Things We Do For Love: SATB Choral Octavo

Greg Gilpin's arrangement transforms a beloved pop standard into something choirs genuinely want to perform. The piece balances the song's essential melodic hooks with genuine four-part writing that gives each voice line something engaging to do, avoiding the trap of reducing pop arrangements to thin, accompanied-melody settings. It's the kind of chart that feels current and relevant in concert while still meeting choirs across a wide range of experience.

Warm and deliberate, this arrangement captures the song's original emotional honesty while giving a choir room to bring ensemble color to the arrangement. The harmonic language stays rooted in pop sensibility but includes enough detail to engage singers' musicianship throughout the eleven pages.

Treble, mixed, and advanced high school choirs looking for contemporary repertoire that audiences recognize and singers enjoy. This works equally well for community choirs seeking accessible pop arrangements and collegiate ensembles building diverse concert programming.

• Shape the melodic contour in the verse sections with dynamic restraint; the song's power comes from building gradually rather than pushing hard from the start.
• Treat rhythmic precision as essential to the piece's character. Clean ensemble attacks and releases matter more here than in ballad-driven repertoire.
• Balance the top line prominence with full engagement from lower voices, especially in moments where tenor and bass lines carry countermelody or harmonic interest.
• Connect the recorded accompaniment to your choir's interpretation early in rehearsal so singers understand the precise harmonic and rhythmic framework they're working within.

Pair this with other 1970s and 1980s pop standards to create a concert set that reflects meaningful popular music from the last fifty years. It also serves as an excellent audience engagement piece that demonstrates to listeners how choral music intersects with the songs they already know and love.

• Maintaining rhythmic independence within a pop-influenced harmonic framework
• Balancing solo line prominence with supportive harmonic textures
• Responding to recorded accompaniment with ensemble cohesion
• Interpreting dynamics and expression in contemporary musical language