Author: Siobhan Jones

It’s Tuesday evening, and with no rehearsal tonight I am certain you are missing the sound of my voice…

I was thinking of suggesting that those who have not yet marked up their scores might meet for a fun* session of page turning and pencil note making. But as an alternative, here is a 15-minute video going through the Haydn, getting it annotated not just for “sit/stand” and “skip to here” but also key musical notes that you will want in there. I’d recommend having the post from a couple of weeks ago alongside as you go over the video – https://sheengatechoir.co.uk/choir-updates/haydn-score-markings/

If you are an avid marker of your score on Tuesdays and you already did your sit/stands from the post, you won’t need this. But if your score is pristine enough to return to the store for a refund, you might well find this 15 minutes well spent!

* used loosely.

Enjoy your week off and see you next Tuesday

CH

Well, today is May 24 so that means that exactly one month from now we will be ironing blouses and polishing shoes ready for the big night. Three more rehearsals to go.

The good news is that things are coming together. Last night we sang through everything in the program apart from Zorongo. The recordings are at the bottom of the post. Recognise that the piano is rather loud and recording on a phone is very unforgiving, and makes us sound weedier than we are in real life, so don’t be too critical. But by all means listen closely and pick up things you can improve on! Sops, what do you notice in the first movement? Basses, happy with the entry at the start of 2? Everyone, how are the Ts of ‘eine neue Welt’ in that movement? Sops and Altos – do you see what I was saying about trying to be perfectly together in Habanera so you sound like one harmonised voice? Everyone, are the dynamic contrasts in Laudate Dominum up to your expectations or can we make the louds louder and the softs softer? Lots of things we can improve on, but also make sure you hearing all the nice things you are doing.

Remaining rehearsals – I said this wrong last night. The last three Tuesdays run like this –

Tues Jun 6 – Bernadette Lord will be joining us to put the soprano solos in and help us acclimatise to the distraction of a solo part.
Tues Jun 13 – Our one Tuesday evening with Stephen Hall.
Tues Jun 20 – Our final brush up to achieve perfection.

I hope it goes without saying that these are all vitally important and we want everybody at every one of these three if possible, please.

Seating plan: after considerable thought and experimentation, I think that the best plan for us is to revert to our old formation. The benefit of having the tenors up front was outweighed by the detriment of having the sopranos uncomfortable and less powerful. The basses don’t care where they stand, but others prefer them behind and tenors want them close. So the best available compromise is our old line up, laid out in three clean rows.

And I am hoping that we will be able to use the stage for the remaining three rehearsals, which means that we need bodies at CC at 7.30 to get us set up and ready to start at 7.45. If you can be one of the early birds, please liaise with Siobhan.

Keep going, it is going to be a great concert.

Chris

Practice – Entries and Endings

Word endings were markedly better last night, but still need to be improved to be at concert standard. A pencil is your best friend here. If you haven’t marked ‘Und eine neue Welt’ with vertical lines to denote “stop here” or horizontal arrows to show “sing through, no breath” you are making it hard on yourself. Remembering what you are supposed to do in the heat of the concert without visual prompts will inevitably mean you are the one person who holds the note too long or plops a big consonant down too early. Cue crimson blushing. And obviously it is not just that one movement, but everything. Given we have no rehearsal next week, it is an ideal chance to use the spare time to get that marking up done.

And every single entry needs to be 50% more assured. You cannot be thinking ‘hmmm, not sure if this is right so I’ll leave this one to someone else.’ We need everyone coming in together and proud on every entry, whether it’s a big noisy one or a soft, Brahmsy one. So again, mark your score to give you a bar or two of forewarning, and sing along to your favourite recording.

Last night’s recordings:

1. Im Anfang
2. Nun schwanden
3. Mit Staunen
4. Die Himmel Erzahlen
5. Von deiner Gut 1
6. Von deiner Gut 2
7. Laudate Dominum
8. Habanera Don Gil de Alcala

We are on the home stretch. Things are coming together well, but there is plenty of refinement that we can do – and want to do, to make it a special event.

