Beautiful
by Mike Wilson
The earth is a beautiful place. Especially if you're blessed to live in or near a forest. This song speaks to its grace and simplicity. The lyrics describe the wonder of a new sunrise and the serenity of a walk in a cool green wood. The experience elicits a spirit of peace and calm. We hope this song will do the same. To help with that, we used acoustic instruments which include a traditional rhythm section plus strings.
This SSA arrangement begins in unison but is quickly joined by the other parts leading us to the chorus, which is sung in a somewhat call and response style with parts 2 and 3 answering part 1. While parts 2 and 3 are optional, they truly help the song live up to its name if you are able to use them.
In the studio, we chose to sing the lines in two bar phrases. If your choir is capable of singing it in four bar phrases, feel free to do so if you find it to be more musical. Dynamically, the verses are sung as mezzo piano and the choruses as mezzo forte. Be sure to observe the piano with crescendo in the second ending/bridge.
We've provided practice mixes for parts 2 and 3 on our web site, as well as a unison version and an a cappella version.
Text is taken from Music K-8 magazine.