Exciting news! My new book, I Heard a Bird Sing: 66 Original Rounds and Canons for Choirs, has just been released. It’s available from Sheet Music Plus and Sheet Music Direct, and features fresh compositions - some easygoing, others more intricate - all crafted to spark creativity and joy.
You can preview it here, or email me at jake@jakealexander.org to purchase the PDF directly. The online price is $19.99, but I’m happy to offer it for $14.99 - or on a pay-what-you-can basis - when you buy directly from me.
And while you’re here, feel free to explore some of the rounds and canons I’ve written over the years. I’ve made teaching videos for some, and a few have audio recordings of more developed arrangements - these are all collected in the table below.
In addition, some of my rounds and canons are available as three Resource Packs on ChoirCommunity:
- Rounds 13 – Four Rounds on the Theme of Hope
- Rounds 14 – Four Rounds with a Winter Theme
- Rounds 15 – Four Christmas Rounds
Each pack includes scores, rehearsal tracks, and - where appropriate - backing tracks for four songs.
| Score | Video | Audio | Notes / Origin of Words | Difficulty |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Blessings of Peace | Audio | Based on a quote variously attributed to William Gladstone and Jimi Hendrix. | 3 | |
| Blue Team | Video | Audio | An excerpt from a poem of the same name by Dr Ellen Storm, a paediatrician working for the NHS. The poem was featured in These Are the Hands: Poems from the Heart of the NHS, edited by Deborah Alma and Dr Katie Amiel, and published by Fair Acre Press. | 3 |
| Children's Ward | Video | Audio | An excerpt from a poem by Iora Dawes, a medical social worker in the NHS (published in These Are the Hands). | 3 |
| Comrades | Video | Audio | Another NHS round, with words borrowed from a poem by Eilidh Urquhart, Junior Doctor (published in These Are the Hands). | 2 |
| A Crystal Forest | Audio | Words by a poem by William Sharp. | 1 | |
| Drop of Water | Audio | Words from The Secrets of the Heart by Kahlil Gibran. | 2 | |
| Each Slow Dusk | Audio | Based on a quote from Anthem for Doomed Youth by Wilfred Owen. The audio track is performed by KT6 Vocal Group. | 1 | |
| The Fifth of November | Video | English folk poem about Guy Fawkes Night. | 1 | |
| The Goose and Common | Audio | English folk poem about the enclosure of the common lands. | 3 | |
| Hope Is the Thing | Video | Audio | Words from a poem by Emily Dickinson, "Hope" is the thing with feathers. The associated media for this round features a performance by MoJo Virtual Choir (with additional instrumentation by Monica Rabino). | 3 |
| I Heard a Bird Sing | Audio | Based on Hope, a poem by Oliver Herford. | 2 | |
| Jabberwocky | Audio | An excerpt from Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll. The audio is performed by Quaggy Community Choir. | 1 | |
| Kindness Is Like Snow | Audio | Words commonly attributed to Kahlil Gibran. | 2 | |
| Loveliest of Trees | Video | Audio | An Easter-themed round. The lyrics are taken from first verse of Loveliest of Trees, a poem from A. E. Housman's A Shropshire Lad. | 3 |
| On You Rush | Audio | Based on a excerpt from The River by Caroline Anne Bowles. | 2 | |
| Only the Cleaner | Video | Audio | As with all my NHS rounds, this was featured in the anthology These Are the Hands: Poems from the Heart of the NHS. The words are derived from a poem of the same name by Ashleigh Condon, an NHS domestic assistant. | 1 |
| Only When It's Dark | Video | Audio | Based on words spoken by Martin Luther King Jr. | 3 |
| The Oxen | Audio | An excerpt from a poem by Thomas Hardy. The words refer to a Wessex legend, which holds that cattle kneel in homage every Christmas Day at the exact time of Jesus' birth. | 3 | |
| Ring Out the Old | Audio | A round for the New Year. Words borrowed from Ring Out, Wild Bells by Alfred Tennyson. | 1 | |
| Rippling of Rivers | Video | Based on a quote by American naturalist Henry David Thoreau: "He who hears the rippling of rivers in these degenerate times will not utterly despair." I wrote this round for my choirs to learn during Mental Health Awareness Week 2021. | 2 | |
| Song of the Witches | Video | A spooky round based on a well known rhyming couplet from Shakespeare's Macbeth. | 2 | |
| Snowflakes | Audio | An excerpt from Snow-flakes by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. | 3 | |
| Stars | Audio | Words from Middlemarch by George Eliot. | 2 | |
| This Crisp Winter Air | Audio | A quote from the book, Winter Sunshine, by American naturalist, John Burroughs. | 3 | |
| Those Who Wish to Sing | Video | Audio | A Swedish proverb. | 2 |
| Torch Bearers | Audio | Words from Torch-Bearersem> by E. Nesbit | 1 | |
| Villagers All | Audio | Words from The Wind in the Willowsem> by Kenneth Grahame | 1 | |
| Winter Song | Video | The first few lines of the poem of the same name by Wilfred Owen. | 3 | |
| The Woods | Video | Audio | From a poem by Robert Frost, Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening. | 3 |