Sunshine on My Shoulders

(aka "Sunshine Almost Always Makes Me High")

Rating: 3.4/5
(281 votes - mouse-over to vote now!)

Date Posted: Sun, 20 May 2012
Posted By: Darwin Scheel | More from this user
Key written in: D♭ Major
How many parts: 4
Type: Barbershop
Lyrics: Sunshine almost always makes me high
Comments: “Sunshine On My Shoulders” is an awesome Tag because it has a familiar melody and words, the Tag is short, the individual parts are simple and easy to learn with cool progressions of awesome modern sounding chords, it is a key change Tag with a ringing last chord, and the Lead/Bass octave on the last chord is also the starting notes for singing the Tag again; totally awesome!

This is a fun ringing Tag to sing. Very satisfying chord progression from the opening unison octave into the M7 chord.
Out of the nine chords to this Tag, there are five cool chords, QTY: 4 Major seventh cords containing a perfect 4th and perfect 5th interval and QTY: 1 minor minor seventh chord containing two perfect 5th intervals to lock and ring.
This Tag really rings; the penultimate minor minor seventh chord has two perfect 5th intervals to lock and ring and the bright ee vowel opens the throat and adjust/balances the lower and upper registers to freely ring the ah vowel on the ending tonic ten spread chord.

The arranger is Unknown, this Tag was taught to me by Kenneth Potter.

Barbershop Tag Teaching Guidelines
1. And the words are… “Sunshine almost always makes me high.”
2. This Tag is in the key of Db and all parts start on a unison octave on the third scale F; Lead, Bari, and Bass on the lower F and the Tenor an octave above.
3. Thoroughly learn the individual parts on your own and when teaching this Tag, start with the Lead part first as it is the melody. Once the Lead part has been learned, teach the Tenor part next with the Lead quietly singing along in the background. When the Tenor part has been learned, teach the Bari part next with the Lead and Tenor quietly singing along. Make sure the upper three parts have thoroughly learned their parts and have sung through the Tag together at full volume before teaching the Bass part as we will now be introducing dissonant intervals. Finally, teach the Bass part with the other three parts quietly singing in the background. This teaching process allows singers to rehearse their part and not forget their part as others are learning their part.
The upper three parts sung together are very consonant until you add the Bass part. The Bass part is taught last because throughout this Tag, the Bass creates M7th intervals with/against each of the upper three parts. 4. Know the sound of each individual chord in the Tag being taught; knowing when a chord is incorrect can be helpful in identifying appropriate part corrections. Learn the sound of each chord by playing the chords on a piano or listening to the MP3 recording of the Tag.
5. To lock and ring the chords, duet all the possible combinations focusing on tuning and locking the unisons, octaves, perfect 4ths and perfect 5ths.
6. Start the Tag singing session with a simpler and shorter easy Tag before teaching “Sunshine On My Shoulders” or when inviting another singer to sing this Tag with unknown singing abilities. Result: Instant chords sung with a successful and fulfilling outcome for all singers and listeners.

See the complete Barbershop Tag Teaching Guidelines at the following link:
http://www.barbershoptags.com/images/Barbershop_Tag_Teaching_Guidelines--Men.pdf


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Attributions

Arranger
Peter Benson; Modified by Darwin Scheel
dnstags.com
Year: 2012

Purchase this arrangement here
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Made famous by
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Learning tracks sung by
Darwin Scheel
dnstags.com

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