I chose the song “Still I Rise” by Rosephanye Powell and for the purpose of this paper I chose Wellesley College women’s choir. In my high school career, I’ve sung this song twice, one time my freshman year and again the spring of this year, my junior year.
Rosephanye Powell’s song was inspired by a poem called “Still I Rise” by poet Maya Angelou. Written in 2005, the song was meant to be a women’s anthem, it was to show that even after a past full of; tears, struggle, and heartache, a woman can grow stronger and rise above the challenges, hence the name “Still I Rise”. Rosephanye Powell is known as one of America's best composers of choral music. She was born in 1962 in Lanett, Alabama and graduated valedictorian of her graduating class …show more content…
Tone was the same roughly the same, however I thought there were times where sopranos could have dropped their jaws to allow for more of an A-W sound compared to the A-H sound they were providing. Personally, I think the diction needs a fair amount of work. If it wasn’t for the fact that I know this song forward and backward, I don’t think I’d understand the words these women were singing because it sounded all jumbled together. That being said because I’ve sung this song twice in my highschool career, I think the rhythm is quite off. What would best benefit this choir would be to set up a metronome and force them to sing “Still I Rise” while keeping up with the metronome because the tempo they sang was too slow and made the song sound gospelie, which wasn’t the composer's purpose. Lastly, throughout most of the song the balance between the sopranos and altos is cringy. There are times where the balanced is even and it sounds like one choir but many times it sounds like the sopranos are trying to one up the altos and vis versa. Overall, their performance of “Still I Rise” wasn’t very lively, almost all of the women are standing still and for those very few people who were trying to sway and get into it just looked out of sorts. This particular piece of music gave me a glimpse into what we potentially look like when we don’t show any emotion when we sing. Over all the visual performance was lacking, but the vocal performance was very
Rosephanye Powell’s song was inspired by a poem called “Still I Rise” by poet Maya Angelou. Written in 2005, the song was meant to be a women’s anthem, it was to show that even after a past full of; tears, struggle, and heartache, a woman can grow stronger and rise above the challenges, hence the name “Still I Rise”. Rosephanye Powell is known as one of America's best composers of choral music. She was born in 1962 in Lanett, Alabama and graduated valedictorian of her graduating class …show more content…
Tone was the same roughly the same, however I thought there were times where sopranos could have dropped their jaws to allow for more of an A-W sound compared to the A-H sound they were providing. Personally, I think the diction needs a fair amount of work. If it wasn’t for the fact that I know this song forward and backward, I don’t think I’d understand the words these women were singing because it sounded all jumbled together. That being said because I’ve sung this song twice in my highschool career, I think the rhythm is quite off. What would best benefit this choir would be to set up a metronome and force them to sing “Still I Rise” while keeping up with the metronome because the tempo they sang was too slow and made the song sound gospelie, which wasn’t the composer's purpose. Lastly, throughout most of the song the balance between the sopranos and altos is cringy. There are times where the balanced is even and it sounds like one choir but many times it sounds like the sopranos are trying to one up the altos and vis versa. Overall, their performance of “Still I Rise” wasn’t very lively, almost all of the women are standing still and for those very few people who were trying to sway and get into it just looked out of sorts. This particular piece of music gave me a glimpse into what we potentially look like when we don’t show any emotion when we sing. Over all the visual performance was lacking, but the vocal performance was very