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What's wrong with jazz, show tunes, pop, etc in choir?Date: March 13, 2010 by Allie Kirk
 I expect to get a lot of people disagreeing with me, but I still would like to start this discussion.
Why do most choirs (at least where I live--maybe it's different in other places?) not sing anything other than classical pieces? Why is it considered "bad" to learn popular music?
My personal teaching philosophy includes the strong opinion that it is not only acceptable, but important, to teach musicians how to sing and play instruments in ALL musical styles. (I teach both band and choir) I believe only teaching band or choir from the classical standpoint limits students and teaches students that other kinds of music are subpar.
I teach ALL forms of music in my choir: everything from classical to jazz to folk songs to Broadway to pop to country. Everything. I do so for the following reasons:
1)I teach at a rural, small school in Arkansas. If I limited my choir to singing classical pieces, I would have no one in choir.
2)Teaching popular music gives my choir, almost all of who are untrained singers, a familiar starting point and serves as a bridge to learning other music.
3)Popular music is an important part of our history, heritage, and culture. Jazz, in particular, is a dying art form and I believe we MUST preserve and promote it. Pop, rock, and country are directly related to the American culture.
4)Each semester, I let my kids vote on a piece they want to sing, and it can be anything they want as long as it is clean and non-offensive, Doing this gives my kids a sense of ownership in my program, and when I allow them to learn some of the music they like, they are FAR more willing to learn some of the beautiful classical pieces I wish to teach them.
I have always rejected the mindset that anything but classical is unacceptable or "low quality". We must remember that kids join band and choir because it looks like FUN....and we need to make sure it is enjoyable.
That being said, I obviously teach classical music, too. Don't get me wrong. But I firmly believe it is important to learn about popular music.
I'm curious to hear your thoughts. Replies (31): Threaded | Chronological
on March 13, 2010 2:47pm
Jazz is classical American music, but a large percentage of choral musicians are not willing to accept this and have very little training or understanding in the general "jazz/pops" category. It took enough time and trouble getting the early New Orleans "jass" out of the sinful and into the acceptable category as a listenable, intellectually acceptable style, to say nothing of bringing it into the school music programs. There is also a feeling that the kids already know enough about "pops" music and therefore there is no need to bring it into the school choral repertory. This keeps out a lot of American styles of musical creativity born in the 20th century, which should be considered fundamental to any Choral program, just as it is to the instrumental programs with their "big band jazz" activities.
Another problem is accompaniment. It's hard to find teen or adult pianists who have the ability to play correctly in the "American" genre, especially when it comes to improvisation, which is critically necessary to the style.
Most choral musicians can adapt if they give it a chance, and there are ways to work through both the teaching/conducting and accompaniment problems. This musical category is being performed more often these days as is being demonstrated in school concerts and choral festivals as well as on TV.
on March 13, 2010 2:58pm
Allie:
I highly respect your question and your questioning. I really would like to know more about what YOU think. Your reasons for continuing to use popular music are sound. If this works for you, then do it. Still, why do you think other choral educators do not include all forms of music in ther programming of choral literature? Why would music teachers not include one of America's only true art forms, Jazz, in their curriculum? I would like to know your thoughts.
I will share with you that in the Pacific Northwest, most of the outstanding Concert Choir programs include Jazz Choir programs, too. These Jazz Choirs do not spend time on dancing or choreogrophy (not that these art forms aren't important but just are not included in the choral programs) but do spend time on: intricate rhythms; extended and tight harmonies; learning the importance of musical form; understanding music theory and ear training; developing creativity with improvisation and adlibing (scatting); developing listening skills and sight reading strengths, delelop choral blending and balance skills and the creating the essense of choral ensemble.
Several of the Oregon schools who are consistant Concert Choir winners in the state compititions have the most incredible Jazz Choirs. Idaho schools have wonderful choral programs that include both Concert and Jazz Choirs. Alaska has developed several Concert and Jazz Choral programs. Montana, with a legacy of Concert Choir high standards, also boasts about their Jazz Choir programs. A recent Jazz Festival in Washington state had over 60 Jazz Choirs with elementary through community groups participating. Jazz, in Washington, is an important part of the music corruculum. Every year at least 3 to 5 Jazz Bands are selected to perform and compete at the Lincolin Center in New York City for the Essentially Ellington compition. Considering only a total of 15 bands are selected from throughout the United States and Candada, this is amazing accomplishment.
Important specifics included in the corriculum of the Jazz Choirs: 10 to 30+ singers; a rhythm secition with piano, bass and drums; the use of individual or overhead micing; the primary resources for music include Sound Music Publications and UNC Press; the trend it toward music that is more like commissioned works than the "formula music" that is published; the importance of interpretation, spontinaity, improvisation; and an understand of thestyles of Blues, ballads, a cappella, be-bop, Latin, Funk, Jazz Waltz, up tempo swing, easy swing, are essential.
I look forward to hearing back from you and to comments from others.
Frank DeMiero
on March 13, 2010 9:53pm
My community choir sings unaccompanied music from all around the world and from all genres.
As the person who has to arrange the music to suit the voices in the choir, I try to avoid most pop music. For a start, I just don't like most of it personally, and as I don't have to answer to anyone except my singers, it's my call.
Pop songs are often based on a solo voice. If people like a particular pop song, it's not only the melody they like but the idiosyncratic way in which a singer sings it. It's very hard to do a version of a popular song which everybody knows and and has strong expectations of what it should sound like. It's often quite different and unsatisfying in a massed group.
The exceptions are those which take on a magical quality when a choir sings it, such as Billy Joel's And So It Goes, or the Beatles Let It Be.
I'm inspired listening to groups like the King's Singers and Chanticleer sing pop songs. They breathe life into songs that I had dismissed as dead long ago and their arrangements are spectacularly beautiful, but they are also quite challenging to pull off.
on March 14, 2010 10:46am
Hi, Jane. Please don't take this as any kind of put-down, but while you say you arrange your music, you don't seem to have an arranger's outlook. Please allow me to explain.
During the two seasons I worked for Disney, my boss was Bob Jani. Bob had been hired as Creative Vice President after Walt died, and it was his job to come up with new, creative ideas. And to encourage his staff to do the same, he told us to try seeing at least three perfectly ordinary things in brand new ways as we drove to work in the mornings.
An arranger--at least the kind of creative arranger I've always tried to be--MUST be able to see that EVERY RECORDED SONG is just one possible version--one possible arrangement--of what that song can become. An ordinary person can't do that. An ordinary person (and that includes my own children as teenagers) hears a song done one way and can't imagine it's being done any other way. But that's exactly what an arranger DOES, time after time, song after song, and I've spent a lot of years doing it.
