Topic: Instrumental Versions - Handbells
The interest in liturgy provoked by Vatican II didn’t just lead to the introduction of popular music into religious services. Some congregations returned to the reforms of the Oxford Movement that had revived pre-Reformation elements like boys’ choirs in the Anglican service. [1]
One result was the establishment of handbell choirs. So far, I haven’t found anyone who has written a history of these ensembles, [2] but trends can be deduced from the histories of the two companies that manufactured instruments in the United States.
Schulmerich began producing bells designed by Jake Malta in Sellersville, Pennsylvania, in 1963, [3] the same year the Vatican Council authorized changes in the mass. Before that, any handbell player imported instruments from England or the Netherlands. [4] After a 1972 corporate reorganization, Malta left Schulmerich and formed his own company the following year in the same Bucks County town. [5]
He employed Willard Markey, who launched an aggressive marketing campaign. One can assume handbell choirs had begun to proliferate when Malmark opened a new production facility in 1978. It expanded again in 1985. [6] By 2012, sales at Schulmerich were stagnant, [7] and Malmark had added cajones to its product mix. [8]
Handbells were sold in octave sets so a church could add to its range if it attracted more members to its choir. Today, two octaves from Malmark cost $6,305. The third brings the price to $10,545. [9]
Anna Lara Page used 15 of the 24 bells for her two-octave arrangement of "Kumbaya," and 22 of the 36 for her three-octave version. Since each person generally was assigned two bells, that meant eight or eleven people were needed in an ensemble.
A photograph of First Christ Church’s Heart in Hand Bell Choir showed eleven people. [10] When it played Page’s three-octave version in 2016, Shari Lucas supplemented the group by holding two bells while she was directed them.
The acceptance of handbell choirs may have varied by theology. The 22 churches who uploaded versions of "Kumbaya" to YouTube were pretty evenly divided among four older denominations: six were Lutheran, six were Methodist, five were United Church of Christ, and four were Presbyterian. The other was a Baptist church affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention. [11]
The Middletown, Connecticut, UCC congregation was organized by Puritans in 1668. [12] Its current building was finished in 1873 with an organ [13] and choir loft that still exists. The ringers stood in a single line behind a low wall near peaks in the tall, Gothic windows. It had a tower that reached above the roof where a bell could have been mounted, and a steeple rising high above that louvered area. However, the minister at the time did not mention a bell.
The chamber’s acoustics and the relative locations of the ringers and the camera microphone meant the higher pitched bells were heard more clearly on the YouTube video. When Page transferred the melody to the lower range, the combined overtones of all the bells made them sound like a organ continuo instead.
Performers
First Church of Christ
Vocal Soloist: none
Vocal Group: none
Instrumental Group: Heart in Hand Bell Choir
Rhythm Accompaniment: none
Conductor: Shari Lucas
Anna Laura Page
Vocal Soloist: none
Vocal Group: none
Instrumental Group: 15 bells for two-octave arrangement; 22 for three-octaves
Rhythm Accompaniment: none
Credits
First Church of Christ
arr. Anna Laura Page
Anna Laura Page
Arranged by Anna Laura Page
Copyright © MMV by Alfred Publishing Co., Inc.
Notes on Lyrics
There were none.
Notes on Music
Anna Laura Page
Time Signature: 4/4
Tempo: gently; quarter note = 96 beats per minute
Key Signature: 1 sharp
Dynamics: alternated between mezzo forte and mezzo piano
Basic Structure: Page used parallel chords that usually involved four to six bells, with only quarter and half notes.
Notes on Performance
First Church of Christ
Occasion: Sunday service, probably during the collection
Location: choir loft
Microphones: none
Clothing: In their web-page photograph, the choir was wearing white shirts, black slacks, and red ties or long scarves. In the video, they wore black gloves to handle the bells, while the director wore white gloves. All that could be seen above the balcony’s low wall were the director’s hands, some white shirts, and a red tie.
Notes on Movement
First Church of Christ
Choir members stood, and held their bells upright to sound them. The director stood in front with both arms raised from the elbows to conduct. They had music stands.
Audience Perceptions
Page’s arrangement was used by the Tone Chimes in the Buford, Georgia, United Methodist Church on 15 March 2015. Youth Handbells performed it 19 February 2017 in the Westminster Presbyterian Church of Dubuque, Iowa. Both played during the collection period. [14]
Notes on Performers
The Congregational church owned a four-octave set of Malmark bells. The Heart in Hand Bell Choir met once a week to prepare music for special times of the year. [15] Lucas earned music degrees from Baldwin Wallace and Yale, where her primary instrument was organ. [16]
Page was raised in Louisville where she studied piano and organ. [17] She collaborated with Jean Anne Shafferman on a collection of spirituals that combined "Kum Ba Yah" with "Let Us Break Bread" when both worked for Alfred Publishing. [18] The graduate of the University of Kentucky moved to Sherman, Texas, where her husband was president of the local Presbyterian college. [19]
Availability
First Church of Christ, Middletown, Connecticut, Heart in Hand Bell Choir
YouTube: uploaded by First Church on 23 May 2016.
