Jacob's Ladder

This familiar old spiritual is also known as "We Are Climbing Jacob's Ladder" or sometimes "Climbing Jacob's Ladder." Probably written in the mid 1800s, its exact origin is uncertain, as is its author. We are including it in this issue for possible use in your focus on African American History Month and/or the celebration of Abraham Lincoln's 200th birthday.

The arrangement here is for three vocal parts. But you can do it with just unison voices, or melody plus one of the other two parts, as you prefer (depending on your singers). As we often do, we have put the part 3 vocal line in bass clef to be sung by lower, changing, and changed voices. To assist in learning these parts, we have isolated all three and put them on our web site. Part 1 is sung with no accompaniment, as none is needed. Parts 2 and 3 have piano for reference. (See details in the box following with the computer picture)

The nice thing about this simple tune is that it works in a lot of different ways. You could of course use the recording as we did and get very nice results. We used piano and guitar only, which makes for a nice, light and tasteful background. However, the piano part is easy to play, so you could play it live yourself. Or you could have a student pianist accompany your singers. You could also forego any accompaniment at all and do it as an a cappella piece. We have recorded it this way as well and included the audio on both the CD for this issue (track 21) and on the web site where the rehearsal tracks are also located.

Yet another way to perform this piece, with or without the recording and with or without a piano accompaniment, is with guitar(s). Our guitarist on the recording played freely with arpeggiated figures that complement the piano. Your capable guitarist could do this as well. If you are working with beginning guitarists, though, you might prefer a simple approach. As with the first two issues of this year, we are including easy chords (4 string versions) and a basic pattern that can be used as an accompaniment. You will find the part and chord diagrams on the last page of the piano/vocal music, page 22. There are only three chords to learn. Students may adhere to the part we have, or they can adapt the part to better fit with their own level of playing. For example, they could use more than four strings. Or fewer. They could play some or all of the melody. You could even split players into groups, some strumming, some playing the melody, etc. How easy or difficult you make it depends on your students and their capabilities.

Online extras - The free, downloadable tracks mentioned can be found under the "Graphics and Extras" for Volume 19, No. 3 at MusicK8.com