So many of you have commented on last week’s blog that I thought I’d follow it up with some real-world examples. I’ll take you into the process we’re presently in, to pick music for the spring 2019 session. This is about as current as it gets. 

Sandy said the other day, “I heard you groaning downstairs and saying, ‘Oh, no!’… what’s up?” If it had been a Sunday afternoon, she might have thought I was watching the Bears lose in overtime to the Dolphins. But no; I was simply shopping for sheet music.

Actually, the football analogy holds up reasonably well, at least for a while. You surely know the feeling of eager anticipation at the start of a sports game, when you hope that your sometimes-hapless team will actually keep it together this time, not disappoint you, and make you happy and proud at the end, right? Well, shopping for sheet music is like that. I am sitting on the J.W. Pepper website, which has all sorts of helpful tools for browsing repertoire. I am ready to be excited! 

So I pick a title and start shopping.

“Let’s see… here’s an arrangement by Kirby Shaw. Sometimes I like him, sometimes not. I remember how good his a cappella version of Java Jive was. This is a tune I love, so let’s see how it goes.”

I click on the “ScorePlay” button. A YouTube video opens, which has a movie of the score that turns pages in real time while the demo choir sings in the background.

I think to myself, “So, will it feel right? Is this a tasteful, well-done arrangement that captures the spirit of the original and maybe has a little extra flair?” (This is not always my set of criteria, but with American Songbook repertoire that I’m finalizing for all of you, it is.) The rhythm section plays the first bar or two… okay so far.

Then, and this really happened the other day, “Oh no! Arrgghh!” The arrangement, it quickly turned out, was in an overly different style, with some sort of salsa beat and rhythms that felt completely off to me.

As Sandy said, it was a play that looked like it was going to be a touchdown and ended up as a sack-fumble. I couldn’t stand what the arranger had done with the song. Yuck!

Well, you can’t win them all. On to the next piece.

I had a similar experience yesterday with a chart by the late, great Steve Zegree, whose work I mostly really like. He had another chart of a tune I love (I think it was “Blue Skies”), but there were too many gimmicks in there, such as the theme from “Carmen” that he had tossed in for a laugh. I didn’t think it was that funny, and I didn’t think it would work for our singers. Then there were some other things that were overly scatty, with some out-there chords that took the chart a little too far afield, even for this old cat. Sigh.

It takes time and patience to do this process right, to know what works for the ensembles one directs, and to carefully curate the singers’ experiences with the music that ends up making the final cut. This is why conductors will sit at the bar until the wee hours of the night at choral conventions, trying so hard to pump their colleagues for what music fills the bill and what doesn’t. Of course, there’s a trust factor here too; after a while you get to know not only which composers and arrangers you trust, but also which other conductor colleagues have similar tastes and temperaments to yours. Over time, every conductor I know starts to build a tribe of trusted colleagues, the ones you can e-mail in the middle of the night when you’re really stuck. People like this, who can save your bacon, are a godsend.

There is more to the process, but that’s an inside peek into one brain. Such are the joys and sorrows of picking music!

Have a great week.

Warmly,

Jon