This is our timetable from here –

Tuesday May 23 – normal rehearsal
Tuesday May 30 – no rehearsal, half term – but sectional brush-up rehearsals possible
Tuesday June 6 – normal rehearsal
Tuesday June 13 – rehearsal with guest conductor, Stephen Hall
Tuesday June 20 – final rehearsal
Saturday June 24 – Concert

The original plan was to have Stephen come to two rehearsals before the concert, but events have transpired to limit that to the one. Which does mean that attendance at the June 13 rehearsal is extra important, so that he hears us as we expect to be on the 24th. Please mark your calendar to make that date impossible to miss.

Which is not to say you should consider the other rehearsals missable!

Chris

Despite a number of us being unavailable due to illness and other things, last night was a fantastic step towards what is going to be a brilliant evening next month. We bounced through a lot of music, and we are close to being note perfect. Maybe not word perfect, the German is still a struggle in places, but the sound was excellent.

A chunk of credit for that goes to Sue, who suggested that we should pull the lower parts to the front. That definitely seemed to help and the balance from the podium was good, even with just two basses. We will experiment further with how we lay ourselves out, so please be as open to being moved and placed next to unfamiliar voices as you were last night.

Here is what we sang through this week:

Haydn – we covered 5 of the 8 choruses. In our scores, movements 2, 4, 13, 18 and 27. We spent the most time on 13, Die Himmel Erzahlen, ending up by rollicking through at concert speed, even with the step up in tempo midway through. The to do for this now, and for quite a few other movements too, is to work on being perfectly together. You know the notes. You mostly know the words. So where the music has parts, or sometimes all 4 parts and all 3 soloists singing exactly the same words in exactly the same rhythm, our goal is for every singer to hit those notes at the same precise moment.

Brahms – getting closer, but still more security on your notes when you come in. It’s the slight hesitancy that is holding this back from excellence.

Va Pensiero – just get familiar with the words. Knowing what you are singing will allow you to relax and enjoy it. And remember to keep the dotted rhythms sharp. As in, the first two syllables, Va pens-, hold the Va longer than you dare, and make the pens really late and short.

Habanera – just like for the Haydn, those punchy rhythms have to be simultaneous. The second and fourth lines of the chorus are especially relevant, but throughout the sound should be one voice with two or four harmonies.

Upcoming rehearsals – we have four more rehearsals. I will circulate a post with those details once I get confirmation from our guest conductor.

Have a good week, see you next Tuesday.

Chris

Practice Pack

Brahms – anything to get 100% confident on the lovely notes. Practice tracks or singing with the Youtube recording recommended.

Habanera, Va Pensiero, Zorongo, everything really – words, words, words. Say the words to yourself over and again to get them familiarised. Work on getting them in the rhythms. If you reach a point of feeling you know the words, and given you now know the notes, then we are close to being performance ready.

Creation – focus on being bang on the beat when you are practising. Any movements you like. The harder ones are 13 and parts of 29. The ‘angry’ entries in 2 are a great example of where everyone in each part needs to be spot on together.

Anyone using the cyberbass practice track for The Creation will have noticed its movement numbers don’t tally with our edition of The Creation, so I’ve drawn up a quick reference guide for anyone who might find this useful. The pages, movement numbers & ABCs all refer to the Carus edition. I’ve included the title of the movements for those using other editions & bar numbers where helpful. Hope it’s clear!

Key:  C 1(2) = cyberbass part 1, (2)……p7, 1, Im Anfange etc etc = page 7 (Carus Edition), movement 1 (Carus), title of movement

C 1(2)……p7, 1, Im Anfange schuf Gott

C 1(3)……p12, 2, Nun schwanden vor dem heiligen Strahle

C 1(5)……p22, 4, Mit Staunen sieht das Wunderwerk

C 1(11)…..p38, 10, Stimmt an die Saiten

C 1(14)…..p47, 13, Die Himmel erzählen die Ehre Gottes

C 2(19)…..p76, 18, Der Herr ist groß

C 2(26a)….p98, 25, Vollendet ist das große Werk (I)

C 2(26b)….p107, 27, Vollendet ist das große Werk (II)

C 3(28a)….p116, 29, Von deiner Güt, o Herr und Gott (nb individual parts start in bar 23, tutti starts in bar 1 with chorus starting @1’43”)

C 3(28b)….p122, 29 bar 82 (D) Von deiner Güt, o Herr und Gott  (nb starts @0’ in bar 82 (D), then @2’ bar 146 (G), then @4’ bar 214 (K), then @5’30” bar 263 (M))

C 3(32)…..p151, 33 Singt dem Herren, alle Stimmen

Dear All 

As mentioned before we are looking for volunteers to help ahead of the concert and on the night itself. I’ve listed below the jobs we still need to fill – please email Siobhan if you’d be happy to help out with any of them (jonezfamily658@virginmedia.com):

Set-up              – from 12:30 on day of concert

Clear–up         – this if for EVERYONE!! 