So if everything you hear on a recording is an arrangement (and trust me, IT IS!!!), what is the actual song? I'm glad you asked! The actual song is whatever is included in a Leadsheet, which in most cases is the melody, the lyrics, harmonies indicated by chord symbols, and a general indication of tempo and mood. THAT'S IT!!! Everything else is arrangement, including the soloist's stylization, and obviously even the elements included in the leadsheet can be modified, stretched, altered, and generally played with in a way the conservatory-trained classical musicians would be horrified by. But it's all raw material for the creative arranger.
You said "pop songs are often based on a solo voice." I would say "pop songs are often arranged for a solo voice, but that is only one possible realization." You say that people respond to "the idiosyncratic way in which a singer sings it." I agree, and an imitative singer will do her best to duplicate that stylization, whether it fits her voice or not. But it's an arranger's job to explore OTHER stylizations, and in the case of writing for a group to write those stylizations in so that they can be performed in unison.
But most importantly you say "It's very hard to do a version of a popular song which everybody knows and has strong expectations of what it should sound like. It's often quite different and unsatisfying in a massed group." And again, I have to agree. It takes good creativity, and good technique and understanding of voices, and most of all good ideas—new and DIFFERENT ideas—and when all of those are present it opens up many new possibilities that were there in the music all along, but that nobody else had noticed. You quite properly credit the arrangements sung by the King's Singers and Chanticleer as being spectacularly beautiful, and you're absolutely right, because they were written by creative arrangers. And you could just as easily throw in the Hi-Los, for whom Gene Peurling and others wrote some of the most creative arrangements of the late 20th century, and a number of other vocal groups—NOT soloists—who have had the good luck (or were smart enough) to hire fine, creative arrangers. Apologies for seeming critical, but this is just an attitude that I have run into much too often, and it really does beg the question of what an arranger's job really is. All the best, John
on March 14, 2010 2:11pm
Hi Jane, I'm with you 100% on this!!
I take your point John about everything being an arrangement, and a good arranger can get beyond the idea that there's just one possible way of doing a song, but ...
When I run pop song workshops or when my choirs request pop songs in our repertoire, it is because they know and love the original. They want, somehow, to capture a bit of that magic. In fact, for most of them, they want to BE that famous lead singer. If I were to offer a creative and interesting arrangement to suit a choir, most people would be put off (believe me, I've tried it!). The other thing about pop song arrangements that I HATE is when voice impersonate instruments. This is the case because very often what makes a particular pop song memorable is the catchy guitar riff, or the drum solo, or the instrumental intro.
I won't go into it much more here because I've written about this before on my blog: Why choirs shouldn't sing pop songs.
Chris Rowbury
Coventry, UK
on March 14, 2010 6:53pm
Hi, Chris. You're right that most people want to sing pop repertoire because they know and love the original. But that doesn't mean they won't love a well-crafted choral arrangement of it. They just won't know until they try it! I'm not sure why you object to voices imitating instruments, either, as The Mills Brothers did rather tastefully and Bing Crosby did so well laying in a tailgate bass line. And of course Bobby McFarin is a unique talent as well as a one-man band!
And there's no question that it's the production and everything that goes into it that makes a pop song special, but I don't agree that this is the ONLY way to make it special.
I've read your blog (and thanks for the link), and I'm afraid I don't agree with much of it (although you are absolutely entitled to your opinions), except when you say: "The secret (I believe) is to not try to duplicate the original but to turn it into something different and special. Also, you need to choose your songs carefully. Most don’t work." Of course, and that's what a good arranger does. And you just might enjoy some of the arrangements I've done of songs that one might think "won't work," but unfortunately you'll never hear them because they weren't written for publication. They were written for performance by my own groups, and accepted enthusiastically by a wide variety of audiences, because I took advantage of my own groups' strengths and didn't write generically.
Again, it all comes down to the arrangements.
All the best,
John
on March 14, 2010 2:16pm
Hi John,
Thank you for your comments - I really appreciate them - it will give me much food for thought. My background is in strongly conservative conservatorium training in four-part harmony, and that combined with the late 70's/early 80's style of contemporary composition "training" (ha! I despise atonal music) has left a rather large gap where arranging pop tunes is concerned.
Most of my arrangements are of old and forgotten songs from countries all around the world, so this puts me at an advantage in that no one starts learning it with any preconceived ideas of how it should sound. I can get wildly creative and no one really know just how wild it actually is - they just accept it as I present it which is rather fun. This is much easier than the challenge of arranging a song that everyone knows, and I recognize that other arrangers have abilities far beyond mine to do this, so I haven't really even tried.
However, you have made me think that perhaps with a different approach, maybe I can get creative and give it a shot.
Jane
on March 14, 2010 5:32am
I've always regretted an inability to 'get that swing', being more rooted in some ethnic folk but little pop. Before the Council of Trent it was common[sic] to base liturgical work after secular-even the most patently bawdy tunes- and we all know how most classical form derives from instrumental/dance forms.
It would be good to educate singers and audience/administraters about both this historical controversy and symbiosis through the programming of specific works incorporating idiomatically disperate conversations and intentions.
Great composers mostly had their work and lives in both worlds.
SIR
<www.renaissancechorus.org>
on March 14, 2010 7:22am
Right on Allie, and right on first responder John!
I think you hit the nail on the head when you say that a lot of music/choir teachers have not themselves had sufficient background in popular genres to feel comfortable with that music. I think the notion here is 'balance'. It is a good thing to explore the many faces of music, as it is in any other endeavour. There are a lot of fine musicians - i.e. very musical people - writing, performing and getting these genres into the market place and so there is a lot of good (what IS 'good', what IS 'bad'?) 'popular' music in the air. (Aren't there just two categories - popular and unpopular?!!!) Classical music, particularly non-contemporary traditional classical music has withstood a certain test of time. We even tend to hallow it! We tend to think that if we bring kids up on Bach, Mozart, Brahms, and so on, that somehow they'll be better people for it. Especially if we do not question their music. I think that's a bit of a cop-out, a no brainer. Kind of like mumbling grace before meals without ever explaining it, let alone changing it from time to time, let alone improvising it, let alone asking our kids to make up their own expressions of thanks! The singing of music offers an absolutely unique possibility for insight, an insight which no number of theory classes can possibly match. For this reason, 'critical' participation in the act of bringing to life the music of the old masters, and virtually every genre of music available can be a wonderful learning experience. Ask your students occasionally - do you think this is a great tune? Why? What do you think makes a great tune? And so on. Stimulate. Ask questions. Any and all genres. Were you ever in a choir that 'questioned' Bach? I wasn't! But questions stimulate thought, and we should be teaching critical assessment of everything we do in life - music and the other arts included. Isn't that what education is in part about? World Music, of course (and that's a specialty of mine!) is a wonderful resource for this kind of approach. Not all folk songs were created equal, so why not some critical assessment here? Take a bunch of melodies from the classical period (traditional and contemporary), jazz tunes, folk, Broadway, pop, and so on, and SING them, one after the other, and lead a discussion about them, question them, and so on. Have a good time with them. Have selected students talk about the people who write them; It could be quite informative - for everyone! We learn from everything we do. Nothing is lost. Youth are
precious. Music is wonderful!
on March 14, 2010 7:51am
I may have missed it? -- no one seems to have listed an important reason for including music outside the traditional, classical genre: a text that supports and enriches the sermon topic. Some that I've used: for a sermon "The Traditions We Keep" the choir sang "Tradition" and "Prayer" from FIDDLER ON THE ROOF; we sang Pete Seeger's "Turn, Turn, Turn" (can't remember he sermon topic); for "Gratitude in Hard Times" we sang Stephen Foster's "Hard Times." At times we've used more popular ballads but have sung them in a choral style rather than with all the pop turns and glisses...
