I wonder what tunes TC would write. Probably the sequel to "I'm On A Boat," titled "I'm On a Plane."

A little while back, Public Radio did an excellent series of programs on American Music, called “American Mavericks.” Fortunately for us, you can read and listen to the great stuff online, even if you missed the radio broadcast (as many of you probably did).

Ironically enough, many of these programs were used in my American Music History class. Now I’m actually doing the readings…

A beautiful wartime doll.

Oh, you’re such a beautiful doll!  This 1911 hit was a wartime favorite that shows how Barbershop harmony, ragtime, and popular music overlapped.

This is sung by Bill Murray and The American Quartet in 1912.  Fantastic stuff here, very vintage.  It’s hard to imagine this being the height of popular music, but here you have it.

Now, for a more modern extension by some very talented ladies:

While we’re listening, you SSAA arrangers out there should take note of the general low tessitura of everything here, and the overwhelming strength of the lower voices — this is such an exercise in the beauty of chest… especially in the masterful placement of the sustained tonic note in the tag.  For these ladies, a chest-heavy belt works much better than a high soprano might.  Bravo!

Also, take a listen to all the unison used, and the way things are arranged.  The piano licks are also quite perfectly suited.  Listen for the bass voice occasionally peeking out!  Good stylistic lessons here.

Also plays songs that people know, like Sweet Home Alabama.

Song selection is tricky business. It might not make or break your group, and each individual song choice might not matter that much, but a group’s audience and reputation are largely determined by the catalog of music they present. So before you decide on your group’s lineup for the year, or the semester, mull over your priorities.

Who are you singing for?

As a case study, when I was in my second year with the UNC Loreleis, we won a great battle: Major Sponsorship. The UNC General Alumni Association decided to sponsor us, giving us a lump sum of money every year, full access to their printer, free labor of their webmaster, and rehearsal space. In exchange, we would sing at many GAA-held events for “free.” This meant singing for a lot of old people with old memories and deep pockets. It was in our interests to make them smile, so I tried to include a couple songs in the set list that they were feasibly familiar with, as well as a few newer songs that would at least make them smile.

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Yes, Bob, I sure am.

This case study is on subdivision in parts, both within the bass and the upper voices. Additionally, we’ll touch on a few other techniques, such as accommodating vocal backup parts within your arrangement, changing the feel of a tune, and arranging from memory instead of from a recording. Let’s shall, yes?

The tune of the moment is by The Temptations: “Get Ready.” This is a pretty fantastic classic tune that comes with built-in vocal harmonies; but in the original version, we hear not only the backup singers, but a full-fledged orchestra and choir plus rhythm section. How on earth to boil this down to its root components? First, listen to the Temptations themselves; the sample we’ll be dealing with is the first line of the chorus (I’ll be giving you a love that’s true, so Get Ready, so Get Ready):

One way to do this is to arrange from memory. Listen to the song a number of times (or perhaps even only the part you’re interested in working on) until you have it well in your head. Then, sing it back or even try to arrange it based on your memories. This process takes advantage of your personal impression of the most important parts of the song, and helps to create something that reflects your individual flair. The following recordings were made without listening to the original, since I happened to know the song very well from childhood. Listen again and get it in your head:

So pause, take a breath, and sing what you think maybe one line of the backup should be singing. Does anything stick out? What do you remember as being the most important rhythmic moments? The melodic shape? After you’ve done that, compare with what I came up with. Side note: The recordings we’ll be looking at were made as I was first learning to sing, a number of years ago, so listen for the mistake of humming /n/ or /m/ before the actual onset of the note. This is a big mistake that makes your group sound muddy, so try to encourage other singers to attack only on the starting consonant or vowel. Do as I say, not as I do!

Example One: Pure Homophony

What I produced, of course, is not “right” or “wrong,” it’s only what I happened to come up with. Yours might and should be different! What you hear in this recording is a TTBB treatment plus soloist; the backup parts ALL sing the same rhythm and the same words. This is called “homophony.” So where did the partwriting come from? Two parts.