Managing Concert Directions – plan covering timings and logistics for orchestra, soloists, SGC & Ad Libitum

Manning door on the night

Interval Tea and biscuits for orchestra 

Flowers for soloists

Flyers               – as you will have seen David Corless has produced the flyers for this concert – please share them far and wide! If anyone thinks they could take this on for future concerts please let Siobhan or David know and he can run through what’s involved.

Programme     – Simon Renton has taken this task on again but we’re also looking for someone to shadow him so they can take it on next time

Bar                  – Douglas Brewster

Tickets             – Tricia Joshi – email Tricia when you’ve sold tickets and pay directly to choir bank account – remember to concert ticket in reference)

Many thanks

Hi everyone, I hope you are all doing well. Bit of a nasty cold going around the Hawkins children, hopefully it is limited to this house and that age range.

If, like us, that gives you some down time this weekend, can I suggest that you take 15 minutes with a pencil to go through your Haydn score and make some markings? I hope you already have lots of pencil marks in there with entries, articulations, expression and so on, but we also need stage markings and excerpts as we are not doing the entire 100-minute-plus work. I would very much prefer not to use valuable rehearsal time to do this.

I have laid it all out in the table below. Line 1 says find bar 58 on p7 and write in STAND. On p26, at the end of the movement, you need SIT and ‘to p44’ or something to tell you to turn (quietly!) forward to p44 as we are skipping some intervening movements. The movements shown as struck through are ones we will be missing out. Hopefully all quite straightforward.

Have a good weekend, and see you on Tuesday.

Chris

Page	Bar
7	58	STAND
8	End of movement	SIT
11	51	STAND
18	End of movement	to p21
18	Movement 3
26	End of movement	SIT
26	End of movement	to p44
27	Movement 5
27	Movement 6
33	Movement 7
34	Movement 8
38	Movement 9
38	Movement 10
44	Movement 11
46	36	STAND	Quick
59	End of movement	SIT
59	End of movement	to p69
60	Movement 14
60	Movement 15
75	130	STAND
84	End of movement	SIT
84	End of movement	to p102
85	Movement 19
85	Movement 20
88	Movement 21
92	Movement 22
93	Movement 23
97	Movement 24
98	Movement 25
106	93 (Penultimate bar)	STAND	Quick
113	End of movement	SIT
115	End of page	STAND
137	End of movement	SIT	Slow
137	End of movement	to p139
137	Movement 30
150	End of movement 31	STAND

Hello everyone,

Tickets request

Please email Tricia Joshi on patricia@joshifamily.co.uk.  You will need to make the payment to the choir account – using your name and ‘Concert’ as the ref.  Don’t forget you need to buy a ticket for yourself. Tickets are £15, £5 for under-12s. There won’t be physical tickets again this year but a list at the door works well we’ve found.

Ideally we’d really like for you each to order 4+ tickets.  It’s going to be an expensive concert to put on and we want to make sure we have a good size audience, so please do your best to get bums on seats.

Thanks.

Tricia

More useful progress last night, well done. Here’s what we did:

Haydn
Von deiner gut p116 – we put all the different segments together and they are all doing well. The trickiest bit is the last passage.
Nun Schwanden p12 – the second movement, the first one we learned all those weeks ago. Good job at tidying up the word ends in the H A P P Y bit. The choppier minor key bit was good too.
Vollendet ist p107 – we worked through the whole thing from back to front at slow speed, then assembled at high speed and it worked well. Good job.

Brahms – still some shakiness around the notes that we need to fix. Basses will help out tenors at their low entries, then resume the bass line. Being sure of the first notes of sections is one focus. The Amen is a highlight. I’d love to get the whole thing sounding as gorgeous as that coda.

Zorongo – Marta focused on nuance and drama, and from where I was standing it sounded good. The second, quick section needs to move – 1 in a bar speed. So get those words nailed down.

