10 Things I Love About Middle School Choir Part 8: Middle School Kids Can Sing Challenging and Interesting Repertoire
Part 8: Middle School Kids Can Sing Challenging and Interesting Repertoire
My introductory story may come off sounding a little petty (and it is), so you've beenwarned:
Two years ago I took my auditioned mixed choir, Prairie Voices, to our state festival for adjudication. I had programmed some fairly advanced literature, as I usually did for that group: we sang Ungheresca (the song most people know as Tambur with Italian lyrics), a fast rhythmic a cappella song that I had sung in University Choir back at CU, the Michael Barrett/Raif Schmitt arrangement of Indodana (gorgeous South African piece), and Ain't You Got a Right to the Tree of Life by Caldwell and Ivory. It was a heavy set, but pretty standard for the type of rep that I liked to do with Prairie Voices by that point in time. So we sang our set, and sang it well. It wasn't an incoherent mess, we didn't sound like a choir that was just way out of its depth, not even close. It wasn't perfect either. Because we were a middle school choir singing really challenging repertoire, and so we didn't sound like a high school or college choir would if they sang that same repertoire. But we most certainly didn't sound bad singing it. We sang it accurately and passionately, even if there were some rough edges.
They posted our ratings, and we had received an overall score of II, (an "Excellent" rating, a notch below a "I" rating, or "Superior). My memory escapes me, but either two of three judges gave us II's or all three judges did. And that's fine. I'm not one to live and die by festival ratings too much. My ego (we all have one!) was a little bruised, but I figured that the judges had basically penalized us for doing rep that was "too hard" for us. When I read our comments weeks later (it takes me a while to work up the nerve), my theory was basically confirmed. One particular judge wrote something that, while well-meaning, just made me angry. The lower rating hadn't bothered me, but this comment most certainly did:
"Please give a lot of consideration to the repertoire you choose. I would have really liked to hear what this group could have done with more appropriate repertoire rather than the repertoire you chose. I think they would have been much more successful."
Stay in your lane, middle school teacher. Pick easier rep. Program literature that is too easy for your students so that you can make it sound perfect and then shine at festival.
I talked to my kids about it [because they were miffed too, that group was used to getting "I's" -yeah I know you don't feel bad for us ;-) ] and basically told them what had happened. And I explained to them why we do the music we do in that group:
"Guys, I could give you songs that were way easier. We could sing songs that are written 'for middle school' and polish them to within an inch of their lives and we could cruise to a Superior rating in front of judges like these. But you know what? You would be bored within a couple of weeks of working on pieces like that. They would be too easy for you. You wouldn't be challenged and so you wouldn't learn anything. You probably wouldn't even like the easier songs because most of them wouldn't be the quality that you are used to. I would rather have you sing music that is maybe just a little too hard for you, even if you don't sing it 100% perfectly, than you perform perfectly music that is too easy for you and is not a challenge. If that is truly the reason why we received that lower rating, then I will wear that lower rating like a badge of honor."
A month later I recorded my kids singing those same songs (we actually swapped out the Caldwell/Ivory for "I Will Sing" by Michael Engelhardt, which is even harder), and sent it in an audition for the CMEA Conference. That same group, singing the same literature that the festival judge said was way too hard for us, made CMEA.
*Okay, end of pettiness. Maybe.*
Here's the deal. Most of the repertoire that is marketed by the major distributors and publishers as "for Middle School" is just not of very high quality. It's better than it was 12 years ago when I started teaching, but sadly a lot of the major publishers and distributors seem to have a pretty low opinion of middle school choirs and the people who teach them. And even more sadly, there must be enough middle school choir teachers buying this low quality repertoire to reinforce those negative stereotypes about us and our kids and continue the Cycle of Schlock.
To a certain extent I know that low quality literature is a subjective matter of taste: to name one example, I really dig Jim Papoulis's stuff and I know other directors who can't stand it. But just in general, a lot of the repertoire that is specifically marketed as "for middle school," is inane (if not right out bad) texts set to the same-sounding part-writing and accompaniments written by the same 5-6 composer/arrangers. It is quite utilitarian, designed more to fill a slot in the program (this is my slow piece in Latin! This is my holiday song! This is a song about the water cycle with which I can totally do an interdisciplinary unit with the science teacher and get more points on my evaluation) than to have actual aesthetic value on its own.
