Repertory Project 1

The piece I chose for the repertory project is Aaron Copland's, "Shall We Gather At the River," for Unison voice and Piano.

I think that we don't consider unison pieces enough as opportunities for learning. We focus so much and how many parts can we get students to sing as opposed to the quality of singing that happens. I like this piece for it's simplicity and it's ability to be adapted if necessary. This piece could be used for many different levels, as far down as middle school, and still useful in intermediate ensembles. The tessitura is broken up into to distinct sections, one that hovers around G in the staff and the other around D in the staff for treble. The range of each of these sections are also very limited. This makes the piece easily adaptable if some singers can only do one section or another. Musically, there are a lot of dynamic markings and typical music information included in the score. This gives a good opportunity to introduce these terms with such a simple melody. Singing in unison in general also teaches phrasing because of the simplicity and "training" the choir to respond to gesture when they aren't concerned with other parts. The text is also a very traditional text. Yes, you would have to deal with the religious aspect of the text, but the tradition of the song is worth teaching as well.