Page 18 - Voice for Life Songbook 1

2. Hallelu,hallelu
Information
This joyful song from the gospel tradition encourages us to rejoice and praise God. Although we think of it being an English word, ‘Hallelujah’ is originally Hebrew and literally means ‘praise Yahweh’ (God). When sung with actions (see below) this song is good for warming up as it requires singers to engage their minds and bodies as well as their voices.
Teaching the song
This song is from the oral tradition and is best learnt in a call and response pattern without reading from the score.Teach it in four-bar phrases by singing the melody and asking your singers to sing it back to you as an echo.Take particular care over bars with the syncopated rhythm (bars 7, 9, 11, 13 and 15) to ensure it is together. If it proves problematic you might try externalising the rhythm by asking the singers to clap it or make up an action to fit it. Sing through the whole song several times until it is secure.
Be creative
Once the song is well-known divide your singers into two teams and ask them to sit down.Ask the first team to sing all the ‘Hallelujahs’ and the other all the ‘Praise ye the Lords’. Tell them that they should only stand up while they sing.This is not too difficult in the first half of the song, but they will have to be fairly agile in the second half as the phrases are shorter!
If you want to repeat the song you can make the piano introduction an interlude between the repeats. You could encourage your singers to improvise their own riffs on scat syllables (e.g., doo-wop, shoo- be-do etc.) over the chord patterns – it may help to keep playing the same chords on a loop while they experiment (G2, C6/G, G2, C6/G). More experienced singers may be able to harmonize each others’ melodies to enable the piece to take on a life of its own.
Musical skills and understanding
One of the features of this arrangement is the syncopated rhythm of ‘Praise ye the Lord’. Explain that syncopated rhythms put emphasis on the off-beats rather than the main beats of the bar.They are very common in pop music and jazz. Ask them to identify syncopated rhythms in other pieces of music, or make up their own.
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