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This is a fabulous arrangement from our friends at Faber Music (the publisher.) The searing sadness of the original is somehow captured and magnified in the choral harmonies. I’d recommend percussion of some sort, whether vocal percussion or drum kit, to propel the energy along.

The SSA version is terrific. Any treble choir that can handle three-part harmony and has low altos would do well with this (the altos go down to F once and have several G-flats). My daughter sings in a women’s a cappella group, and I know they’d tear this up!

The SATB version would work for any mixed choir—high school, college, adult, community choir.

SATB + Piano:

This one is very close to the original. To capture the nasty sparseness of the original mood, there’s no harmony vocal until the second verse, when it blossoms slightly, only to open up to three-part singing at the end, at the lyric “boys only want love if it’s torture… don’t say I didn’t warn ya.”

Middle school, high school, college, community, treble choirs would all do well with this one – you just gotta bring your attitude!

The vocal lines are written well here. The piano part is on the spare side again, letting the voices shine and carry the mood.

SSA: This one is easier than Chandelier in both range and overall vocal demands, making it accessible for a middle-school treble group that can handle three parts; the voices are essentially equal in range, from A below middle C up to the B above middle C.

We also offer an SATB + Piano version of this piece (with no audio recording preview, however). This is almost an SAB chart, except that the tenors and basses do split in a few places. The tenor part never goes higher than an E, so it’s not too challenging.

This has a lot of the pulse and rhythmic energy of the original – there are cool chords for the choir on the word “waterfall” at the opening. The high vocals float like clouds on the slow words “can you feel my love,” which give it a nice, stretched-out feeling. For this one to have maximum effect, you may want to add drum kit, rhythm guitar, and bass to the choral score.

(We also have an SSA + Piano arrangement.)

If you know this song already, you know the sheer love and joy that it communicates. I tried to capture those in the choral arrangement, as well as the playfulness and fun of the original. The vocal parts are not difficult – 1 on a scale of 1 to 5.

I added a few extra-lush chords on the words “home” and “you,” and I put the trumpet parts from the bridge into the choir for some extra fun. And yes, I kept the whole dialogue in the middle where Alexander talks about falling in love with his beloved Jade! There’s good energy at the end, too.

When I did this arrangement, I wanted to preserve the sparse, gospel-blues edginess of the original, while fleshing out the vocal harmonies just a little more. Rihanna and Kanye did a lot of three-part harmony, which I pushed to four parts in a few places, using gospel-style chord spacing.

The parts are not difficult. (In the one place where the basses go high, they can drop down the octave.) Any mixed choir that can handle 4 independent parts should be able to handle this song.