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Peace on Earth... and lots of little cricketsTreble (SA)/folk percussion instruments & marimba (and/or Orff
instruments/string bass)
Secular text in English by Oliver Twigge
HEY DIRECTORS: Don't forget
to have your singers smile, move to the music, and have plenty
of fun with this piece. I really didn't envision people singing
this without moving or smiling!Hello to all of you
singers (and their directors) from Kentucky, New York, and ACDA
Central environs (Ohio, Michigan, Illinois and Indiana) who are
singing this piece soon for KMEA and ACDA conventions and other
events. I hope you have fun with it, and thanks for the wonderful
energy I am sure you are bringing to these events! The Cricket
message is kind of like the movie Pay it Forward- and I thank you
for delivering that message to your audience. By the way, Oliver
Twigge says g'day mate from down in New Zealand! This very fun piece was commissioned by our great friend, Nikkola Carmichael, and her family. They are a fun-loving bunch of New Zealanders and now Americans who didn’t want anything too serious. The text is about a child and Mom who go about changing the world into a kinder place - and crickets play a part in their plan. The percussion includes toy cricket clickers, rain sticks, Asian guiros, and so on but it’s not totally necessary to use the exact instrumentation. Directors are also invited to add Orff instruments if they like. The vocal parts are very jazzy and then later very gospel sounding. For those of you who've
requested help locating "Cricket Clickers", I've posted links for two
types at amazon.com to the right. NEW NEWSFLASH: January 23, 2010: Peace on Earth is giant music retailer JW Pepper's #6 best-seller nationwide. Crickets are happy! NEWSFLASH: March 9, 2009: Walton Publishing announces "Peace on Earth... and lots of little crickets" is the number ONE selling piece for the past year, and sales continue to grow. THANK YOU to everyone who's doing this piece! NEWSFLASH: Nov. 7, 2008: Crikey, just found out from Gunilla Luboff, dear owner and chief bottlewasher at Walton, that this lil' tune has sold 9,000 copies since it was released just a few months ago! Performance ideas: I have fielded a number of questions about this piece. Everyone loves it but some are wondering a little about the tempo and pacing. My opinion is that the tempo has to stay near 100 to keep the piece bright and fun, yet at that tempo getting the text out cleanly is a challenge. Please try to balance these two issues as best you can. You can certainly put the text into your program. In fact I wish more people would do that for all choral concerts- get those wonderful texts typed into the program. If quality choral music is driven by quality texts, both on the compositional and the performance level, wouldn't we want our wonderful audiences to be able to read said quality poetry? Many discerning concert-goers would love to have a chance to read through the poetry at their leisure and not have to fight so much to make out the words! Finally, I am cool with people shortening the piece a bit. Perhaps start at measure 5, and then take mm 25-29 and shorten that to two measures. And do the same with mm. 33-36. Complete perusal score available upon
request.
on YouTube:
Another experience: "I’ve
kept your email on my computer since October so I could give you
feedback on your piece. We just had our festival on March 14 and
your piece was the big hit! The kids absolutely loved it. We sang it
with 80 4th, 5th, and 6th graders
from four different schools. I used some of my high school students
to play the percussion. When we passed out a survey at the end of
the festival, the song the kids liked best was your piece."
TEXT One night a cricket crept in my
room
so I ran to my mother and said
make him go away,
she said that crickets bring us
good luck
so I let him stay and fed him
night and day.
Later on my cricket looked so sad
and he said "I'm getting lonely to
no end,
so I ran out into the field
and I brought him back a sweet
cricket girlfriend.
Before too long my whole room was
filled
with baby crickets all chirping
their "do-re-mi's"
I gave all my friends a baby
cricket for luck
and I even gave them to my
enemies. Then all the people in the
neighborhood
let the lucky little crickets
be their guide,
new friends were made and
bitterness forgotten
and the happiness and crickets
multiplied.
Then my mother said let's buy
some little boxes
and fill them with crickets
and send them on their way
to people here and there and
everywhere
and bring all the world a
happy brand new day.
There were little crickets
chirping far and wide
and I winked and I smiled and
I laughed with my mother,
all the people were so happy
go lucky
they forgot how to hate each
other...
And there was Peace on Earth,
and joy everywhere
there was Peace on Earth and
hearts filled with gladness,
Oh yes, there was Peace on
Earth
..and lots of little crickets!
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 click for audioUniversity of S. Florida,
Bel Canto, Lynne Gackle, conductor
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| PAUL CAREY
composer / conductor All materials and information on this site © 2009 Paul Carey and respective music publishers No part of this site or its contents may be reproduced without written consent. 
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