Ruth McKendree Treen
Unitarian Universalist Meeting House
Chatham, MA (Cape Cod)
on March 14, 2010 11:12am
Allie, John has hit all the salient points from his unique viewpoint which straddles several musical worlds. In fact, the popular music group he was in formed one of the milestones which made me become and even more ardent desire to become a musician. Thanks be to John.
I, also, agree with your instincts. We are not just choral educators but educators of aesthetics, as well. Our texts are the musics from the beginning to now (or tomorrow). But there are several reasons why I chose to concentrate on teaching Classical music. Chief among the reasons is that I have worked very,very hard to understand this music and have become very skilled in conveying my understanding as I evolved with my students.As my active teaching career was coming to its end, I began thinking about the music I would choose to fill my iPod (an updating of that Desert Island). I started out with specific works like the Mahler 2nd Symphony, Mozart's Jupiter Symphony, Rachmaninov 2nd Symphony, etc which seemed to be an endless list and the iPod was filling up way too quickly.
So, then I began to think about the qualities of the musics which made me decide on the the choices I was making. This list, too, is evolving but comes down to this, I guess: Does the piece do what it needs to do in an efficient way? Does it spend my time well?
In the vast panoply of a thousand or so active composers in and around Vienna through the lifetimes of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven, we remember, revere and are prejudiced by these composers' music because, no matter how many notes they wrote, the vast body of their works are efficient. Add JS Bach to this list, and much of what we know of Western music is codified. There are many, many composers who have followed and who are judged in relation to these composers that a friend fervantly desired a ten year moratorium on their music in any form to "clean out our ears." Obviously, we cannot teach aesthetics to the "untutored" without these composers and their decendants.
I harkened back to what musics were attractive to the untutored me. I loved Tennessee Ernie Ford (what young baritone hasn't sung Sixteen Tons!), I remember regularly watching the Midwestern Hayride (rather like Prarie Home Companion without the Lake Wobegon story) on grainy B&W TV. And then there was Leonard Berstein and the Young Peoples' Concerts which can still keep me busy. I clearly remember to this day the 10 year old me at a concert of a touring group of the greatest black entertainers visiting the very center of mostly white Southern Indiana: The Inkspots, Nat King Cole, the Mills Brothers and Satchmo and Wife (?) and even, improbably, a Minstral Show! And, then, the Hootnannies! Armed with a stool, a guitar with Limeliter and Kingston Trio and Peter, Paul and Mary tunes, I faced tablesfull of blue-haired, cookie-baking ladies about the age I am now. And, I actually remember singing while sitting in a barber chair raised upon that padded board set on the arms to lift me high enough to have my hair buzzed short.
I can think of very,very few of my students who did anything like this by the time they got to me and, except for, perhaps, a garage band, their relationship to the "language of music" was left to what they had downloaded on their iPods which was not too encouraging in many,many ways. Melody? oh, it got a great beat! How does it go? BOOM,BOOM,BOOM! What else does it do? I dunno. You have been there, we all have.
Then, I asked myself, what can anything that lasts maybe three minutes really do in the first place? Isn't a piece which lasts three minutes a miniature? What is a concert made of three miniatures? Punchlines without the jokes? A story made of one paragraph from, say, ten different, unrelated books? This began to bother me more and more so I began to do multi-movement pieces, whole stories, if you will. And then, each of my three ensembles demanded their own "major piece" and then a major piece for each of three or four yearly concerts. My singer's understood and expected this level of performance.
I did make provisions for my singers to perform folk-song arrangements and high-quality, lighter fair but in arrangements which I was certain could be used five, ten or even fifteen years in the future. "OO, Baby,Baby" isn't in it. The multi-purpose Chamber Ensemble, even had its own Valentine's Day Cabaret. While the band and orchestra had great arrangement of more current music, none of the choral anthologies were really of that stature--certainly not from the "usual sources"--the quality was certainly not there. This further militated against nearly all of the non-classical music--music which was, simply, not good enough. It did not use our time efficiently or well.
I utterly hate grab-bag concerts made of disparate 3 minute pieces strung end to end with no context. The few times I succombed to the eyes of students pleading to sing "Their Tune" in the middle of a planned set of pieces, simply did not work. There may be a way but I was never happy with the result unless I could make sets of, say, threes unified in some way.
The other issue wheich finally became clear to the students is that what they really are attracted to "that piece" was the production which me and a piano could not produce. This simply was not what they were hearing and loving. Even though I rarely was ever able to work with an orchestra, the piano reduction was far closer to the music than the recording studio production layered and layered and layered long after the raw performance.
Yes, all of these musics are important and we do what we can do. We can widen our view as teachers and expose the good and bad of every genre. This may not happen for everyone but a good music program, can include nearly every experience. But one teacher and one piano, three ensembles and voice lessons is a finite quantity.
S
on March 14, 2010 11:18am
My boy choir does all kinds of music also. When I need help on popular styles, I bring in someone to coach. However, the danger of mixing styles is that singers need to change gears for the appropriate tone quality with each and, especially with young choirs, one has to constantly remind them not to sing with a "pop" sound in classical music. I try to teach them that there are "file cabinets' for the different sounds. Having said that, it also enlivens programming to vary the styles. A study was recently conducted among audiences who attended symphony and opera performances with the question: do you go to choral concerts? If not, why not? The answer was that (classical music!) audiences consider choral music "boring." We see in ACDA choir performances that are anything but boring, but we need as conductors and educators to make sure that we are educating our audiences that attending a choral music concert can be an exciting experience. We need to bring a lively and engaging interpretation to all of our music.
on March 14, 2010 11:57am
This is a long post so I may have missed a point that I think is important. As far as jazz goes, the most important element is improvisation. What made Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, John Coltrane and others great wasn't so much the tunes they played, it was the extraordinary improvisations they could do over the songs' chord structures. Even the great jazz vocalists like Ella Fitagerald were fantastic improvisers. I agree completely that jazz is American Classical music but it was the names I just mentioned (and others like them) who made it great. When I hear vocal jazz arrangements of many jazz classics, it sounds very stilted and banal. The written out scat sections of vocal jazz arrangements are not even remotely close to what Ella, Louis Armstrong, and others were able to do as scat singers. In that sense, I don't think vocal jazz arrangements for choir get any closer to what jazz is really about than marching band arrangements of Dvorak's New World Symphony get to the essence of the late 19th century symphony.
