhythm Accompaniment: none

Pekin High School
Vocal Soloist: boy
Vocal Group: 14 girls and 7 boys
Vocal Director: Kay Evans
Instrumental Accompaniment: Sue Hadley, piano
Rhythm Accompaniment: none

Freeport High School Treble Choir
Vocal Soloist: none
Vocal Group: at least 30 girls [3]
Vocal Director: Dan Wessler [4]
Instrumental Accompaniment: unidentified woman, grand piano
Rhythm Accompaniment: none

Credits
Jean Anne Shafferman
Traditional spirituals arranged by Jean Anne Shafferman
Copyright © MCMXCV by Alfred Publishing Co., Inc.

Notes on Lyrics
Jean Anne Shafferman
Language: English
Pronunciation: koom bay yah
Verses: praying, singing

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

Basic Form: three-verse song
Verse Repetition Pattern: none
Ending: repeated last line, then concluded with an "amen"
Unique Features: combined with "Peace like a River"

Notes on Music
Jean Anne Shafferman
Opening Phrase: 1-3-5
Time Signature: 4/4
Tempo: quarter note = 92-96 beats per minute

Rhythm: "The near-constant eight notes of the accompaniment create a steady flow that demands precise rhythms from the singers." [5]

Key Signature: 1 flat, then 1 sharp

Basic Structure: quodlibet with each song sung alone to begin

Singing Style: one syllable to one note, except for final "Lord." She noted that when the two melodies were combined, some unusual intervals occurred between voices. She told directors the seconds and sevenths required "a vocal tone that is relatively free of vibrato." [6]

Vocal-Accompaniment Dynamics: because the quodlibet required precision marked by the piano, Shafferman told the accompanist to "pedal carefully." [7]

The piano part was in the tradition of those that featured arpeggios. During the "Kumbaya" section, the left hand played a series of quarter-note broken chords and the right played eighth notes, with a hold between the fourth and fifth that made the left hand dominant on the third beat.

The "Peace" section changed to two-tone quarter-note arpeggios in the right hand with the left hand playing half-note chords. In the combined section, the right hand continued the parallel chords while the left played four eighth notes followed by two quarters.

Notes on Performance
Pekin High School
Occasion: WACO Invitational Vocal Festival, Wayland, Iowa, 20 October 2009 [8]

Location: WACO High School stage; risers were surrounded by an acoustic shell

Microphones: none
Clothing: school clothes

Freeport High School Treble Choir
Occasion: concert, 10 October 2012

Location: Jeannette Lloyd Theatre at Freeport Middle School; risers were surrounded by an acoustic shell

Microphones: none

Clothing: dark gray robes with white piping on the yoke hem and a white treble clef symbol on the left side in the yoke

Notes on Movement
Pekin High School
The choir stood in two rows on risers with their arms at their sides. The soloist stood in front while he sang, then returned to his place. He held a music binder and looked down while he sang. The director sat in front, and used her arms to direct.

Freeport High School Treble Choir
The girls stood in three rows on risers with their arms at their sides. The grand piano was in front of the choir, and the male director used the piano as a music stand. He used his arms to direct.

Notes on Audience
The audience for the Pekin choir applauded at the end. The video of the Freeport choir cut off when they sang their last "amen."

Notes on Performers
Shafferman was raised in Owensboro, Kentucky. [9] She studied voice and piano at the University of Kentucky. In 1983, she joined the Bach Choir of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. She also directed the Youth Music Ministry of College Hill Presbyterian Church in Easton, Pennsylvania. [10]

After she earned her masters in music theory, Shafferman worked for Shawnee Press. Alfred Publishing hired her as part of the expansion effort mentioned in the post for 18 July 2018. She used the company’s "‘educational series’ approach to its piano publications" to create "four levels of octavos for choirs." [11] She told an interviewer:

"Especially dear to my heart was the Level II Series, for the ‘developing church choir,’ whether young singers, struggling volunteer choirs, or senior choirs. For this series, I simply returned to the historic musical formats of canons and quodlibets [. . .]. These structures proved to be perfect for their targeted choirs, helping them to learn to sing, and to sing well – because, really, in order to inspire worship, we should offer our very best sound to God and our congregations!" [12]

Pekin was a small rural settlement in Jefferson County, Iowa, that was home to the area’s combined primary and secondary school. [13] The high school had around 225 students in four grades. [14] The music director, Kay Evan, earned her music degree from Upper Iowa University, and taught music in all grades in the school. [15]

Freeport, Illinois, was settled in the 1850s by Germans from Pennsylvania and Europe. In 2010 it had grown to 25,638 people [16] with 1,187 students in the four high-school classes. [17] While it was larger than Pekin, where kindergartners shared the music program with seniors, Freeport’s choral concerts provided similar opportunities because they included 200 "students from the sixth-grade chorus, middle school concert choir, and high school treble choir, varsity choir and concert choir." [18]

The high school choir director sang bass in a professional barbershop quartet. Dan Wessler earned his bachelor’s degree in music education from Bradley University, and his master’s in choral conducting from Western Illinois University. [19]

Availability
Jean Anne Shafferman
Sheet Music: "Peace Like a River, Kum Ba Yah." Van Nuys, California: Alfred Publishing Company, 1995.

Pekin High School
YouTube: "Peace Like a River/Kum Ba Ya." Uploaded by Jewel Schultz on 20 October 2009.

Freeport High School Treble Choir
YouTube: "Peace Like a River, Kum-Ba-Yah." Uploaded by Kortni Wong on 10 October 2012.

End Notes
1. Lowell Mason. The Song-Garden. Boston: Oliver Ditson, 1864. 2:3.

2. Louise Kifer Myers. Teaching Children Music in the Elementary School. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1956 edition. 31.

3. The video was shot from a distance and I couldn’t get an exact count.

4. Cindy Scott Day. "Freeport School District Choral Students Present Annual Spring Concert." The [Freeport, Illinois] Journal-Standard website. 13 May 2015. Day indicated Wessler was completing "his third year as choral director at Freeport High School."

5. Jean Anne Shafferman. Notes with score.
6. Shafferman, Notes.
7. Shafferman, score.

8. WACO was a consolidated school for the Iowa communities of Wayland, Ainsworth, Crawfordsville, and Olds. (Wikipedia. "Wayland, Iowa.")

9. "About Jean Anne Shafferman." Facebook.
10. "Jean Anne Shafferman." Jubilate website.
11. "A Chat with Jean Anne Shafferman." Jubilate Music website. 20 July 2016.
12. Shafferman, Chat.
13. Wikipedia. "Pekin, Iowa."
14. "Pekin Community High School." US News website.
15. "About Kay Evans." Facebook.
16. Wikipedia. "Freeport, Illinois."
17. "Freeport High School." Great Schools website.

18. "Concert: Multiple Choirs from Freeport Schools Perform." The [Freeport, Illinois] Journal-Standard website. 14 October 2014.

19. "About NT." New Tradition website.