How about picking a public domain song? It's a popular approach. I've got an old orchestration book that uses "America" as it's example, and Nelson Riddle's orchestration book uses "Brother John ("Are You Sleeping") for its examples. "Billy Boy" seems to be the popular choice for jazz arranging texts.

Melodies like "The Water Is Wide" and "Wandering" are public domain. The trick is to find the original lyrics, since often new (copyright) verses are added by people doing covers.


-- David Cuny

My virtual singer development blog
Vocal control, you say. Never heard of it. Is that some kind of ProTools thing?

BiaB 2025 | Windows 11 | Reaper | Way too many VSTis.