I'm not saying that these arrangements are not fun to sing and play. Moreover, these arrangements can make a nice program closer and can lighten up an otherwise classical program. But I think it is disingenuous to say that when we program choral arrangements of jazz tunes we are exposing our students to the great American Classical musical form we call jazz. If, however, we are teaching them the art of solo improvisation over repeated chord changes (something that requires knowing how to play and sing every major and minor scale, blues scales, octatonic scales, scales based on modes, as well as an intimate knowledge of style etc.), only then can we say we are exposing our students to jazz.
As someone who started out as a jazz pianist and who has a family member who is a professional jazz drummer, I can honestly say that I do love jazz. Do I program vocal jazz with my choirs? No. I don't because I have yet to see a vocal jazz arrangement that can get even remotely close to the essence of what jazz really is about.
on March 14, 2010 4:48pm
Hi, Dennis. Just a brief response to your post. I understand perfectly where you're coming from, when you say that "as far as jazz goes, the most important element is improvisation," and I've certainly run into that before and appreciate it. But as an arranger I'm afraid I have to respectfully disagree. There is certainly jazz improvization and has been for a very long time (although interestingly enough it was NOT part of what many consider the basis of jazz, the Ragtime of the 1890s). And everything you say about it is absolutely true. But one has to realize that the narrow focus on improv dates only from the Be-Bop era of the '40s, and not from the very beginning.
But there is also such a thing as "jazz style," and composing, arranging, or performing in "jazz style" actually does NOT require improvization. What it requires is an understanding of the style, its very specific rhythmic nuances, and how to interpret the dots on the page.
I can easily compare this with baroque music. It also used a rhythm section that was basic and almost always there; it was called basso continuo accompaniment. It also used a musical shorthand (figured bass) rather than completely writing out the accompaniment, and left the realization of those harmonies to the skill of the player. And perhaps most important, it had its own use of improvization and stylization which the performer was absolutely EXPECTED to add to the written music, to make it a personal presentation. Like jazz, a performance of baroque music was a collaboration between the composer and the performer (although also like jazz, the two were often the same person!).
Please understand that I don't expect to convince you of this, just to point out that there IS a different way to approach it and to look at it. And for those of us in education and those of us in arranging, OF COURSE we will write out choruses in jazz style because we know that our students aren't ready to take off the training wheels yet!
All the best,
John
on March 15, 2010 9:54am
Thank you for bringing up the comparison with Baroque music, John, and I'd like to add this: I'm a reasonably competent continuo player, meaning I can play from just figured bass and get the chords and voice-leading right most of the time if they're not too complicated. How did I learn to do this? By playing lots of written-out Baroque music first. Similarly, I have learned to improvise jazz on the piano, starting out by playing written-out arrangements to get the feel of the chords under my fingers and the sounds of the lines in my ears.
I'm not saying that's the only way to learn to improvise — plenty of people learn it strictly by ear — but since it's a perfectly valid way to learn, there's no reason to turn up your nose at written-out arrangements even if you value improvisation; it's a valuable first step towards learning that for many students, especially those who are already good readers.
on March 14, 2010 12:43pm
I want to applaude all the thoughtful reponders to this question. What better reading matereial for future choral directors /music teachers than this sequence of answers!
I would add one more thought, coming from one who spent time teaching elementary music, has sung professionally both classically and in the pop genres, and is now teaching at the University level. We are reminded often that our music education students (really any music student) must make themselves as marketable as possible. If one is to find a job these days they must be able to do it all. So it behooves those of us who are "training up" the future teachers--and that really includes those from elementary to secondary to collegiate--to expose our students to every genre so that if they choose to carry on the torch as music teachers at any level, they will be able to do so with some integrity. I think of our young people going out into the field to teach and realize they might need to be able to direct a Vocal Jazz group (and it's instrumental group!), a show choir, a musical (whether it be elementary of high school), select individual solos for festivals, put together patriotic programs....... The list can go on and on. And to do this we must be ready as educators to expose our students to every possible genre of music, even if it is not in our comfort zone or personal preference.
We have to realize that someone sitting in our elementary general music class or high school choir may be the next musical theatre star,country songwriter/singer, opera performer, Disney composer/arranger, church choir director----we never know. All in all, a pretty intimidating thought for any of us at any level of teaching! We must not let our limitations get in the way of whatever potential is growing in these young lives!
Pat
on March 14, 2010 2:41pm
I don't disagree with you completely. When programming my concerts I tend toward "classical" but will generally schedule at least one lighter pops/broadway type concert.
Most of my concern with pop music is the availability of quality arrangments. A lot (certainly not all and there are some great pop arrangments out there), are soprano heavy melody with the atb voices doing johnny one notes. I have a hard time finding good arrangments that help my singers learn through quality musical lines and phrasing, articulations, dynamics, etc.
Another concern I have is how dated pop music can become. My students favorite music when I started 10 years ago would be rejected immediately by the singers in my choir today. I have such a limited budget that when I select music I really want to buy things that I can continue to use throughout the years. The director before me had so much music that I ended up tossing, just because I could never see us performing it due how terribly dated it was.
I believe approach is so important when presenting classical music. I try never to high brow my students with "THIS is quality, THAT is fluff". I agree with you. Music is music...there is benefit in almost all of it. But I try to be enthusiastic about trying to do learn and perform classical (also read art music)...in other words "this is some fantastic music that you don't get to hear everyday."
I also love the Deke Sharon arrangments of pop tunes. They are a capella and present challenges with rhythmic complexity, vocal percussion, jazz elements, and improvisation. I use these with one of my after school groups extensively.
The only comment you made though, that I really would challenge is this: We must remember that kids join band and choir because it looks like FUN....and we need to make sure it is enjoyable.
Yes it is and should be fun, and I hope that we make it enjoyable. But we MUST, IMO, keep in the forefront of our programming and rehearsing that we as music educators are teaching a CORE academic subject as recognized by No Child Left Behind. We need to be conscious of teaching our art as a valuable component to the overall education of students. It must have value beyond having fun. If not it is too easy for administrators and legislators to cut funding and continue to relagate what we do as an activity that can be shoved into whatever corner they deem least interfering with the "real" academic subjects. Therefore, when we recruit I hope that while we show how much fun singing is, that we stress the value that choral music has to a students' overall academic and life success.
I don't want to come off as high strung or self-important, but I love what I do, as we all do here, and I just want to see choral music continue to flourish in our schools.
on March 14, 2010 6:31pm
Jason: At the risk of overstaying my welcome, I have to react again as an arranger. Your comment on the availability of quality arrangements is absolutely true, but there are two reasons for it. Too many publishers deliberately aim their catalogs at the lowest common denominator, and their editors are scared to death of anything that goes above the staff or has divisi or looks the slightest bit difficult. Not all publishers, of course, and Frank's Sound Music Publications isn't that way, but the older and more established publishers tend to be for sure.
