Archives for: October 2007

My 3-year-old granddaughter is wearing a princess costume that lights up for Halloween. I wonder which will last longer – the lights or a three-year-old on a sugar high.

Recently, my husband Dave and I were travelling through Millard County in Utah and decided to stop and get a bite to eat. We stopped at a little steak house on the side of the freeway for lunch. You can’t miss it. It is between the pile of dirt on the left and the heap of rocks on the right. It had a paper place mat telling the sites of interest in the area.

It encouraged us to visit the nearby “intermountain power plant.” Since it is big. And very clean for a coal powered plant.

Also of interest is the “Paiute ATV Trial” (Yes, it is spelled “Trial”, not trail.) which is well-marked dirt you can ride your ATV on.

And, while you’re in Millard County, don’t forget to watch for the Snow Goose Festival.” Where you can watch geese fly by on their annual migration if you are lucky enough to be in Millard County in February and March.

I’m not sure about the geese, but I know I’m going to put that power plant in my next vacation plans.

We will be posting a nice tenor solo, “Come Thou Font of Every Blessing” soon.

My computer and I have a love-hate relationship. Me trying to coax it to do what I want. It telling me, “You didn’t say ‘please.’”

My clothes dryer broke down the morning we were taking my son to the Mission Training Center in Provo three days ago. These things always happen at the most inconvenient times. So he took the load across the street to our neighbors and knocked on the door asking to use their dryer.

They didn’t even bat an eye when they took the clothes and put them into their dryer. I think they are used to us doing things like that. One morning we ran out of milk and my daughter sprinted across the street with an empty glass, knocked on the door and asked for milk. Our patient neighbors brought out the milk and filled up her glass.

We can never move.

This year we are having a totally traditional Christmas program for sacrament meeting. We will have the Christmas Story in Luke read, with plenty of our favorite christmas hymns. “O Little Town of Bethlehem,” “Away in a Manger,” “Angels We Have Heard on High,” “The First Noel,” and, of course, “Silent Night.”

Most people don’t think of “Because I Have Been Given Much” as a Thanksgiving hymn, but it is.

One thing I’ve learned over the years as our ward choir director is that people like to perform music that they are confident singing. They like to know their parts well and know what the director is going to do. That’s one reason we start practicing for the holidays in September.

Of course, that means I am playing through Christmas music in July and Easter music in October. I have our other special musical numbers planned well in advance as well. That way when our bishopric approaches me about singing in only two weeks, I have several options up my sleeve.

I just finished an arrangement of “Come Thou Fount of Every Belssing.” This one is a tenor solo for a friend of mine. It may show up later for SATB.

Our Stake Choir performed my arrangement of “Come Follow Me.” We sang the third verse accapella. It was quite effective that way if your ward choir has confident singers.

When composing a new arrangement, I always try to follow the 3-4-5 rule which is: “All hymn arrangements are to be simple enough to be learned in 3 weeks, divide into only 4 parts, and can be mastered by the accompanist in 5 minutes.”

I just finished an arrangement of a traditional Thanksgiving hymn, “Now Thank We All Our God.” If you have not started practicing for Thanksgiving yet, this may be a good choice. Set in a simple gregorian chant style, it is easy to learn with some interesting harmonies.

Hats off to Chocolate Web Studio for making www.freewardchoirmusic.com #1 in it’s field!

Be sure to check out the “links” at the bottom of my home page. There are many excellent sites with music resources for ward choirs and we are always looking to add sources.

Sometimes as our choir sings through a new arrangement there is an appreciative silence afterwards, but a few weeks ago I hurriedly wrote a descant for “Because I Have Been Given Much.” That time there was a stunned silence because it was truly awful! As I laughed and ripped up my copy, one of the men said, “I liked one of the notes.”

This Thanksgiving arrangement is about half done. I’m going for a kind of “gregorian chant” sound.

