i sing in alto and i was thinking of doing youve got a friend as my oral for music.
do you think this is a good choice or do you have any other simple songs that would be good.

thanks

wooo i'm alto too!
erm, is that you've got a friend as in 'if you're down and troubled/and you need some love and care' or something like that? or you've got a friend in me from toystory (that's what i originally thought anyway!)
trying to think of songs - there's loads of really nice ones, but i'm not entirely sure what range (when i say i'm alto, that's mainly alto, then second soprano and tenor when needed.... )
you could try a disney piece, i think someone in my class did that last year. or if you can manage eva cassidy there are some gorgeous arrangements - some ideas:
'fields of gold' (the sting original is nice too!)
'over the rainbow' (goes up to Eb above middle C, the rest is ok)
'people get ready', 'wayfaring stranger' for a bit more soulful kinda thing from 'Songbird' album*trying to remember the rest of the album*
'danny boy', 'imagine', 'i can only be me'(i accompanied my friend doing this last year - it's gorgeous!)'you've changed' from the 'Imagine' album,
'American tune', 'drowning in the sea of love', 'true colours','the water is wide', 'yesterday' and 'you take my breath away' from the 'American tune' album are really nice too. of course, there's loads more!
if you want lower, Tom McRae has really nice songs - don't know how avaliable scores are though :s
or 'beautiful' by christina aguilera seems a bit of a hit too...and 'a thousand miles' by vanessa carlton - loads of people played them, i've heard one or two singing it too
hope some of this rambling is of some use
***basic point of the message - get an eva cassidy CD and piano book and learn it!! theraputic if nothing else!***
hoxie
x

ps. if it's the you've got a friend as in the one not from toystory - that should be fine i think! i love that song too! it seems hard enough to me for grade 3 (?) standard that is the 'standardised' one? is that right?

I like Eva cassidy...

haha lol so do i (as you can probably guess from my post...oops!)

its the down and troubled one!!!
i might do over the rainbow as that is a gd song for altoists!!!

As an examiner (not ABRSM) I sometimes get asked to examine "Contemporary Vocals"

Beautiful (and A Thousand Miles) is a popular choice, but too many try to copy Christine Aguilera's vocal characteristics and do not succeed. Thousand Miles is good if you can have a GOOD backing.

Hero is another popular one as is Get Here

Colours of the Wind (Pocohontas) is also a popular song as are many other "Disney" songs

i prefer to do one of these
"youve got a friend"
"over the rainbow"

are these good songs

Excellent - but give them character!!

If you go for "Somewhere Over The Rainbow" be careful how you sing the first few notes. There's nothing worse than someone who slides from "some" to "where" and misses - they end up sounding like a foghorn! Also be careful with the pronunciation of "way up high" - you don't want to sing "weigh a pie".

The reason that this song (which won an Oscar for its composer Harold Arlen) was deleted from the Wizard of Oz three times by the director (and reinstated by the producer each time) was because it was thought too risky to sell the sheet music to the general public as it's harder to sing than it looks.

if you do the eva cassidy version, both of the first notes are the same (Ab i think - from my dodgy memory!) so that solves that problem!
haha the pronunciation idea is right though - you sound just like our choir teacher pointing out things like that!

i have put forword to do the song
"over the rainbow"
my music teacher is putting me in for the exam and i am very pleased thanks for al the help!!!

danix