Anna Laura Page
Book: "Kum Ba Yah." 16-19 in 5 Spirituals for Beginning Ringers. Van Nuys, California: Alfred Publishing Company, 2005.
End Notes
1. The Oxford Movement was mentioned in the post for 29 September 2017.
2. Handbell Musicians of America provides a history of its organization from 1902 on its website.
3. Crissa Shoemaker DeBree. "Sellersville’s Schulmerich Bells Celebrates 50 Years, Looks for Growth." Burlington County [New Jersey] Times website. 2 July 2013.
4. Whitechapel Bell Foundry produced handbells in London until it closed in 2017. Petit and Fritsen manufactured handbells in Netherlands until it was bought by another company in 2014. (Wikipedia. "Whitechapel Bell Foundry" and "Petit & Fritsen.")
5. "Our History." Malmark company website.
6. Malmark, History.
7. DeBree.
8. "Cajons." Marmark company website.
9. "Malmark Handbells." Handbell World website. Each additional octave has a higher price because the larger the bell the more it costs to produce.
10. "Music" tab. Church website.
11. A similar pattern existed among churches that mentioned handbell arrangements of "Kumbaya" in Sunday bulletins uploaded to the internet: seven were Methodist, three were UCC, three were Presbyterian, one was Unitarian-Universalist, and one was independent. Other factors may have skewed my data. For instance, many churches have abandoned printed bulletins for electronic screen displays, while some denominations that sponsored choirs may not have chosen to use YouTube or didn’t include "Kumbaya" in their repertoires.
12. Azel Washburn Hazen. A Brief History of the First Church of Christ in Middletown, Connecticut for Two Centuries and a Half, 1668-1918. Middletown, Connecticut: 1920. 8.
13. Hazen. 99-100. The current organ was installed in 1968 according to the church’s website.
14. Sunday service bulletins posted to the internet by the churches, and available 10-11 August 2018.
15. "Music" tab. Church website.
16. "About" tab. Church website.
17. "Anna Laura Page." Lorenz Corporation website.
18. Anna Laura Page and Jean Anne Shafferman. "Kum Ba Yah/Let Us Break Bread." 7-9 in
My First Spirituals. Van Nuys, California: Alfred Publishing Co, Inc, 2004. Shafferman’s combination of "Kumbaya" and "Peace Like a River" was discussed in the post for 5 August 2018.
19. Lorenz. Oscar C. Page was president of Austin College until his retirement.
Showing posts with label Shafferman Jean Anne. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Shafferman Jean Anne. Show all posts
Thursday, December 6, 2018
Tuesday, August 7, 2018
Peace Like a River
Topic: Pedagogy
"Peace like a River" first appeared in print in a 1963 Assembly of God songbook [1] with a note its origins were unknown. [2] The editor, Eddy Anderson, was born into a Swedish Pentecostal family in Rhode Island in 1914. He served pastorates in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and New England. In the 1950s he was active in Youth for Christ and had his own radio programs. [3] He could have heard the song anywhere in his travels.
Carl Daw noted the song shared an opening line with a nineteen-century hymn, [4] and originally had a pentatonic melody. [5] Those details, and the fact it had an AAAB line-repetition format, suggested it developed in Pentecostal camp meetings like those sponsored by the generally white Assembly of God where older songs were milled into simpler forms.
An arrangement was copyrighted by Mosie Lister in 1970 [6] for the Church of the Nazarene’s publishing house. [7] He was raised in a rail town [8] on Georgia’s Atlantic coastal plain. [9] After World War II, he sang baritone in southern gospel quartets, [10] but turned to song writing rather than touring. [11] He remained close to members of the Statesmen and other professional quartets, and, like Anderson, could have heard the song from anyone in that musical world.
The song most likely entered the repertoires of summer residential camps when Campus Crusade for Christ included a copy of Lister’s arrangement as a "spiritual" in its Pass It On songbook in 1972. [12] A friend told me he sang "Peace" at a Texas Presbyterian camp in 1973 when he was a counselor in college.
In 1975, the Southern Baptist Convention published an arrangement by William J. Reynolds. [13] It gained more exposure when an arrangement by Dale Scott appeared in a Singspiration songbook in 1979. [14]
During the 1980s, hymnals and songsters that included "Peace" identified it as traditional, meaning public domain. [15] It wasn’t until the Presbyterians included it in a hymn book in 1990 that it was described as an "African-American spiritual." [16] The Baptists followed suit in 1991, although they preferred the term "Negro." [17] Both probably were much more comfortable singing a song from Black tradition than they were from Pentecostal.
Jean Anne Shafferman identified the arrangement described in the post for 5 August 2018 as "a general anthem that combines two beloved traditional spirituals. It may be appropriate for peace observances, baptisms, and funerals." There were a great many other versions of her arrangement available on YouTube.
End Notes
1. "I’ve Got Peace like a River." Melody Choruses. Compiled by Edwin P. Anderson. Springfield, Missouri: Gospel Publishing House, 1963. Cited by Carl P. Daw, Junior. Glory to God. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2016. 591.
