Choral Choir,Choral,SATB Chorus - Level 4 - Digital Download

SKU: A0.1471122

By Travis Tritt. By Jerry Chesnut. Arranged by Jeffrey Bowen. Contest,Country,Festival,Rock. 13 pages. Music Arrangement Services Inc. #1048779. Published by Music Arrangement Services Inc. (A0.1471122).

Performed by Travis Tritt, originally by Elvis Presley.  

This song is about seeing someone attractive and knowing they are T-R-O-U-B-L-E.  The song refers to playing guitar, watching everybody else having fun, seeing everything, dance floor, spelling key words (T-R-O-U-B-L-E, A-L-O-N-E, L double O-K-I-N-G, Y-O-U), little bitty baby, Papa hit the skids, Mama raised nine kids, being raised right, a good-looking honey, sweet talking, sexy walking, honky-tonking, world war three.  This arrangement includes a vocal feature and a dance break and is designed for high school or college show choir, concert choir or community choir.  

Concert Band Score accompaniment also available.  Performance time is approximately 3:00.

Choral Choir,Choral (SATB divisi) - Level 4 - Digital Download

SKU: A0.1308788

Composed by Charles Tenet. Arranged by Tobi Crawford. Jazz. 11 pages. Tobi Crawford #898034. Published by Tobi Crawford (A0.1308788).

*Purchase 10 copies to perform this piece with your ensemble of any size
*Purchase the instrumental pack (bass and drum part) here: https://www.sheetmusicplus.com/en/product/beyond-the-sea-instrumental-pack-only-22605052.html

This arrangement came to me over a number of weeks in a very organic way that began with the ostinato piano figure that prevails throughout the piece. I began playing it unattached to any tune and I just liked the way the line descended in the left hand and how I had to find voicings in the right hand that made harmonic sense – like a puzzle. As I was playing around with this puzzle, thoughts of my father were swirling around in my head – I was at the end of a 4 year period of separation from my parents owing to the fact that I’m a Canadian expat living in the US and the borders were closed for a long time because of Covid, and then I had work visa issues and my parents were getting older before my eyes. They were also losing friends to cancer and other ailments and my dad, in particular, had experienced the loss of many close family members and friends during our separation and it was taking a toll.

 

One day I sat down and played the now familiar-to-me ostinato but randomly I started to sing “Beyond the Sea� over it and it fit perfectly. I thought it a happy coincidence. As the days went on I committed to putting my ostinato with Beyond the Sea and the lyrics started to seep into my brain. I have, of course, heard these lyrics many times before, (who hasn’t seen Finding Nemo?) but the lyrics didn’t mean what I thought they meant… They’re NOT about the ocean, they are about my dad!!! Well, kind of… I realized, through careful reflection and by slowing the words down, that the lyrics are talking about a person in heaven who is patiently waiting for their partner to join them.

 

Somewhere beyond the sea

She’s there watching for me

…

It’s far beyond the stars

It’s near beyond the moon

 

And the lyrics end with them meeting, “We’ll meet beyond the shore, we’ll kiss just like before,� and the song ends with: “and never again I’ll go sailing.� It’s like the big bang went off in my head about why all these thoughts of my dad, and his friends, and this arrangement, and what it all meant suddenly just MADE SENSE and I was able to start formulating a plan.

 

Performance Suggestions: 

The improvisation solo in the middle should be free of any traditional “scat syllables� and should be more of a lament. Listen to singers like Aubrey Johnson improvise on ballads for inspiration. An idea for that improv section might be to have a male singer start the improv, then a female singer joins (as if together in heaven) then they sing letter F together (warning: will cause tears…). All solo sections do not have to be sung as written – soloists can take liberties with the melody as the spirit moves.

Choral Choir (SATB) - Level 4 - Digital Download

SKU: A0.1157142

Composed by Sally Whitwell. Classical,Contemporary. Octavo. 15 pages. Sally Whitwell #757469. Published by Sally Whitwell (A0.1157142).

Written in the Stars -- text and music by Sally Whitwell Written in the Stars was originally conceived in the aftermath of the 2019-2020 bushfire season, the most destructive Australia has yet seen. At the time, we thought things couldn’t get worse, but then followed more extreme weather events, insect and rodent plagues, and a deadly pandemic that brought the world to its knees. All these things are connected, the result of humanity’s exploitative relationship with the planet and its other inhabitants. But we continue to deny the problems and to fail to act. As a species, in our more optimistic moments, we talk about having great opportunities to reinvent, that to live the status quo means that we will be faced with an untenable future. Talking about it is one thing but as far as I see it, we are not taking any opportunities to act. It is clear that we do not learn from our mistakes. As Spanish American writer George Santayana once said “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.� It is from this notion that this song was born. Written in the Stars is about society’s propensity to go through cycles of behaviour, never learning from the mistakes of the past. Written in the Stars was originally commissioned by Adelaide Chamber Singers, directed by Carl Crossin. Sally Whitwell January 2023.