In the last few days, I have had the opportunity to sit at the piano and accompany two different groups singing with no music. Once was at a wedding reception and the other was at a Daughters of the Utah Pioneers Camp meeting.
At the reception, I had brought my keyboard to play for my granddaughters to sing a funny song for their brother's wedding. This event was at a beautiful backyard of an upscale home in Salt Lake City. The girls pulled off a polished performance of "I Want a Little Bungalow," memorized, with three-part harmony and choreography. They were so cute! That is a song handed down for generations in our family, and we like to sing for all of our family weddings -- always tailoring the words to fit the bride and groom. Only this time it was sung by a new generation of trio singers.
Unfortunately, I didn't get any pictures of them performing, but in this pic of my sister with many of my grandchildren at the wedding, the three girls circled are the ones who sang.
At the reception, I had brought my keyboard to play for my granddaughters to sing a funny song for their brother's wedding. This event was at a beautiful backyard of an upscale home in Salt Lake City. The girls pulled off a polished performance of "I Want a Little Bungalow," memorized, with three-part harmony and choreography. They were so cute! That is a song handed down for generations in our family, and we like to sing for all of our family weddings -- always tailoring the words to fit the bride and groom. Only this time it was sung by a new generation of trio singers.
Unfortunately, I didn't get any pictures of them performing, but in this pic of my sister with many of my grandchildren at the wedding, the three girls circled are the ones who sang.
After the girls finished, the bride's cousins came up to sing another funny song all about her, completely unrehearsed. They asked me for a starting pitch. I had no idea what note to give them until someone said, "Oh it's just 'Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.'" They had rewritten the words to fit the life story of the bride. That helped me find a key for them and a starting pitch. And since I was right there, I just continued to "oom-pah" my way through their eight verses. That song wasn't very complicated, so it worked out.
Then at the DUP meeting, I had already taken a look at the key their song was printed in. It was in such a high key, only a very high tenor would have been comfortable singing it. So, knowing that these older ladies only felt comfortable singing in an alto range, I volunteered to play it in a lower key. Once again, it wasn't a very complicated song. "School Days" is a popular song from the early 1900s, and I knew it, so I could do it. The lady who led the singing was VERY grateful to sing it in a lower key. She was so afraid of those high Fs and E flats from the sheet music.
I was happy to be there and able to accompany them, but I have two comments about the situations.
The first is that I actually prefer rehearsed performances. I think that if a song is to be sung for a special occasion, it deserves to be PREPARED. The rewritten words to the cousin's song about the bride were clever and witty. But the audience would have enjoyed the song more had they been able to hear it more clearly to be able to understand the words better.
The other gripe is that whoever chose the music for the DUP Lesson this month could have transposed the music into a singable key for the DUP ladies throughout the world. That song is old enough to be in the Public Domain so no one would have complained if they had just adjusted it so that a pianist in each group could play it in a singable key for older ladies. What a shame and missed opportunity!
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