Seafarer Press | Elizabeth Alexander, Works: How To Sing Like a Planet

LEVEL E = Easy
ME = Moderately Easy
M = Medium
MD = Moderately Difficult
D = Difficult

Adult Women Men Youth Children by theme/style by difficulty

How To Sing Like a Planet

TTB, piano - SEA-105-00 - $3.00/copy
4-5 minutes - MD
Commissioned by the Minnesota Chapter of the American Choral Directors Association (ACDA), for the Minnesota Boys Honor Choir and conductor Eugene Rogers.

Alexander's musical instruction manual is as whimsical and varied as the singing planet which inspired it. This genre-defying showpiece evokes both the "ethereal" and the "grooving", offering pearls of humor, humility and common sense. A prominent piano part undergirds this colorful romp, requiring a sensitive and solid accompanist.

Composer's Note: Given a "no-strings attached" commission, 60 talented middle school boys, a solid accompanist, and one heck of a dynamic conductor, what's a composer to do? Well, after she does a little happy dance, she thinks outside the box! Inspired by Mark Morford's electric description of the music that the earth makes just by being itself, I wrote and set to music a set of instructions for those of us who might wish our planets's approach, as it hums and thrums along.

How to Sing Like a Planet - Score

TTB and piano - Recording (excerpt)
Minnesota ACDA Boys Honor Choir; Eugene Rogers, conductor; Ruth Palmer, piano

How To Sing Like a Planet Lyric by composer Elizabeth Alexander
“Scientists now say the planet itself is generating a...kind of music, huge, swirling loops of sound, a song so strange you can't really fathom it, so low it can't be heard by human ears...” - Mark Morford, from “How To Sing Like a Planet,” San Francisco Chronicle, 4/23/2008

     Let everything unfold in its own time.
      Accept what's beyond your control.
       Revel in simple harmonic motion.
                   Turn. Rotate.

                  Get charged up.
              Be weak. Be strong.
               Don't fight friction.
             Vibrate sympathetically.
      Don't be afraid to get into a groove.

        Let gravity have its way with you.
      Revolve around something luminous.

                    Wheel, whirl,
                    Slide, collide,
                    Circle, cycle,
                   Amble, gambol,
                  Resonate, radiate,
                 Innovate, renovate,
    Oscillate, fluctuate, circumnavigate, flow.

                 Bloom periodically.
           Hunker down when you must.
   Wobble from time to time without apology.

     Know that annihilation's possible any time,
But expect a bright tomorrow's coming anyway.

copyright 2011 by composer Elizabeth Alexander

How To Sing Like a Planet - TTB Scorch was designed by the folks who built Sibelius notation software, as a simple way to allow Sibelius scores to become webpages. Despite its slightly ominous name, Scorch is free, is not excessively large (approx. 1 MB), and does not do anything demonic like put you on a mailing list or affect other computer programs. - E.A.

If you can't see the score after the file finishes loading, click here to download the Scorch plug-in.

Seafarer Press | Elizabeth Alexander, composer

How To Sing Like a Planet