Blonde in a Black Skirt
by Stephen Hatfield
Unison Choir - Sheet Music

Unison choir, keyboard (Unison choir)

SKU: AN.AMP-0325

Edited by Elaine Quilichini. Arranged by Stephen Hatfield. Octavo. Alliance Music Publications #AMP 0325. Published by Alliance Music Publications (AN.AMP-0325).

Hatfield.

Blonde In A Black Skirt -Performance Notes

the music: It looks like there's a million notes to learn, but actually the jig breaksdownto six melodies of eight measures each -which is often merely four measures repeated witha slight variation. So there is not as much to learn as there first appears. I have given nodynamic contrasts: let the choir begin with a beefy mezzo forte and changes in vocalrangeand piano texture will create variety .

I wanted to use a bright-sounding key to suggest the brightness of the Irishwhistles. However, since there are nearly no accidentals, it would be easy for the pianist toplaya semitone down, from B to Bflat, if that gives the choir a more comfortable tessitura.Other instruments such as fiddles or flutes can be added, doubling the right hand pianopart. Where the piano moves to a more chordal accompaniment, such as measures 67-68,the vocal line can be doubled instead.

the text: The text is modeled on the crazy quilt of village gossip, work songs, andnonsense refrains used in so many folk tunes. Given a text like this, a choir wouldnormally put the words across through lots of word painting and robust comicexaggeration, but in this case that is not the desired effect. The text may be lighthearted intone, but it should not be played for laughs; in fact, if you can play it for laughs you'resinging it too slowly. Diction must be crisp to help fire volley after volley of notes into theaudience, but do not worry if the audience can barely keep track with the whirlwind ofwords. That whirlwind is part of the non-stop energy we hope to create, and it's also partof the humor. Not that the words should be sung as if they were meaningless, but I wantthe brisk tempo to accelerate the words until they skate the line between sense andnonsense. For me, that is when the text becomes funny.