Git Along Little Dogies [SA(T)B]
by Traditional
SA - Digital Sheet Music

Choral Choir (SATB) - Level 2 - Digital Download

SKU: A0.891191

Composed by Traditional. Arranged by Laurie Betts Hughes. Contemporary,Folk,Traditional. Octavo. 16 pages. Dandelion Music Press #3103589. Published by Dandelion Music Press (A0.891191).

An ideal SATB choice for Middle School/early High School changing voice and developing ensembles of all ages, this "boy-friendly" accompanied concert arrangement explores the cambiata voice, male vocal registers, and encourages enthusiastic use of the falsetto and upper range through the use of an appealing yodel. Ask your choristers to bring their guitars, ukuleles, mandolins, and banjos and strum along!

Conceived using the SA(T)B concept (https://www.dandavisonmusic.com/what-is-satb.html) and also available in Two-Part Treble and Unison voicings, Git Along Little Dogies is a traditional American cowboy ballad.  The melody and lyrics were first published in 1910 in John Lomax's "Cowboy Songs and Other Frontier Ballads," though the song has existed long before publication in the anonymous aural tradition of folk music.

 Since selling cattle was quite profitable, a crew of cowboys "drove" a herd, particularly from Texas, to railheads where they would be loaded into railcars and shipped cross-country to get the best price at market. Cowboys watched the cattle 24 hours a day, herding them in the proper direction in the daytime and watching them at night to prevent stampedes and deter theft.  Around the campfire, cowboys sang of life on the trail with all the challenges, hardships, and dangers encountered along the way.

E. C. "Teddy Blue" Abbott, honored in the Montana Cowboy Hall of Fame, explains "The singing was supposed to soothe the cattle and it did... The two men on guard would circle around with their horses on a walk, if it was a clear night and the cattle was bedded down and quiet, and one man would sing a verse of a song, and his partner on the other side of the herd would sing another verse; and you'd go through a whole song that way."

Notable performances: 2016 Idaho Middle School All-State Choir, inaugural year | 2016 Northshore 6th Grade Honor Choir, boys

2017 Choral Contest Entry

Laurie Betts Hughes, ASCAP | www.LaurieBettsHughes.com