In the original recording, there is one section that seems to be repeated in the chorus. Listen for the big grandiose choir there and listen to what they’re singing. First time through, it’s something like, “Ah ah ah ah ah. Get Ready, Get Ready.” Second time is MUCH more interesting, something like, “Ah ah ah ah ah, baby, Get Ready, Get Ready.” Should you include the “baby”? Signs point to “HELL YES!”, mainly because it’s a hidden gem that makes the arrangement much more fun to sing, and helps your singers from getting weary of counting repeat signs in their heads. However, if your singers are not good enough to the point that they can hold their own on sections like that, it’d be fine to simplify and actually repeat the previous material. Here today, we will only look at the first four bars, however.

Learn it, Use it, Live it, Love it.

After the choir sings their second “Get Ready,” the string section becomes much more obvious with two clear rhythmic hits on the “&” of 3 and 4. Hear it? These emerge from the texture powerfully, so it’s a good idea to include them in your a cappella arrangement. If I were to do this over, I might do it more obviously (by adding a hard consonant to each of these offbeats), but you can still hear them emphasized by a change in notes on the word “Ready.”

Example One had all parts singing in unison, and this article is supposed to be about subdivision in the parts. So onward!

Example Two: Uppervoices Homophony, Independent Bassline

My friends, never underestimate the value in an independent bassline. The moving bassline in the above example is improvised and not particularly well thought-out, but it makes its point, with simple dooms and the like all the way through. It stands out because its /u/ and /m/ don’t match the /a/ sung by the block. It’s not a particularly good bassline, though, since it seems to interfere a bit. A better solution would be to change the bassline such that it was a perfect combination of the previous two examples: the bassline would be an independent line of dooms during the long /a/s on top, and then would chime in with the words “Get Ready” to match the rest and give the whole thing some unity. Nonetheless, as it is, the group sounds like it has much more motion; the job of the drum section and the bass player from the original is done by this new rewritten bass part, and the arrangement sounds much much more directional.

Example Three: Uppervoices Subdivided Homophony, Independent Bassline

One more example to show how subdivision might effect the upper voices. Here, instead of sustaining an /a/, the upper voices punctuate each beat with a /d/; this helps add to the percussion in the arrangement (remember that vocal percussion is only a string of consonants, and their jobs are interchangeable). It’s a subtle change, and I’ll leave it up to the listener to decide which they prefer. Although adding the /d/s to the voices helps make the harmony much more clear and to pound away at the beat, it takes away some of the smoothness of the voice’s line. Remember, if you write for a group of a dozen college kids a whole note as in Example Two, they’re likely to fall flat on it and give it no life; if you write a series of four quarter note /da/s, you’ll get a group of people jackhammering away inelegantly, distorting their vowel each time they move their tongue up for a /d/.

This is not pessimistic, however! This is opportunistic and instructive: which option you choose will determine which lesson you’ll be teaching through your arrangement — which challenge the group will next overcome. After they learn to sing whatever you write wonderfully, then they will be enriched in that way, and better able to tackle the next task thrown at them!

You Know, I Learned Something Today

Also, Huzzah!

Have faith in your mind’s ear to recall what is truly the most important part of the arrangement to include. Then, let your ears reveal the special idiosynchrasies that make an arrangement fun to sing and engaging. Subdivided, independent basslines can be used very effectively to give motion and energy to an a cappella arrangement, since it can act like a drumset and fill the rhythmic roles of the other instruments in the original. The way you write the upper voices is likely to sound different, but an amateur choir will exaggerate these differences — score wisely and use the arrangement to help teach awesome musicians to be even more awesome.

If that doesn’t enrich your soul, I don’t know what will.

The arrangement is pretty excellent — it was recorded sometime around 1970, and so was probably seen as a string of “covers” of Stevie Wonder’s fantastic up-tempo version.. in fact, he uses Stevie’s chromatically falling lick at 0:51, although he lays much futher back.  Sammy Davis Jr. is certainly of an older era of performers who never wrote their own material, back in the days of the Great American Song.  The horns at the end repeating that lick bring this whole project together as a funktastic groove that somehow just oozes “cool” at the seams.  This is a good study in horn arrangement of the era — it’s very typical, but in a good way.

