Ready to Sing . . . Spirituals


Book Description

A wonderful variety of 11 favorite spirituals are featured in this new songbook. Included are: Gospel Train * Ride the Chariot * Kum Ba Yah * Down by the Riverside * Wade in the Water * Yes, My Lord! * Amazing Grace * Go, Tell It on the Mountain * Joshua * Good News! * Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen.




Ready to Sing . . . Folk Songs


Book Description

A collection of 10 folk songs arranged for voice and piano in a simple style appropriate for beginning soloists, unison classroom singing, and elementary choral groups. Included are reproducible melody-line song sheets for each song. Easy piano accompaniments strongly support the melody, and vocal tessituras are moderate; most have an octave range. Titles: * Li'l Liza Jane * Siyahamba * Scarborough Fair * De Colores * and Many More!




Ready to Sing


Book Description

Choral collection for the adult choir, arranged in SATB format.




Spirituals for Solo Singers


Book Description

Jay Althouse has compiled an outstanding collection of eleven spirituals arranged for solo voice and piano by some of Alfred's finest composers and arrangers. Perfect for recitals, concerts and contests, this compilation includes songs such as "Ezekial's Wheel," "Kum Ba Yah," and more!




Slave Songs of the United States


Book Description

Originally published in 1867, this book is a collection of songs of African-American slaves. A few of the songs were written after the emancipation, but all were inspired by slavery. The wild, sad strains tell, as the sufferers themselves could, of crushed hopes, keen sorrow, and a dull, daily misery, which covered them as hopelessly as the fog from the rice swamps. On the other hand, the words breathe a trusting faith in the life after, to which their eyes seem constantly turned.




Ready to Sing ... Christmas


Book Description

The newest addition to Alfred's Ready to Sing series is Ready to Sing ... Christmas. Like our previously published folk song and spirituals books, Ready to Sing ... Christmas includes 13 favorite songs arranged for voice and piano in a simple style appropriate for beginning and young soloists, unison classroom singing, and elementary choral groups. Included are reproducible melody line song sheets for each selection which can be distributed to singers. Soloists may also use these melody lines when learning or performing the songs. Included are: A-Rocking All Night * Away in a Manger * Deck the Hall * Ding Dong! Merrily on High * The First Noel * Frozen December * Fum, Fum, Fum * Good King Wenceslas * Jingle Bells * Joy to the World * Over the River and Through the Wood * Silent Night * Still, Still, Still.




Born to be


Book Description

Famous in the 1920s as a singer of Negro spirituals, Taylor Gordon was born into the only black family living in White Sulphur Springs, Montana. His rough-and-ready upbringing in that mining boom town is warmly remembered in Born to Be. Gordon describes with panache his early years in the Old West, where he was not aware of racial prejudice. As a boy he carried messages from civic leaders to the town madam, served drinks to the “sports,” and scurried up plenty of excitement. The book shows him leaving Montana for the East, experiencing the arrows of bigotry, chauffeuring for circus impresario John Ringling, and forging a singing career that won him a place in the Harlem Renaissance and an appointment with British royalty. Gordon finally returned to White Sulphur Springs—after an extraordinary career riddled with misfortune. But he was still flourishing at the age of thirty-six, when the autobiographical Born to Be ends.




The Spirituals of Harry T. Burleigh


Book Description

Harry Burleigh's music falls into three categories: secular, religious, and sacred. This 200-page collection is a treasure of history made usable in his fine arrangements. "Deep River" was published in 1917, the first of many to make Burleigh well-known as a composer. This title is available in SmartMusic.




Way Over in Beulah Lan'


Book Description

Renowned choral conductor and educator Andr J. Thomas has crafted a book that the conductor of any choral ensemble-be it church, high school, university, or professional-will want close at hand when preparing to program any concert spiritual. Understanding the Spiritual, the first of the book's two sections, includes an exploration of the beginnings of the spiritual, its role in society and its transition into art music. Issues of interpretation-text, diction, rhythm and tempo-are addressed in the second section, Performing the Spiritual. In addition to interviews with noted conductors Dr. Anton Armstrong and Prof. Judith Willoughby as to matters of performance and selection, the centerpiece of this section is Dr. Thomas's personal reflections on several spiritual arrangements, including his rehearsal techniques (with specific examples and measure-number references to the included scores), as well as an insightful look into his decisions of interpretation.