CHOIR
CHOIR ARRANGING, PART 1 | Jared Haschek
The voice. It’s the one instrument that everyone of notes that it can cover, and the more we can arrangement, let alone choir arrangements.
on the planet has, and despite what some arrange songs so that our singers are able to Here’s the first 4 bars of the chorus, as
may say, it’s the one instrument that everyone sing within their range, the more comfortable played and sung by the song’s writer, Jimbo
can play, at least a little. Singing together in our choir members are going to be, and the Jimboberson. (Figure 2)
a group or choir is one of the most enjoyable better they will sound.
experiences a person can have, and in our
The first decision to be made is, what key will the
churches, it’s often Christmas that prompts Traditionally, we split choirs into 4 groups: song be in? As this will be a choir song, we don’t
people to either form, or join, the church choir. soprano, alto, tenor and bass. While every need to take Jimbo’s voice into consideration,
voice is unique, most people fall into one or two so let’s decide right from the get-go that we
One of the interesting things about a choir is of these categories. Here are the average voice want the sopranos to take the melody in the
that each voice has its own characteristic. ranges for each section. (Figure 1) chorus. Looking at the range of the sopranos in
The many different timbres of different voices
figure 1, we can see that singing this song in its
is what gives a choir its full, rich sound, but This chart is conservative, but it’s a good original key will have it pitched either right at the
there is another significant difference between ‘average’ for what the voices in your choir will bottom of the soprano range, or if they sing it
voices: range. be able to achieve. If each part can stay within up the octave, way up in screech-ville. And no
its respective range, you’ll have a bunch of one wants that, especially at Christmas.
When we talk about range in music, we happy singers who are much more likely to be
are simply talking about how high and low a able to sing what you want them to sing.
particular instrument can go. If you are writing
The range of the chorus is C - A. Moving the
song up a 3rd to E major moves the range to E
for a violin, there’s no point writing notes lower And that’s the big question - what do you want - C#, which fits nicely within our soprano range.
than a G below middle C, because that is the them to sing? Let’s say you’re doing an original It now looks like this. (Figure 3)
lowest note physically possible on a violin. song at this year’s Christmas production, and Voices are no different - each voice has a range there’s no commercially available sheet music
Because I want the chorus of this song to be
Figure 1
Figure 2
Figure 3
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September 2019
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