Hi all
First, before I forget again – Music. Three things. One, those of you who are part of the second batch order may have noticed that you didn’t get everything you ordered. The Gjielo book is on back order. The projected delivery date is not good – around half term. So we may need to do some printing. I will let you know. Two, if you have missed the first two orders and still want music, I will place one final order this week. If you need to be a part of that order please let me know by 5pm Thursday 29th. And three, thanks to those who paid already. The total due and my bank details are in the small print at the bottom of the page with the provisional program. Thank you. Hopefully from next week on, we can have the beneficial situation of everyone having their own copy of everything, purchased or printed, and no sharing required.
OK, on to last night’s singing. Another excellent first stab at some tricky pieces. Thank you all for being there.
Lully, Lulla, Lullay – it’s a delicate little lullaby, and so needs to be sung sweetly, which you did. The perennial issue with this piece is staying in tune. The two things I want you to have in your head throughout are – 1. when you have repeated notes, make the next note ever so slightly sharp (up) from the last. 2. jumps up: you need to make them bigger than you think; steps down: you need to make smaller than you think. If you have a piano or other instrument, try singing a verse, your part, no accompaniment, and when you finish check on the piano to see if you are still in tune. If you have sagged, even if only slightly, turn up the dial on those two tips.
In the Stillness – you picked this up beautifully. Not much to say here. We will run over it plenty more times, but for the most part that will be about polishing. If you want to practise something, practise saying ‘hush’ for exactly one beat and keeping the ‘sh’ very short! And saying ‘stillness’ with all of the emphasis on the first syllable. And singing really low notes.
Sleep – we spent a little time on those tricky 4 bars, 59-62. For those who want homework, I would suggest singing those with the practice track as many times as you can bear. It’s 8-part singing with parts moving all over each other. To make it work we need those notes totally solid to give that Soprano top A flat all the support it deserves.
Underneath the Stars – I had decided not to work on this this week, but as the music arrived, and as you breezed through the other stuff, I stuck it back in (sorry, Robert), and you did amazingly well at picking up those syncopations. Walk around the house tapping the beat on your leg and humming the tune to yourself. Line up the taps with the words, or put the words between the taps – getting it right as to which is which is the whole thing. Altos and Tenors – you know that one bar at the bottom of page 5 is one that needs some attention.
O Holy Night – Once we had, mostly, figured out which notes on which piece of paper we were supposed to be singing, you got hold of this very quickly. I will figure out what language we are singing some time before December 17th. Probably. If you are singing it to yourself, just insist on sharp dotted rhythms. Get that ingrained. If you want to practise notes, bars 27-37 were a little shaky. One comment – there are lots of different versions of this piece, so if you are trying to sing along to a YouTube recording you will have a problem. Later today I will put a full choir version up with the practice tracks that you can use for singing along. Same place on the website.
Finally, if you have read all the way down to here, this comment is probably not for you. I will aim to send a pre-rehearsal post every Monday, and it will contain the ‘sing for fun’ piece that we will do that Tuesday. So you need to read to the bottom and click on the link and hit print or you won’t have it! And if you have any requests for this piece, please let me know.
You’re sounding great already. Keep singing, keep smiling as you do, and see you next week.
Chris