I have about 1/3 of my sopranos and 1/3 of my altos sing Soprano 2 on
SSA. It usually works out to fit the range of my singers (For example,
2/3 of my altos prefer to sing low than high and vice-versa). Similar
with the men, according to the number in the sections already (If I have
more basses than tenors, I take more baritones/tenor 2 from the bass
section than from the tenor section).
Keeps life simple.
Raymond Horton
Minister of Music
Edwardsville United Methodist Church
Christopher Smith wrote:
On Dec 20, 2004, at 6:18 PM, John Howell wrote:
At 10:27 AM -1000 12/20/04, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
There is also a fair amount of scoring SATB as SA and TB where it
really ought to be split into 4 staves. *sigh*
Well, that's hymnbook style as opposed to choral score style. I use
both, as appropriate. Specifically, when I'm writing for someone and
I will not be there to clarify things, or writing for publication
(which I'd love to do more of!), I will use 4 staves because that's
expected. But there's a problem with that when it comes to divisi.
If I want to go from SA to SSA or SAA, I have to put the third note
on either the soprano staff or the alto staff. But what I might
actually intend is SMA, with equal numbers of sopranos, mezzos and
altos, and I always wonder whether the average choir director will
take that into consideration. (One of my faculty colleagues at
Indiana University assigned the women in his ensemble to S1, S2, and
A, but then had all S1s and S2s sing the soprano line when the
voicing was SATB, giving a soprano-heavy sound I didn't especially
care for.)
Writing for my own college groups, though, in pop styles that were
mostly homorhythmic, I used 2 staves, SA and TB. This allowed me to
go from unison on each staff to 2-part to 3-part to 4-part very
easily, and I did quite a lot of that.
Apparently what you describe is the norm for show/swing/jingle
singing. I went to a workshop with Paris Rutherford, who has directed
the jazz choir at North Texas State since about forever, and he writes
consistently in short score format as you said, with each staff
ranging from 1 to 4 notes. Amazingly, he has such confidence in his
singers that he leave the splits up to the section heads, rarely, if
ever, specifying splits either in the music or verbally in rehearsal.
I actually took the cue from him, and write most of my jazz and pop
stuff this way now, rather than in four, five or six staves.
When I directed show choirs, I grouped my women into three balanced
groups: soprano, mezzo, and alto, with the mezzos divided into upper
and lower. Obviously the upper mezzos sang soprano and the lowers sang
alto when there were only two parts, and most of my writing was such
that things worked out well to split the mezzos in half when there
were four notes (my mezzos were exceptionally strong.) I did the same
thing to my men, with tenor, baritone and bass, with upper and lower
baritones.
Christopher
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