Sammy Davis’s skinny self in that jumpsuit is such a ridiculous sight, really, but not one that’s particularly sad.  I think of it more as an apogee of achievement; it’s the pinnacle of… something.  I’m not sure quite what, but it’s certainly very far in whatever direction it is.  Perhaps the direction is “Tom Jones,” which explains the alarming hip gyration.  But regardless, props to the James Brown scream in there.  I suspect that Sammy Davis Junior’s time doing this is just evidence of his success as an entertainer.  He kept relevant no matter what; much like the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

Bonus: Soul Girls!  Watch 1:48 to 1:58 on the left side of the screen — that gal does the clap and squat.  I love the clap and squat!

Bonus 2: Sammy doing it again in 1989, after strutting onstage to the Hawaii Five-0 Theme Song; the cigarette is gone and the hip gyrations remain.  I would say that the soulscream and the performance is FAR more triumphant here, and if the 1970 version made me smile in vague irony, this one from 20 years later makes me smile with joy!

Young Michael had some moves; looking over his shoulder out at a large empty auditorium is very familiar; all of them are surely imagining what the place might look like when it’s full.  Hearing the false starts and the variations of the playing gies the impression that this music as performed live was much more organic and active (and prone to error) than the stadium mega-concerts that are lip-synced today.  It makes me want to bust out a Jackson Five recording or two!

It’s pretty striking how many jokes fell absolutely flat — the comedy writing for this show was rather poor, and the audience sounds somewhat canned and respectful.  I know that when I’m on stage (especially if there’s somebody wearing sequins), I love a raucous and enthusiastic crowd!  The philosophy of returning stagecraft in music to the event of the night (a la Rat Pack) is something I’ll probably rant about many times in the future.

At 3:49, during For Once In My Life, check out how the saxophones are playing the flute/piccolo parts from the original recording — at the time, the stage musicians were reading from the original orchestration (listen to the more-amateur choir!) and didn’t have the instruments or the facility to play these woodwind parts on the flute.  Not to disparage at all, just thinking about the resources available and how the same composition/arrangement could be deployed in multiple different environments with great success in all.

What a grand performance.  Stevie is incredible.

Update: Best moment is 3:54-3:56.  Diana points to herself, and is kinda a ham, but still very entertaining.  There are some stiff jokes in here that were written for Stevie as being full of himself, but don’t actually match his personality.  She’s an experienced stagecrafter, who is constantly interesting and engaging, even when her stage presence is meant to be secondary.  It’s also worth remembering that Berry Gordy originally hated the hip and uptempo version of “Once In My Life,” refusing to agree to its publication.

Stevie Wonder is young, talented, enthusiastic, and completely unaware of any stage drama.  He’s blissfully clueless.  Diana Ross, on the other hand is a fantastically seasoned performer: sexy, talented, and aware of how to best handle the situation.  She wins the night, while Stevie will laugh about it later, slightly embarrassed at his younger self.

More tongue-clicking at 1:29!  And he looks like he’s sitting particularly low at the keyboard; this might have something to do with what they tell me about him playing without his thumbs.  The ballet dancer superimposed is pretty fantastic, but more so is the realization the Stevie Wonder is one of those people who simply does not sing out of tune — it’s obvious from the deviations from the recording that he’s singing live, but he’s always spot-on with his pitch.  The only person I’ve met to truly do that with such ridiculous (near-mechanical) consistency was Phillip Childers, in the Achordants.  Wowzer.

Now try this one:

The pitch is still ridiculously spot on, but the phrasing and the performance are much more “Greatest Hits”-y.  After all that time, the inspiration for singing a beautiful song is largely gone, and the natural spontaneous enthusiasm has left; in their place is a near-craven desire to spice it up somehow, lest the magic be gone.  Concerts like these are important to honor a great hero, but nostalgia does not equal innovation.  Stevie applies new musical styles to this performance; however, I always imagine he is much happier when he is producing new material.

The biggest hurdle, I imagine, is that those who grew up with his music are not longer looking for new music — only reminiscence.