I sound like such a snob in this post, and I kind of hate myself. I know I'm a repertoire snob, but I'm not like those repertoire snobs, I swear! Whatever, I'm in too deep, I can't stop now.
Obviously I don't like programming that music. So to find quality rep that my kids will enjoy singing and be challenged by (musically, textually, aesthetically), I have to turn to music that is written and published for the high school choir. And to find music written for high school that is still accessible to my middle students, sometimes I really have to dig. I spent so much time looking for repertoire that A.) I liked (because how on earth can you teach something you hate to your kids, and why on earth would you want to?) B.) I felt like they would like, C.) was musically interesting, D.) had an interesting and quality text, and E.) wasn't insanely out of reach for my kids (I'm looking at you, contemporary composer who writes everything in 8-part divisi!!!)
This is a time consuming process, but it's worth it. I have found that when we limit ourselves to the "for middle school" box, we are missing out on so much beautiful music that our kids can do!!! Maybe not Year 1 in a program (okay definitely not Year 1 in a program), but over time we can push our students to tackle piece that most certainly were not written with middle schoolers in mind. A big theme of this blog series has been the "Middle School kids are capable of SO MUCH MORE than most people give them credit for," and I feel this very passionately with repertoire. If you build your numbers, and lay the foundation of good technique and musicianship, your kids can do hard music. They will WANT to do hard music, to the point where if you pass out something that is too easy or of too low quality, they will notice and give you the look like "what the hell is this?"
But Phil, I have small numbers right now or a really weird combination of voices! What do I do?
I get it. I've been there. You're potentially going to have to dig deeper, but it's there. There are unison, 2-part, and 3-part pieces out there that have good texts and are musically interesting, you're just going to have to sift through the low quality stuff to find the diamonds in the rough. Also arrange. Adapt. Change things around on a quality piece to make it accessible for your singers. I've done it many times. I've thrown an SATB piece into Sibelius and changed it to a three part mixed piece, I've removed the TB divisi from an 8-part piece so that my choir could sing it SSAATB more times than I can count. I've dropped parts, combined parts, added parts. I've added rhythm section to an a cappella piece that we weren't ready to do a cappella but I still felt it was worth doing. These changes may get you knocked down at festival but hey, maybe festival isn't that important right now!
But Phil, how do I go about finding rep beyond the what I learned in choral repertoire class/what's on the JWPepper Editor's Choice/throwing out repertoire questions to random strangers on Facebook?
So I'm a huge repertoire geek, and I am pretty much always looking for repertoire year round, keeping a running google doc of all the music I've found that I want to do someday. Some places that I like to find new rep:
1.) Publisher websites. Most of the big choral publishers release new titles about twice a year, usually right at the beginning of the calendar year and then again sometime in the summer. I will go directly to the publishers I like and click on their new releases and peruse and see if they have anything I like. Some of this stuff you could find on Pepper's lists too, but that approach is less targeted and you're going to have to weed through more stuff that isn't very good.
Phil's list of publishers in which he really likes to go hunting for quality rep: Santa Barbara Music Publishing, Boosey & Hawkes (specifically the Doreen Rao Choral Music Experience Series), Walton, BriLee/Carl Fischer (start here if you're looking for accessible lit), and Alliance.
2.) Self-published composers and self-publishing hubs like Graphite Publishing and Musicspoke. These sites are more ethical ways to purchase your choral music because they A.) put more money directly into the hands of composers who are alive today and trying to make a living with their art and B.) will often support composers who might be underrepresented by the big publishing houses. Be forewarned with Musicspoke though...they have great rep but their website is godawful. Trying to just browse or search for literature with specific parameters is incredibly difficult and I am praying they do a redesign soon. But they have a lot of great rep and so if you are patient enough, you can find some good stuff.
In a similar vein, once you find a composer you really like, dive into their back catalog and see what else they wrote that you might like. Sometimes you'll be disappointed, but in general I have a list of go-to composers where I know that their style really works for my kids and I know I'm mostly going to love what they write. That helps me do a more targeted search.
