The Giver Should Be Grateful
by Stephen Hatfield
SSA - Sheet Music

SSA choir, piano (SSA choir)

SKU: AN.AMP-0773

Composed by Stephen Hatfield. Octavo. Alliance Music Publications #AMP 0773. Published by Alliance Music Publications (AN.AMP-0773).

Hatfield.

The Giver Should Be Grateful

When performing The Giver Should Be Grateful, the singers should always be aware that they are telling a story, a story which eventually includes the audience. Everything in the performance should be at the service of telling the story. I emphasize this because singers often tell me that they find themselves concentrating so much on singing correctly that they lose touch with what the text is about.

The piano introduction, which combines deadpan dissonances in the right hand with an easy-going doo-wop bass line, sets the stage for the dry humour of the storyteller. The pianist both puts the audience at ease and prepares it for some twists in the tale it is about to hear.

Vocal articulations, such as the scoops in the entries for both alto and soprano (see m. 5 and 9), are meant to imitate the inflections of the storyteller, and as such are more understated than the kind of note-bending appropriate to a deep blues style. The scoops are not so much intended to convey deep emotion as they are to slightly emphasize the same words a storyteller would emphasize while setting up a tale. Here's a little rhyme: Once upon a time...