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CHOIR MUSIC ADVICE FROM LAURA WATTS, MUSIC DIRECTOR IN ST. PETE -- ET AL Choir music ... that can be tough! During our conference this year, Richard Held is going to demonstrate how to take any song, like a Unity hymn from the hymnal or a song you might have sheet music for (as a solo) ... and arrange that song for a choir. I think that will be extremely educational for all of us. What I have always done, and my choir director here at First Unity does this too, is use music from some of the mainstream church music publishers. My favorites are Word Music, Brentwood Publishers, Integrity Music. He likes to also use Allegis, Lillenas, Hope, Alfred. I'm attaching a resource list that I handed out at last year's conference with contact info for some of these publishers. There just isn't good "Unity" choir music out there, as far as I know. It all tends to be rather corny. If you can email me your fax number, I'll fax you a handout from my choir director's workshop at last year's conference. It is our church choir's top favorite choir songs, with publishing info, so you can order them. I think this will be immensely helpful to you. If you just chose music from this list, it would probably get you through a year of choir music! If you know the publisher of a song, you can contact that publisher directly to order the music. (By the way, most choir songs purchased in this way also have an accompaniment CD or tape available for around $15-20. This is VERY handy if your accompanist can't handle this type of music or isn't available for choir practice. Sometimes it's nice to use those CDs regardless, as they are fully orchestrated and sound quite majestic, especially for special occasions like Easter.) If you're not sure of the publisher, but you have the song title (and preferably also the composer's name), you can call a company who carries a wide variety of music and order from them, if they carry it. My favorites, who I order EVERYTHING from, are J& J Music, Kempke Music & J.W. Pepper. Those are printed on the attached resource list. Ask them to sign you up for their free mailings of listening CDs and catalogs, so you can preview what they have. It's good to develop a relationship with one ore more of these companies and set up an account. Pepper will even send you music on a preview basis ... you don't have to pay for it till you look at it, and if you don't want it, you just pay to send it back. Understand that these companies are all very mainstream religious. You have to do some major sorting through the music they offer to find things that will work. Easter music is particularly HORRIBLE, for the most part. Below I'll mention some of my favorite Easter choir songs, which you can order. Don't be afraid to change a word or two so a song will work. Our policy is ... if we can change one or two words or phrases in the song and make it work for Unity, we do it. If it's a word that's repeated over and over, perhaps in the title, and we'd have to do tons of changes, we just pick a different song. Legally, you're not supposed to change words. We stay legal as best we can by keeping our CCLI license current (if you don't have one, you need it ... ccli.com ... it's cheap and covers taping this music during your Sunday services, printing words to songs, and lots more). We always buy all the music we will need, and don't photocopy. So we feel like we're being VERY legal, and if every once in a while we change a word, it's hopefully not too terrible. As for Easter, here are some of my favorite titles. I don't have composer info right at my fingertips, but I'm sure one of those 3 companies I listed above would be familiar with and have access to most of these: Mary, Mary |
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|Choir Music Advice from Laura Watts & others | | Choir Directors/Music Directors contact info | Song List | | Easter Season Music | Music Publishers |