3.) YouTube! One of my favorite things to do is just jump down the YouTube rabbit hole and see where it takes me. So many Children's Choirs and Youth Choruses have YouTube channels now (including some really quality choirs that are based in countries outside of the U.S.) and I will subscribe to them and see what rep they are doing when they post concert videos. Adult community choirs too will sometimes have things that I can steal. I have found some incredible gems from exploring choirs on YouTube.
4.) Reading sessions and conference performances can still be a good way to find rep. Reading sessions are always real hit or miss because often they are run by a publisher trying to unload particular titles (avoid!). The ones that are run by an actual choir teacher who got to pick the music are much better, but they really depend on who is running the reading session. If that director's taste doesn't really align with yours, then it may be a bust, but if you can find 1-2 pieces in that reading session that you would use, then it was probably time well spent. If you're a middle school teacher, you should go see every middle school choir that performs at your state conference (which probably won't be that many...sigh...that's a rant for another day) and write down the literature that you liked. And of course go see the high schools too and write down the literature you liked so that you can investigate it later. Some of it could probably be made to work for your kids!
But Phil, my kids don't WANT to sing [my definition of] quality literature! They only want to sing Pop music! What do I do?
Well first of all, do what you need to do. My first year at Prairie was so difficult that I had to let go of my snobbery and use literally anything I could find that my kids would actually be willing to sing. That was almost exclusively pop music. Sometimes you need to meet them where they are at just to survive, and build from there. Second of all, I do believe Pop music has a place in the choral world, though as part of a balanced diet of a lot of other genres, and I recommend finding quality arrangements of pop tunes (i.e. not necessarily every arrangement Hal Leonard tries to shove down your throat) or make your own arrangements.
But as far as the larger philosophical question of "How do I get my kids to sing X, because they don't want to sing X?" goes, I have some thoughts:
1.) The music is way too hard. Yes this is a post about how middle schoolers can sing hard music, but you need to be realistic. Setting your kids up for failure doesn't do anyone any good.
2.) The style of music is just a bridge too far for where your kids are at in that point in time. For example, I teach in a very culturally and racially diverse community. The longer I teach in that community, the less interest I have in programming music from the Western Choral Canon. It doesn't mean that I never do, or that I don't think that music has value, because I do on both counts. However, the bulk of my programming is represented by music from a wide array of diverse and non-Western cultural traditions, and/or contains texts dealing with social issues that my kids and community are facing. That sort of relevance creates a level of buy-in that I might not get if I was feeding them a steady diet of "The Greats." Also non-Western music and musical theater contains many of the elements that kids are going to like about pop music while exposing them to genres and pieces that are different than what they're always listening to.
3.) Or maybe your kids aren't bought into you and your program yet. Go back and read Parts 1-6. Because honestly what I have found is that when your kids are bought in, when they love you and trust you and know that you love them, there are very few arguments about repertoire. For the most part I could hand out just about anything to my kids and I could sell it because I loved it and they trusted my ability to pick good repertoire. By all means pander if that's what you have to do to get them singing, but you can also be laying the groundwork to build a strong program with kids who want to sing quality literature. It can happen. I've seen it and I've done it.
As I have said many times in this series, I was incredibly fortunate to work with Emily Martin early on and get a firsthand look at what is possible with middle school kids. This experience motivated me to find quality literature for my kids and not pander to them. After years of trying to figure out the teaching thing, and some struggles and falling on my face, I finally had a pretty solid middle school choir program where the kids were bought in and motivated and able to take my class for multiple years to build their skills. At that point I started wondering, hey how far can I take them? Where is the ceiling for the kind of music that middle school choirs can perform?
It's a risky question, but one that I believe is worth exploring.
I am getting close to my first day of teaching high school choir, so the series will be wrapping up. Coming soon, Part 9: Middle School Choir Colleagues are Awesome.
An Introduction to the Series
Part 1: Middle School Kids Won't Sing for an Asshole
Part 2: Middle School Kids are Hilarious
Part 3: Middle School Kids are Inconsistent
Part 4: Middle School Kids Have a Unique Energy
Part 5: Middle School Kids Have a Unique Loyalty
Part 6: Middle School Kids Have an Unrivaled Capacity for Growth
Part 7: Middle School Kids Will Rise or Fall to Your Expectations
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