But there are two sides to every equation, and publishers will continue to produce pap as long as choir teachers who don't know any better continue to buy it. The same is true in EVERY genre, of course, and can can tell you that the kids in my wife's youth choir knew when they were handed junk food music and reacted against it.
And of COURSE pop tunes become dated. It goes with the territory. Just as it did for Mozart, Haydn, Bach, Handel, and all the way back to DuFay and even earlier. Fashions change. That's why those composers kept writing new music throughout their lives, and why their styles evolved and changed with the times. If you're going to program pop music, you shouldn't EXPECT to bring it back every 4 years, although you can always come up with a retrospective or cabaret or something similar. One of the biggest surprises to me has been the longevity of the Beatles Songbook--at least the core of it if not the outright weird songs. Those who do Broadway musical theater have exactly the same problem: do we want to recreate something from 20 or 40 years ago, or do we want to move the story of Miss Saigon to Hoboken?!!! (And yes, I realize that Bernstein and Sondheim did exactly that with West Side Story, and it was BRILLIANT!) We're so used to that in opera that we hardly bat an eye no matter how ridiculous the restagings get!
And I certainly don't accept that FUN mean DUMB!!! It shouldn't, it needn't, and with good arrangements it won't be. It all comes back to the arrangements, doesn't it? Doing good music, doing it well, and wowing our audiences IS FUN! Doing the same old same old is not.
All thebest,
John
on March 14, 2010 2:45pm
Frank, to answer your questions...I think there are two reasons why jazz isn't usually taught in high school choirs.
1)They don't have experience in it and don't feel comfortable teaching it, and
2)there's a strange notion in a lot of colleges that jazz isn't as important as classical.
I think those two combined are why it's not happening.
I also recognize that every program is different, and what works for my program might not work for another. Colleges, on the other hand, tend to teach what I call the "Music education blueprint". What I mean is, you're taught to teach as if every school situation is the same, and not to consider other ideas for teaching. Well, the "blueprint" doesn't work for me at ALL. I teach out in the hills in Arkansas. Choir is definately not a cool thing to do. I keep kids in choir because we do such a wide variety of repertoire.
on March 14, 2010 7:27pm
I am in complete agreement that there needs to be balance in what we teach! I teach at a junior high and I generally program my concerts with a variety of styles. Fall is what I call potpourri - mainly traditional styled folk songs, a broadway tune, a gospel piece - generally to get a feel for what my students can do and how far I can push them. By March, everything we do is classically based. This is festival season and solo/ensemble season. I try to allow my students to explore and learn to love music of a more classical nature. We generally sing in different languages and explore much more difficult repertoire. For May, we do a pops concert. It is more student choice oriented. In order to save budget money, we try and get sponsors to cover the cost of music, or I will arrange songs, selected by the students, myself.
Although students choose the final concert songs, the ones they grew to love the most are generally the ones they worked the hardest on - the classical music! Having students who enjoy singing songs from musical theater grow to love songs from Mendelssohn is a joy! In this era of Idol-mania, we should capture the interest of those students who join choir who are envisioning themselves as the "next best thing." If we can grab their attention with a little of "their" music and then have them experience choral singing with classics - what a joy!
What we need to concentrate on is quality in everything we choose, whether it be a beautiful pop ballad, a great gospel piece, or an intense Beethoven choral work.
Lori
on March 14, 2010 11:55pm
Hi Allie – I’ve been thinking about your questions and your reasons for doing what you do and while I believe that you make some valid points I would like for a moment to play “devils advocate”. I’m not sure if that is exactly what I’m doing but I would like to respond to each question or point that you bring forward.
What's wrong with jazz, show tunes, pop, etc in choir? First I would say – there is nothing wrong with jazz, show tunes or pop tune in a choir! I would add however that there are programs that focus on pop music and show tunes which is (in my opinion) a death knell to a rich choral program.
I expect to get a lot of people disagreeing with me, but I still would like to start this discussion.
It seems in reading the other comments, you’ve received much support. Maybe that is why I’m chiming in.
Why do most choirs (at least where I live--maybe it's different in other places?) not sing anything other than classical pieces? Why is it considered "bad" to learn popular music? It might be interesting to know what you call “classical music” and what you mean by “popular music” and how much are we talking about? Balance is an important issue here.
My personal teaching philosophy includes the strong opinion that it is not only acceptable, but important, to teach musicians how to sing and play instruments in ALL musical styles. (I teach both band and choir) I believe only teaching band or choir from the classical standpoint limits students and teaches students that other kinds of music are sub par. I believe that there is a difference in teaching instrumental music and choral music. (I did band, orchestra, jazz band, marching band and choirs for 12 of my 39 years of teaching.) I believe that instrumental music lends itself more to the “pop” genre. By-in-large instrumentalists read better and can learn a piece more quickly than vocal students (I know this is not always true) and therefore can bring a piece to a “performance level” more quickly. On the other hand I have some real reservations as to the “texts” for pop music. It is important to remember that Choral music brings together two great arts – music and poetry/prose. Most texts in pop music are (and I know here I’ll get into real trouble) are trite.
I teach ALL forms of music in my choir: everything from classical to jazz to folk songs to Broadway to pop to country. Everything. I do so for the following reasons:
1) I teach at a rural, small school in Arkansas. If I limited my choir to singing classical pieces, I would have no one in choir. Forgive me for saying this but I think this is bogus! Kids know quality. That being said if that is “what you feel” then that is also “the message you send to your students”. I would add here that if the “pop” music you teach is “quality” then I don’t have a problem with it. I just do not hear good pop music that lends itself to good choral music. Maybe I don’t know the difference between good and poor pop music. You may have noticed that I’ve not said anything about Jazz or Show Tunes.
2) Teaching popular music gives my choir, almost all of who are untrained singers, a familiar starting point and serves as a bridge to learning other music. Again if this is what you feel this is what is coming across. If it however works for you, ‘so-be-it’. I might add I do not think I would have become a Music Educator had my choir director had us sing “Elvis Presley” songs. I thought that Elvis had a pretty good voice but I did not “like” his music. It is somewhat interesting to me how much better his music sounds now to me than it did then.
3) Popular music is an important part of our history, heritage, and culture. Jazz, in particular, is a dying art form and I believe we MUST preserve and promote it. I believe in Jazz and wished I would have been more knowledgeable when I was teaching fulltime; a Jazz ballad is about all I could do. Pop, rock, and country are directly related to the American culture. Pop, rock and country belong in a ‘music appreciation class’ not in a chorus! Three chords and a drum beat is not worthy of choir students time.
