ECOND HAND BOOKS ARE GREAT. Just last week a friend was holding a book sale from the deceased estate of a music teacher and I found this little book of Two Part Exercise for Choirs by James Greenwood.
It pairs a simple slow diatonic scale with some counterpoint for sight reading. Make sure everyone knows how to sing a scale, then set half the group to sing the harmony – swap and repeat until you master each one.
The exercises are arranged in different keys in regular five line notation. I was half expecting some repetition of tunes, but the composer seems to have a knack for variety.
I thought this might be a good exercise for typing up music with lilypond-book, so here you can download the first ten exercises on a nice clear page. I’m keeping track of the project with github.
The book is available through the Internet Archive.
So there you go. Something for your choir and something for the one who types up music.
Happy Holy Week!