My brother’s ward choir has asked for an arrangement of “Now Thank We All Our God” (Hymn #95) to sing for Thanksgiving. So I’ll be scrambling to get that one ready for them to start rehearsing next week. Thankfully (no pun intended) it only has two verses!

We are making actual recordings of our ward choir singing the arrangements very soon. Hopefully this will make the site even more useful to all you great ward choirs out there!

Thanks again to everyone for your comments and suggestions. Some of you have been concerned about filling out the form asking for your name and ward and stake on the downloads page. Let me reasure you that we only ask so that we can make the site more useful. However, if you still don’t want to fill out the form, just leave it empty and click “submit.” You can still download as much as you would like.

“I have just been called to the ward choir position in a newly-created ward with NOTHING in the way of music except hymnbooks. Thanks for anything. I found you as I googled \’ward choirs\’ in total desperation.”

This morning as we were getting in the car to go to school, my daughter says, “Oh, I need a jar of dirt for one of my classes!”

Thinking fast I said, “OK, run downstairs and find an empty jar and go out into the back yard and fill it with dirt and I’ll go pick up the other kids and come back and get you.”

Luckily our back yard is a big pile of dirt from puting in a sprinkling system this summer.

When I pulled up in front of the house, my daughter jumps into the car and sure enough she is holding a jar of dirt.

“You found a jar! Good!” I say. She says, “Well it had jam in it so I dumped out the jam.”

“Ohhh.” I said, “I hope you put it in a bowl or something.”
“No. I dumped it down the sink.”

All I can say is she better get an “A” on the assignment!

All right all you dedicated ward choir directors! It’s time to turn in your 2008 choir budgets. This is mine:

20 matching sequined robes $2,000.00

2 amplifiers $1,000.00

1 spot light $500.00

6 hours recording studio rental $3,000

TOTAL $6,500.00

I scaled it back as much as possible.

Yikes! I just read my home page again and I feel like I just finished off an entire angel food cake. Did I really say I wanted to write ward choir arrangements “just for the joy of doing so?”

Yes, I am happy sharing my love for the hymns with anyone who will listen, but maybe it would be better to say that for me, expressing that feeling is just plain fun!

I never realized my entire life would be controlled by a flashing metal box with a keyboard attached to it, and I personally have had days where the answer to my problems seemed to involve my computer and a large wooden club. But, to avoid being a total embarrassment to my children I have struggled to learn words like “gig” and “blog.” Sometimes I just throw those words into a sentence to join in the conversation and make it seem as if I know what I’m talking about.

So if you meet me, I might say something like,"Yes, yesterday my gigs went down and my blogs got faster with a hard drive with gigs and blogs.”

Lately I’ve been having fun with the meters and melodies of three sacrament hymns. I think it will be really nice for a special number on Easter.

Yes, I am already thinking about Easter. I have actually planned our Ward Choir music through next summer! (Can you say “obsessive compulsive?")

These arrangements are written for a real choir (our own ward choir) to perform in real Sacrament meetings, so I try to have our choir at least run through a piece before I make twenty copies. It cuts down on simple errors like forgetting to dot a half note or leaving off a word.

Our choir members are pretty good sports to do this for me, and I appreciate their comments and opinions as well. But if you notice problems with the music, please let me know. There is a lot going on with four part harmony, an accompaniment, and sometimes an obbligato and it’s easy to let something slip by.

“Thank you so much for your website. I just got called to be the Choir director and am so glad that I found your site!”

“Thank you for sharing your talent with such generosity!”

“Thank you for the music! It sure helps when the budget is small.”

“I’m still learning how to conduct a choir. We just started a choir for our youth here in our stake. And finding a piece that they will sing is really difficult. I hope you can help. Thanks. And God bless you for your generosity.”

“I was looking for music as our ward currently has no budget. I just got put in as chior director and there is no music in our ward.”

“I just moved into a new ward, and have not yet had the chance to get to ward choir, however I have played the piano for 16 years, and am always looking for new uplifting music to learn! Thank you, thank you thank you! I look forward to going to ward choir for the first time with music to share!”