![]() 49-62: This passage is more fun to sing than your usual tenor part because it moves and leaps more often. ![]() 57-58: The G-sharp isn’t hard, but some of your basses may struggle to hear the secondary dominant and want to sing it as a G natural. It’s just a lot at once to read or learn by rote for untrained singers. Harmonically, the passage makes complete sense and is spelled correctly. 51-53: The chromaticism on A/A-sharp, combined with the leaps may give some of your men trouble. These are the specific passages that may require careful rehearsal: A choir with confident aural skills should be fine singing through these verses together and then spot checking specific passages for each section. For most choirs, this will entail singing each part separately. You will need to sing through verses 3 and 4 for parts slowly at least once. In the process, however, she sometimes sacrifices gracious-to-sing lines for the sake of a harmony she wants. The part writing is mostly good, and DeFord gives the inner voices more interesting lines than they normally get. It also has the virtue of making the music easier to learn, since the choir can master the first two verses simply by learning the ear-wormish tune. The arrangement’s four verses fall into the familiar pattern of “women in unison - men in unison - four parts a cappella - four parts with piano.” Although somewhat clichéd, this pattern is effective and inoffensive here. Although spritely and energetic, the music would be at home in any LDS sacrament meeting. The florid flute obbligato and the piano’s opening pealing bell motive add to this mood. Her arrangement of “While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks by Night” is a prime example.Īs she rightly says in her description of the arrangement, the hymn book’s 4/4 version of the melody is rather “ho hum.” Recasting the tune as she does in 6/8 turns it into a real ear worm, giving it an infectious vitality and playfulness. Although it is fashionable in some circles to dismiss her music, DeFord’s best songs and arrangements have a depth and imagination that rival some professionally published composers.
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