2. Wordcat entry for Melody Choruses.
3. Obituary for Edwin Eddy Anderson. [Springfield, Missouri] News-Leader. 31 March 2010.
4. Daw. 591.
5. Daw. 592.
6. "I’ve Got Peace Like a River." Pass It On. San Bernardino, California: Campus Crusade for Christ International, 1972. 124.
7. Wikipedia. "Nazarene Publishing House." The specific publisher within the group was Lillianas.
8. Wikipedia. "Cochran, Georgia."
9. "Native American History of Bleckley County, Georgia." Access Genealogy website. Last updated 1 July 2012.
10. "Melody Masters Quartet." David Bruce Murray’s Southern Gospel History website. Last updated 30 April 2018.
11. James R. Goff, Junior. Close Harmony. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2002. 170.
12. Campus Crusade.
13. Baptist Hymnal. Nashville: [Southern Baptist] Convention Press, 1975. 203. Cited by Daw, 591, and by Hymnary website entry for "I’ve Got Peace Like a River."
14. Praise! Our Songs and Hymns. Edited by Norman Johnson. Grand Rapids: Singspiration Music, 1979. 345. Cited by Hymnary.
15. Hymnary.
16. Presbyterian Hymnal. Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1990. 368. Cited by Hymnary.
17. Baptist Hymnal. Nashville: [Southern Baptist] Convention Press, 1991. 418. Cited by Hymnary.
"Peace like a River" first appeared in print in a 1963 Assembly of God songbook [1] with a note its origins were unknown. [2] The editor, Eddy Anderson, was born into a Swedish Pentecostal family in Rhode Island in 1914. He served pastorates in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and New England. In the 1950s he was active in Youth for Christ and had his own radio programs. [3] He could have heard the song anywhere in his travels.
Carl Daw noted the song shared an opening line with a nineteen-century hymn, [4] and originally had a pentatonic melody. [5] Those details, and the fact it had an AAAB line-repetition format, suggested it developed in Pentecostal camp meetings like those sponsored by the generally white Assembly of God where older songs were milled into simpler forms.
An arrangement was copyrighted by Mosie Lister in 1970 [6] for the Church of the Nazarene’s publishing house. [7] He was raised in a rail town [8] on Georgia’s Atlantic coastal plain. [9] After World War II, he sang baritone in southern gospel quartets, [10] but turned to song writing rather than touring. [11] He remained close to members of the Statesmen and other professional quartets, and, like Anderson, could have heard the song from anyone in that musical world.
The song most likely entered the repertoires of summer residential camps when Campus Crusade for Christ included a copy of Lister’s arrangement as a "spiritual" in its Pass It On songbook in 1972. [12] A friend told me he sang "Peace" at a Texas Presbyterian camp in 1973 when he was a counselor in college.
In 1975, the Southern Baptist Convention published an arrangement by William J. Reynolds. [13] It gained more exposure when an arrangement by Dale Scott appeared in a Singspiration songbook in 1979. [14]
During the 1980s, hymnals and songsters that included "Peace" identified it as traditional, meaning public domain. [15] It wasn’t until the Presbyterians included it in a hymn book in 1990 that it was described as an "African-American spiritual." [16] The Baptists followed suit in 1991, although they preferred the term "Negro." [17] Both probably were much more comfortable singing a song from Black tradition than they were from Pentecostal.
Jean Anne Shafferman identified the arrangement described in the post for 5 August 2018 as "a general anthem that combines two beloved traditional spirituals. It may be appropriate for peace observances, baptisms, and funerals." There were a great many other versions of her arrangement available on YouTube.
End Notes
1. "I’ve Got Peace like a River." Melody Choruses. Compiled by Edwin P. Anderson. Springfield, Missouri: Gospel Publishing House, 1963. Cited by Carl P. Daw, Junior. Glory to God. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2016. 591.
2. Wordcat entry for Melody Choruses.
3. Obituary for Edwin Eddy Anderson. [Springfield, Missouri] News-Leader. 31 March 2010.
4. Daw. 591.
5. Daw. 592.
6. "I’ve Got Peace Like a River." Pass It On. San Bernardino, California: Campus Crusade for Christ International, 1972. 124.
7. Wikipedia. "Nazarene Publishing House." The specific publisher within the group was Lillianas.
8. Wikipedia. "Cochran, Georgia."
9. "Native American History of Bleckley County, Georgia." Access Genealogy website. Last updated 1 July 2012.
10. "Melody Masters Quartet." David Bruce Murray’s Southern Gospel History website. Last updated 30 April 2018.
11. James R. Goff, Junior. Close Harmony. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2002. 170.
12. Campus Crusade.
13. Baptist Hymnal. Nashville: [Southern Baptist] Convention Press, 1975. 203. Cited by Daw, 591, and by Hymnary website entry for "I’ve Got Peace Like a River."
14. Praise! Our Songs and Hymns. Edited by Norman Johnson. Grand Rapids: Singspiration Music, 1979. 345. Cited by Hymnary.
15. Hymnary.
16. Presbyterian Hymnal. Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1990. 368. Cited by Hymnary.
17. Baptist Hymnal. Nashville: [Southern Baptist] Convention Press, 1991. 418. Cited by Hymnary.
Sunday, August 5, 2018
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.
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.
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