4) Each semester, I let my kids vote on a piece they want to sing, and it can be anything they want as long as it is clean and non-offensive, Doing this gives my kids a sense of ownership in my program, and when I allow them to learn some of the music they like, they are FAR more willing to learn some of the beautiful classical pieces I wish to teach them. I would say if it works for you – well it works for you. If I have selected a group of pieces that I know to be worthy of the time and effort, but do not have the time to learn them all, I might let them choose between them.
I have always rejected the mindset that anything but classical is unacceptable or "low quality". I would totally agree. We must remember that kids join band and choir because it looks like FUN....and we need to make sure it is enjoyable. Here again I would agree to a point, however I found that kids came into my class first because they liked to sing and when they left, they left with (hopefully) an appreciation of what great fun they had singing great music and singing it well.
That being said, I obviously teach classical music, too. Don't get me wrong. But I firmly believe it is important to learn about popular music. I would add that the music we take the time to share with our students is something that is going to stay with them for the rest of their lives, and therefore must be worthy of that ‘life time’. I reveled in teaching my students music that had already lasted several life times and I was excited to teach them music that I believed would last beyond their life time. Whenever we sang Morten Lauridsen’s O Magnum Mysterium I would say to my singers and our audiences, that I believed that in 400 years, we will look down from heaven and still hear his O Magnum Mysterium being sung along side the immortal Victoria’s O Magnum Mysterium. I don’t think that the Beetles or Elvis Presley music will live that long and they are some of the best.
I'm curious to hear your thoughts. In closing the music that lives in your heart you will teach well. I hope that you and your students have joy and success in your music making. “Singing is a life time activity.” Truly all the best – sincerely – Dan Earl
on March 15, 2010 7:17am
First, let me say that this is a stimulating discussion. I really appreciate M. Earl's comments and I think they are spot on.
I want to respond to one post in particular, but let me also mention this. Another reason to be cautious of pop music, especially with younger or inexperienced singers is that it is counterproductive to teachng the choral tone that most of us look for in choral vocal pedagogy. Students (especially girls) hear female pop singers and they begin to imitate by singing in their chest, pushing or belting. They can't help but bring that with them to the song. Every guy I heard in the late 90's was singing with that breathy 98 degrees/Ncync tone.
These are things I am trying to avoid and correct every day. I want to be careful how much or when I introduce that to my groups.
Jason: At the risk of overstaying my welcome, I have to react again as an arranger. Your comment on the availability of quality arrangements is absolutely true, but there are two reasons for it. Too many publishers deliberately aim their catalogs at the lowest common denominator, and their editors are scared to death of anything that goes above the staff or has divisi or looks the slightest bit difficult. Not all publishers, of course, and Frank's Sound Music Publications isn't that way, but the older and more established publishers tend to be for sure.
Right. and it could be also that some inexperienced choir directors in turn are choosing this stuff because they are scared or don't have numbers for divisi or it's hard, etc. I agree with you. Still, the fact remains that there aren't very many quality pop arrangments. It's really ironic, because my spring concert this year is pop. We are doing some Beatles and some Simon and Garfunkle, and Billy Joel. But I had to add some jazz and some Broadway because I just couldn't find enough arrangments to fill up my concert that I considered tasteful and challenging.
I don't agree with you here. Not all music, pop or otherwise, will become dated. Mozart's Ave Verum Corpus is not dated. Not in the sense that it is only relevent to the 1700's. It certainly exhibits the compositional style of that period. But the music and text are as appropriate today as then.
Music that traps itself to being relevent only within a particular year or decade or social movement is dated. Funkytown is dated (although I have done this as part of a 70's medley) Pop songs like Sumertime, Somewhere Over the Rainbow, Blackbird, And So it Goes, Bridge Over Troubled Water - I don't think these will ever not be relevent. The same is true for most of the art/classical music that we perform. Because of the quality, it has stood the test of time and therefore is not dated.
My budget is a HUGE concern. I only have X dollars to stretch. If I buy Haydn's Gloria from the Heiligmesse, I know that $70 can be used again because I will likely perform that piece down the road more than once. But if I buy the latest Kelly Clarkson tune, I probably won't perform it again, because even the kids won't want to do it in 5 years.
And I certainly don't accept that FUN mean DUMB!!! It shouldn't, it needn't, and with good arrangements it won't be. It all comes back to the arrangements, doesn't it? Doing good music, doing it well, and wowing our audiences IS FUN!
I never said Fun meant dumb. But I did say that we can not justify paying a teachers salary, and time out of other academic classes purely on the basis that chorus is fun. Choir in the school setting must be rooted in the entrinsic and academic value that it posess. If we don't recognize that we will begin losing programs left and right. Administrators are making TOUGH budget cuts, we need to be sure not to give them any reason to cut our choral program.
Doing the same old same old is not.
I think you need to give kids and parents some credit. 1st of all, no student I have goes through HS and sings the same music twice. I will reintroduce choral staples (Frostiana, Spirituals, etc.) about every four years so that my students will have performed these at least once. But students love to accomplish a major task like singing in latin, 6 part harmony, etc. And our audiences (even in the hills of East TN) appreciate hearing it and quite frankly are shocked at times. This in turn fuels the belief that there students should not accept any predetermined limitations. They start looking to conquer new mountains. And that, is what I consider FUN!
on March 15, 2010 7:59am
Is John Cage's 4'22" a great piece? Few word argue the merits of the piece itself, but the concept....incredible (or at least worthy of lengthy, valuable debate)
Using that as a model, I teach my high school students that "why you do anything" is as important as "what you do" and I certainly hold myself to that same standard.
As a jazz musician (piano/voice) and choral director I come from a unique background and have never looked down on the popular music genres in the way that many of my college professors did (including jazz) That said, there are certainly quality arrangements that can be performed by choirs in all different musical genres that can be effective, challenging and musically satisfying for performer and audience. But it takes work!
A director who is simply recreating their college experience of Renaissance through Romantic masterpieces is doing a disservice to the everchanging musical landscape. Is most of what is heard on the radio (or on Ipods) today unworthy of study despite a talented arranger "making it work"? - I would argue that it is not worthy of the rehearsal time that I consider "sacred". In a typical high school you may have 3-5 hours of rehearsal per week for 9 months and 2-4 major performances per year. With 500+ years of wonderful music to choose from and such limited time, "popular" is a very weak criteria for choosing literature. That said, there are wonderful things from Broadway and the contemporary pop world that are IMHO much better than much of the watered down, "Hot House Classical" Concert selections with noodly piano accompaniments and major seventh chord harmonies.
Can jazz be programmed by a full size concert choir? Yes, but it takes real work and a willingness to learn the genre. Is it going to be Coltrane or Parker - nope, but neither are most of the players in most of the high school jazz ensembles either. Should your students hear the "real deal"? They should if you're doing your job. Even if you can't give them the class time to do it, the internet is a valuable resource - make it an assignment to actively listen!!! - they have access to just about everything. The bigger problem is that despite that resource we've let them (for the most part) become horrible consumers who are spoon fed what is being sold (just like many directors) Give them your reasons and rationale for choosing your literature and question your own rationale every year. If you want them to be open and experiment then model that as well.