The goal for the next week or two is to sign off on pieces and movements as ‘good to go’ – meaning not just that we are properly confident of notes, words and entries, but we know the musicality bits of expression, phrasing and the stuff that takes it from good to awesome. So plenty to do still!

Keep listening, keep singing along, and see you next week.

CH

For those who want to:

Homework pack

Brahms – focus on the first few notes of each section – make sure that you are totally sure of how to hit them with accuracy and confidence. The rest will flow on from there if we start each line well.

Creation – go over the three movements we did today, ideally singing along to a recording so you have the other parts around you, but practice tracks are good too.
If you need more, add to that – Die Himmel erzahen, the last segment especially; and the movements from last week, Der Herr ist Gros p76, Singt dem Herrn p151.

If you have time:
Va Pensiero – practise the words and fitting them to the music. I am confident that the music will take care of itself.

Morning all. Thanks to everyone for a good rehearsal last night. A big improvement on last week at THS. (Sorry Siobhan….) We are still figuring out notes in places, but the good news is that we are getting down to a decreasing number of tricky bits that are tripping us up, in amongst long sections that are getting good. But there is still plenty to do, and in response to requests from some of you, I am including a ‘homework pack’ of bits that it would be great to go back over after what we did together, to make sure that those good bits are remembered and those tricky bits are smoother, and for those who couldn’t be at rehearsal to play catchup. As always, strictly optional, but if you want to feel confident on stage next month, and want to enjoy putting on a quality performance, a few minutes’ practice is definitely a good idea.

Here is what we sang:

Zorongo: much better. Still needs to sound more secure, which will come more easily if you know the words. Siobhan made a good suggestion to help with this: audio files of Marta speaking the words so you know exactly how to sing the words. And Marta has done this for us already. Links in the usual place.
Words (SAT) Words (B)
Habanera: Ditto. Watching at the starts of the choruses, with those pauses that make timing hard, is essential. For both these pieces I am going to start charging £1 to the choir funds for every Z which is sung as an English Z, not as a Spanish TH!
Words (SAT) Words (B)

Brahms’ Geistliches Lied: this has regressed from where it was before Easter when it sounded great, and now sounds nervous again, to the extent that it has been suggested that we should nix it from the program. I’d be very sad to do that. I think it is a lovely piece, a good amuse bouche before the rich Haydn, and is musically well within our reach. But all four parts had bits where the notes were not right, and that leads to hesitancy which in a slow, emotional piece like this, is a problem. For homeworkers, this is a place to devote some time. To know it is to love it.

Haydn: We covered three movements:
Die Himmel Erzahlen p47 – we worked from C to the end. Entries – and there are lots – need to be 100% confident. The trickiest passage is D-E, page 55. Apart from that one bit which has some unexpected timings, it is all getting good.
Von deiner Gut p116 – the long movement with lots of different but short sections. We worked again on D through to the end, that’s D p122; G p125; Kp128; M p130. Then the rambunctious bit from O-Q, p132. It’s getting close to being there this one now, which is great. I’d love to be able to try the entire 10-minute movement through next week.
Singt dem Herrn p151 – although this is all quite intricate and needs study to get it perfect, the tricky bit here is just a few bars after A, 27-34 or so, p154. The way the words fit is a bit unexpected. The other thing to practise and have absolutely certain is the final passage – NOT coming in early at letter D!!! Huge mark on your score there please!

Have a good week. See you all next week.

CH

Homework pack:

Brahms: Sop / Alto / Ten / Bass You can skip the orchestral bits but hardly worth it as it’s only short. Phonetic pronunciation of lyrics here. Learning the words will make your confidence much greater and allow you to be looking up. Expression is everything in this.

Haydn:
Die Himmel Erzahlen: Cyberbass Mvt 14, The heavens are telling Letter C is at 2:45; D is at 3:00.
Von deiner Gut: Cyberbass Mvt 28b, Of stars fairest D is at 0:00; G 2:00; K 4:02; M 5:32; O 6:22
Singt dem Herrn: Cyberbass Mvt 32, Sing the Lord ye voices all Letter A is at 1:20
You can adjust the playback speeds – try it at 1.25x, that is closer to the actual speeds.
If you can get confident in these three, that is a big chunk of the tricky stuff in the whole thing.
Good luck!