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Repertoire & Resources - Children's Choirs

as possible. When imitation is varied by unpitched percussion instru- ing the history of the spiritual and
slightly, whether by pitch or rhythm, ments, necessitating an ensemble ca- the religious text, this work should
young students have more diffi culty. 3 pable of maintaining relative pitch be taught in an informed way, ide-
Wau Bulan, arranged by Dr. Tracy (Figure 4). ally with the advice and guidance of
Wong, uses this technique. With only New arrangements of tradi- an African American spiritual music
a few moments of actual harmonic tional choral works are always wel- expert (Figure 5).
singing, this piece could easily be come and B.E. Boykin’s arrange- After much time with the above
taught in a call-and-response man- ment of Joshua fi t the battle of Jericho described styles, it may be time for an
ner. One teaching idea would be to is no exception. This arrangement ensemble to tackle a two-part homo-
use the call-and-response melodic is wholly appropriate for ensembles phonic work. With a less advanced
material during warmups, fi rst with developing their part-singing skills group, it is most advantageous to

the conductor leading and eventual- as it is largely in unison with mini- focus first on homophonic works in
ly having students come up and lead mal harmonic splits. The harmonic which the voices move in parallel 3rd
the ensemble themselves. The Ma- structure of this traditional African or 6th motion. There has been dis-
laysian text is repetitive and phonet- American spiritual allows young pute regarding repertoire that heav-
ically very accessible to non-native singers to experience this important ily features parallel 3rd/6th motion
speakers. Wau Bulan is accompanied work in an accessible way. Consider- with less experienced ensembles due

60 CHORAL JOURNAL June/July 2021 Volume 61 Number 11