In the last 3 months my choirs have sung Handel, Sondheim, Britten, Vaughan Williams, Byrd, Michael Jackson, Kurt Weil, pieces from "The Color Purple", Rogers and Hart, Bernstein as well as contemporary classical composers David Brunner, Stephen Paulus, Dan Forrest and Daron Hagen. I can easily justify all of those selections.
Small rural town, major metropolitan, it doesn't matter - its the director's job to make it work. Ever hear of Decorah Iowa?
on March 15, 2010 11:19am
I think maybe we need to clarify what the orignial post was asking/arguing.
I read, perhaps incorrectly, that the director used primarily pop/jazz music with their choir as a means to foster interest in the activity and as portal to doing some classical repetoire.
I think most high school choral directors would agree that it is good to expose students to a wide variety of music including jazz, pop, opera, Broadway, etc. I certainly do.
But where the differences lie is what are you feeding your students as a steady diet? And that is where I would argue that traditional classical/art music literature should be for the high school choir....the steady diet. I have spent a great deal of space explaining my position on that above, but I do want to add one last point.
I love all kinds of music. I played in a rock band for several years. I love attending the early AM contemporary worship as much as I love singing in our choir at church, and we recently performed the Faure Requiem.
I just think each style has it's place.
Several years ago in my first year teaching, I allowed my senior girls to choose their graduation song. They chose Will You Remember Me. It was good, but I remember one kid remarking "that was cool, I like the M. Ethridge version better." I thought, you know he's right. It was a very cool song to do, but if I had the choice I would rather hear the original.
That's not to say I don't do pop here and there, just not as a steady diet, partially because very few sound as good with choir.
The same is true for the swingle singer type stuff. It is fun and different to do the Marriage of Figaro Overture, and there are certainly things to learn from the piece. But I wouldn't program that stuff all the time. Same thing with jazz. Only a fool would argue that jazz shouldn't be taught in AMERICAN public schools. It certainly has a place. In fact my after-school group is primarily vocal jazz.. But Concert choirs in my opinion should primarily perform standard concert choir material.
on March 15, 2010 1:37pm
When I was in college I worked as a pianist at a country club and freelanced around the area for private parties and weddings. I was making
$400-$800/month for just 4 hours of "work," and most of my gig book was popular music with some Jazz and Classical thrown in, but they were all songs that people wanted to hear. Some of the Classical piano performance students scoffed at me for what I was doing, but I was the one who was making the money, and I became very successful at it.
I believe a big reason that choral directors tend to shy away from pop music is because so much of it has been performed badly. Who wants to sit and listen to a middle school choir sing "Like A Virgin," (and YES I have seen it done, and still have nightmares from the experience) and who wants to spend two months rehearsing it? The only show choirs I was familiar with spent so much time rehearsing the choreography that the vocals suffered.
When I taught in central Texas from 1997-2000, there was no vocal Jazz in any of the schools, and on the rare occasion that a pop song was performed it was done in a very classical style which sounded a little strange. When I started teaching in Colorado I was introduced to the world of contemporary a cappella.
When pop music and Jazz is done well, it can be the best thing that ever happens to your students and your program, because everyone who hears it will be talking about it for years afterward. That does not seem to happen with Classical repertoire as much.
When you find the right arrangement (and this may require steering away from Hal Leonard), you can revitalize a new passion for pop music from the 60, 70s, and 80s. The key is finding good quality arrangements that are not published. Some of my favorites include True Colors (by Cadence), Fix You (by Exit 245), Staying Alive (by Idea of North), and Safety Dance (by FACE).
Unfortunately, most undergraduate programs are unable to fit any Jazz methods classes in their curriculum, and students enter the teaching profession with no Jazz chops whatsoever. In Colorado, just about every high school has either a Jazz choir or show choir, and teachers either learn how to do it on their own or they seek out the methods classes.
Scott Wickham
Lafayette, CO
on March 17, 2010 12:15pm
I have programmed quite a bit of popular and jazz arrangements and have often experienced style and blend difficulties. I wonder if others have had similar experiences. The singers come in with a lot of listening background and "know" how this music is supposed to sound but each in their own way according to their own experiences.
When it gets to concert time there is a strong tendency for the singers to revert to what they have always done and sing as individuals. The classical singers turn on their vibrato and the pop singers bring on their personal dialects and blend goes out the window. Rehearsal seems to have relatively little impact on the performance. Suggestions welcome.
on March 17, 2010 8:17pm
One big reason I use popular music with my beginners: Most of my students are not fans of choral music coming in to choir class. If I don't hook them early, they will not sign up for choir next year and therefore will not get the opportunity to give them the riches of classical music.
Second, I always do a variety of music. not all classical, not all pop.... it is boring for them and for me....and for the audience.....
just a humble opinion
on March 19, 2010 9:53am
Wow, thanks to everyone so far for the wonderful replies. This is a great discussion and I appreciate ALL responses--even those that disagree with me. :)
I would have to DISAGREE with the person who said that, even in a rural school, kids will appreciate classical music. Like Clydene said, if I use popular music as a hook, I can reel them in to the world of choir and they begin to appreciate, and actually enjoy, other music, too. I teach in the middle of nowhere in a very rural, poor district. If all I taught was classical, no one would be in choir. My kids really enjoy choir because we study all kinds of music.
Also, I think some of you misunderstood. I don't just teach popular music. Far from it. I teach from a very wide variety of genres, and pop songs are only a small part of that. Also, I didn't make it clear, but yes I do carefully chose my pop arrangements to get quality ones.
Also, I don't agree that you cannot find quality arrangements of pop tunes. There are some great arrangements available. There are terrible arrangements in ANY genre.
Also, it's my personal opinion that those of you who don't teach jazz because you're unfamiliar with it should strongly consider learning it. No teacher knows everything, but we owe it to our students to study music as much as possible. Although improvisation is an important part of jazz, you don't have to teach improv right away. There are some really wonderful vocal jazz pieces that don't include ANY improv.
Also, my comment about keeping choir fun...I didn't mean just teach fluff to keep the kids around. But we need to remember that it's okay to have fun sometimes when we sing, and audiences won't remember the classical music the kids sing...they'll remember the pop tunes, the Broadway tunes, the jazz. Those things are, in my opinion, important.
That being said I love reading everyones' comments and I do consider all of them. I am not as experienced of a choir director as most of you (I am primarily an instrumentalist), so I agree that I am still learning.
on March 19, 2010 3:54pm
Wow, thanks to everyone so far for the wonderful replies. This is a great discussion and I appreciate ALL responses--even those that disagree with me. :)
100% agree. I think it is so good to dialogue about these and other issues. And while you may not change my mind about things, nor I, you. But at least we will both think about the things we have all said and it may influence us somewhat in the future, but at least we are thinking about it.
