Dear All
Thanks to all who have contributed to keeping the choir going, offering gardens, bringing wine, singing, sending moral support – I think we have used this enforced downtime well and we are still very much a choir. We just wait to be able to sing normally again.
In the meantime, some of us have looked at some of the pieces that Dave had suggested as a concert of traditional and folk songs for the autumn. We have to accept that this concert possibly won’t happen at the original time, but we have enjoyed working on a number of pieces.
Danny Boy – a complex, 8-part arrangement littered with ornate harmonies. We can give verse 1 a pretty good sing; verse 2 is still a challenge.
Shenandoah – my favourite of those we sang, we practised staying in tune on the first two verses; we have the gorgeous harmonies of verse 3 pretty well mapped out; and the second sops and altos have done a fabulous job of picking up the incredibly tough ‘stretto’ verse 4.
Linden Lea – we learned this pretty quickly. A nice, easy one with pretty straightforward harmonies.
This Little Light of Mine – we now have the tune irrevocably buzzing in our heads. Arrangement and harmonies to follow.
We have not yet looked at several others:
Ellan Vannin – a simple arrangement similar in structure and style to Linden Lea. We will pick this up quickly when we try it out.
The Turtle Dove – a beautifully mournful arrangement by Vaughan Williams.
The Lover’s Ghost – another eerie piece by RVW, and of similar moderate trickiness.
I Love My Love – an SSAATBB arrangement by Holst that we looked at a couple of years ago, but never performed. Some tricky rhythmic patterns in the upper parts, but another lovely piece.
Swansea Town – an upbeat, sailor’s tail with a catchy tune. Tricky parts where the tune passes from part to part intra-verse, and some good counterpoint too.
All of this music is available on the website, https://sheengatechoir.co.uk/downloads/repertoire-outline-for-autumn-2020-concert/
We also sang simple warm-up arrangements of Amazing Grace and Somewhere Over the Rainbow. Thank you to all who did so. It was really nice to hear something that I had arranged being sung and sounding rather lovely.
For all of these, we have used specially-created practice recordings which amplify a given part over the rest of the choir to allow work at home. And we have sung along to YouTube recordings too. Many of you have found these recordings helpful. Please continue to use them, and let me know any suggestions for improvements.
I have actually set some of them up on a YouTube channel, #ChoralPracticeRecordings. If you were able to visit me there, subscribe, listen often, leave an occasional Like or a comment and do your practice on YouTube rather than from the links on the choir website, that would be very helpful! I won’t get rich with these, but a bit of a following might be nice. 🙂
We have nothing planned for the rest of August. But I am sure that we have sufficient interest to be thinking of how we can meet in September. Gardens are probably out given light and temperature, but we will see. In the meantime, keep singing along to the radio, to the sounds in your head, to YouTube recordings or whatever, and watch this space for news.
Chris, pp Lesley et al