Rise Up and Sing Along with YouTube

March 3, 2016 9:04 AM

Want to be part of a singalong, but don't know the tunes? Presenting the YouTube playlists for the Rise Again Songbook, a one-stop shop for group sing-ins: Ballads & Old Songs; Peace; Hope & Strength; Country; Dreams and Mystery; Family; Dignity and Diversity; and British Invasion.

The Rise Again Songbook, and its predecessor, Rise Up Singing: The Group Singing Songbook, are spiritual descendants of Sing Out! The songbook is lyrics only; YouTube playlists make it possible for singers to learn the tunes by ear.

Group song, previously: The Tuneless Choir of Nottingham.

posted by MonkeyToes (7 comments total)

All right! I just took the kids to a sing along performance with Peter Blood, Annie Patterson, and Susan Stark and picked up a copy of Rise Again! It's a fantastic resource and beautifully published.
posted by saulgoodman at 9:12 AM on March 3, 2016

Thank you so much for sharing this! This makes me so happy!
posted by colfax at 10:09 AM on March 3, 2016

Does anyone know why they don't have the melodies of the songs? I guess it wouldn't be copyright, which would cover the words too. Is the idea that their audience is amateur singing groups, where no one reads music? It seems to me like it would be possible that there is a piano player around such a group, who could use the notation if people wanted to learn a new song.
posted by thelonius at 10:35 AM on March 3, 2016

Probably because of space limitations. The book would weigh about twenty pounds if it had music in it.
posted by Daily Alice at 11:14 AM on March 3, 2016 [1 favorite]

If I remember correctly, this is one of those books that has guitar tabs or chord markers so the sing-along leader just has to strum along to get the tune. It's not exactly for the musically illiterate but saves space.
posted by fiercekitten at 12:44 PM on March 3, 2016

From the first volume, Rise Up Singing:

We are often asked why this book contains no music (except for the two chapters of rounds). The answer lies in the basic purpose of the book. We wanted to create a large and diverse collection of songs that was compact and inexpensive enough that groups like camps, schools, and churches could actually acquire a quantity of these for group singing....These 1,200 songs would have required a huge and enormously costly book if music was included. We wanted a book with enough songs that groups could continue teaching each other new songs out of it year after year.

The second reason was copyrights. It is incredibly difficult and costly to obtain permission to reprint composed songs, even with lyrics alone. We would have been unable to obtain permission to include many of the songs in this book if we had included music.

posted by Shmuel510 at 12:58 PM on March 3, 2016 [2 favorites]

Related previous post: Rise Up Singing Project by Matthew Vaughan
posted by Shmuel510 at 1:02 PM on March 3, 2016 [2 favorites]