I would have to DISAGREE with the person who said that, even in a rural school, kids will appreciate classical music. Like Clydene said, if I use popular music as a hook, I can reel them in to the world of choir and they begin to appreciate, and actually enjoy, other music, too. I teach in the middle of nowhere in a very rural, poor district. If all I taught was classical, no one would be in choir. My kids really enjoy choir because we study all kinds of music.
Greeneville TN. Look them up. A very small town in the middle of farmland. They have a choir of about 160, all they do is college level repetoir. The only pop they do is with a few students in an after-school show choir that actually performs very little.
My point is that I don't care if they are rural, inner city, or suburbia, all kids have the capacity to appreciate any genre. I think a lot of it has to do with the energy of the director introducing it. Once you get over that initial newness kids start to understand the music and appreciate it for what it is. As far as kids go. They want to be a part of anything that is excellent. Period. They want to be a part of quality.
Also, my comment about keeping choir fun...I didn't mean just teach fluff to keep the kids around. But we need to remember that it's okay to have fun sometimes when we sing, and audiences won't remember the classical music the kids sing...they'll remember the pop tunes, the Broadway tunes, the jazz. Those things are, in my opinion, important.
I agree that we need to njoy singing and have fun, but I disagree that audiences don't remember the classical pieces. Don't undershoot the ability of your audience to appreciate art music as well as entertainment music.
That being said I love reading everyones' comments and I do consider all of them. I am not as experienced of a choir director as most of you (I am primarily an instrumentalist), so I agree that I am still learning.
I have two degrees from undergrad, one in choral and one in instrumental. I went the choral direction straight out of school but regularly work with my high school's band, and other band directors in town during the summer.
I do think their is a fundemental difference in approach when it comes to programming music for band and for choir.
Band is relatively new. Any music that a band does from the classical on back is going to be a transcription. Bands are used to taking music that was not originally conceived for concert band and succesfully using it to teach with and for programming purposes.
Choral music has been around forever. Some of the very earliest manuscripts we have are for choir. I think that there is a stronger pull, because of that fact, to preserve our choral heritage in using this music extensively.
on March 22, 2010 10:05am
I realize that I come exceedingly late to this discussion . . . yes, choral music has been around forever, and yes, kids can learn to appreciate any style of excellent music. I taught inner-city kids how to sing selections from Handel's Messiah for several consecutive years . . . but, it should be understood that these were kids that, before they ever came to me, had grown up with people who associate classical music with elitism and oppression. Combine that with the fact that classical music is more expensive to learn and access than popular music, and you will understand that there are indeed pockets of people, among all segments of the population that are not middle-class or upper-class white (a growing percentage, of course, in the U.S.), who have little exposure to or appreciation for classical music, at least initially. But, let it be understood at once; these communities are not impoverished thereby. In San Francisco, we are at about 55-60 percent in terms of students whose "choral heritage" is NOT western music, and if you add African Americans whose "classical" heritage really is jazz, blues, gospel, and spirituals, the percentage climbs up even higher. My Asian and Pacific Islander students come from musical traditions that make Western European art music seem modern by comparison; so do my Latino and Native American students. As for African Americans, it should be remembered that the earliest slave songs and Spirituals easily predate Beethoven and Mozart, and were distinct by the time Bach and Handel reached manhood. And, for that matter, lots and lots of Irish, Scottish, Eastern European, and Jewish contemporaries of Bach and Handel were quite busy putting together communal music that has sustained people's souls for hundreds and hundreds of years. Western European art music has no monopoly on standing the test of time. Compound that by the fact that much classical music is quite difficult -- and always has been -- for people that have neither money nor time to invest in advanced training and practice, and for people who traditionally have been outright denied that access. Thus, the question "whose choral heritage" comes up any time you present classical music in these parts, and I think that increasingly, across the United States, the question will be raised. And rightly so.
I have made done well by making my own arrangements, since I have a 1911 copy of Handel's Messiah, and thus could use the public domain option. George Frederick Handel had more than one good laugh in Heaven about that octave-leap in the middle of the also- challenging word "omnipotent" in the "Hallelujah" chorus . . . the octave-leap I eliminated by keeping the choir on the same note and parceling out the higher lines to older soloists (and Handel surely laughed again the year one of my boy soloists dropped an octave and a half in range, requiring another rearrangement). I am sure the results of all this tinkering would have mortified Handel purists . . . nonetheless, my little darlings (most of whom are now almost grown) got up and sang loudly and proudly and happily, Easter and Christmas, year after year after year, because the music was made accessible to them. And audiences broke down and cried. But it was much more work than just going to the music store, picking up a copy of Handel's Messiah, and hoping the kids and the audiences would buy in. That never would have happened.
Certainly we would do our students a disservice by not introducing them to classical choral music; there is always something to be said for exposing students to music that has stood the test of a long, long time, and engaging them in the question of why some music has lasted, and some hasn't. All students should have access to classical music. But, since that is so desirable, and so necessary, then it requires a commensurate commitment to making the music accessible, enjoyable, and meaningful to both students and the communities from which they come, communities that have their own traditions which are at least as old, as time-tested, and as worthy of attention. Today, the teacher of classical choral music -- and I am one -- has to make a much stronger case for relevance, do a lot more work selecting and preparing that music, and also be prepared to include pieces from traditions just as excellent and time-tested (the roots of jazz, I repeat, are older than Beethoven). In my part of the world, it is no longer enough to include classical music in choral repertoire "just because" . . . and I think this situation is not limited to San Francisco.
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And one argument that I firmly believe AND have pointed out to the worried parents of more than one talented student is this. In the controlled environment of a school ensemble, whether it's high school or college, we can explore a variety of genres and teach the basics of good technique in a safe way, whereas if we leave the naïve young things on their own to get into garage bands and questionable theater companies they will inevitably be exposed to the strong temptations of sex, booze and drugs that have been part of that world for a very long time. For the same reason I've recommended that parents not keep their little darlings from summer work at Theme Parks, since that's about as safe an environment as you can find in an entry-level job.
I do think that college is a good time to start giving students a choice among a wider variety of specialized ensembles, which can easily include anything from show and jazz choir to early music ensembles. In my own case I've directed a broad variety of such ensembles, but my unusual background has enabled me to do so with a certain amount of expertise in each separate genre.
And that's the final reason why I think we tend to ignore the world of what I would call "commercial music": most music teachers don't have a background in it and so aren't very good teachers when they try to do so. I would not attempt to teach vocal jazz, since that's one thing (along with opera!) that I've never been involved in, but it's awfully easy to get stuck in one genre, become successful and expert in it, and still lose sight of the broader world of vocal and choral music. At least that's what I've observed.
All the best,
John