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About the Composer
Jennifer Lucy Cook
Graphite Publishing
How Can I Keep From Singing? (SATB Practice Tracks)
A fresh new take on the traditional tune.
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How Can I Keep From Singing?
Download audio practice tracks for Jennifer Lucy Cook’s “How Can I Keep From Singing?” for SATB choir and piano.
Includes full access for 1-50 singers. These tracks are sold in batches of 50, so please round up the number of singers in your group to the nearest multiple of 50. Example: 42 singers = Qty. of 50 in your cart.
All purchases will have a packet of audio tracks (individual part-tracks alone, individual part tracks with piano, piano only track, full mixed track).
About the tracks:
- These rehearsal tracks are recordings of my own voice, singing all vocal parts. I have designed them (with the help of my friend Pete White) for the benefit of distant / isolated singing in your personal spaces, and to encourage independent learning. These audio tracks work best with earphones / headphones on.
- The tracks are professionally mixed so singers are ensured high quality audio recordings to support their learning!
Important licensing & purchasing terms: The purchase of this resource allows your choral organization to distribute it to your singers and staff for their own learning at any time, but not to be duplicated, edited in any way, and/or shared beyond the organization.
It’s not easy to bring a fresh idea to a tune that’s been arranged hundreds of times, but that’s precisely what Cook has done with “How Can I Keep from Singing.” An appealing piano accompaniment figure unties the entire work while Cook patiently builds and develops her musical ideas. The music is accessible and consistently singable. Great for developing choirs.
Text
My life flows on in endless song
Above earth’s lamentation;
I hear the real, though far-off hymn
That hails a new creation.
Through all the tumult and the strife
I hear the music ringing.
It sounds an echo in my soul:
How can I keep from singing?
Although the tempest loudly roars,
I hear the truth, it liveth
But though the darkness ‘round me close,
Songs in the night it giveth.
No storm can shake my inmost calm
While to that rock I’m clinging;
Since love is lord of heav’n and earth,
How can I keep from singing?
The distance grows, the cloud appears;
I’ve known a broken spirit
I bid farewell and welcome tears
When once again I hear it:
The voices raised in spite of all,
A simple hope they’re bringing.
To that old song I still belong;
How can I keep from singing?
I lift my eyes, the cloud grows thin;
I see the blue above it,
And day by day this pathway smooths
Since first I learned to love it.
The peace I find within my heart,
A fountain ever springing,
Is mine to love and mine to give;
How can I keep from singing?
– Robert Lowry, additional italicized lyrics by Jennifer Lucy Cook and Garret Lathe
NOTE: The first known publication of the text was in The New York Observer in August 1868, attributed to “Pauline T” and originally titled “Always Rejoicing.” While Robert Lowry has traditionally been credited with the authorship of both the hymn tune and its lyrics, it is important to note that this may be another case of an overlooked female author in our musical history.
$1.00 per set
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