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Hi all, the new Covid guidance on socialisation does not affect us continuing to meet in a Covid secure space. We look forward to seeing you tomorrow- please bring the same four pieces as last time: Shenandoah
Swansea Town, Linden Lea, Danny Boy. We made a good start in the strange environment last week so let’s build on the excellent work we did over the summer! If you need reminding of our Covid rules please read last weeks’s post. It is vital that we stick to these at all times. This week is sopranos turn for wipe down etc – we don’t need you all but please be prepared. Best wishes, Lesley

Welcome back!

I hope you are all excited to get back together again tomorrow at 7.45 as usual. And for those for whom it is not yet possible, you are with us in spirit and we look forward to singing with you again very soon.

This will be a bit of a long message. Sorry, but there is quite a lot to cover for obvious reasons. Please take the time to read through.

First, music! Dave is looking to cover the following pieces this week:
Shenandoah
Swansea Town
Linden Lea
Danny Boy
Those who were able to be a part of the group over the summer will be reasonably familiar with three of these. We didn’t get to Swansea Town, but there are practice tracks available. Please make sure you print off copies of each of these.

THIS IS VITAL AS, UNDER COVID RULES, YOU CANNOT SHARE MUSIC! So if you don’t have a copy, you will be singing from memory!

Music can be found here: https://sheengatechoir.co.uk/downloads/repertoire-outline-for-autumn-2020-concert/ – click on the name of the piece for the download. Practice tracks are in the same place.

Next, to be allowed to use the church, we must follow Christ Church’s protocols, which are tighter than you may be used to. Here is the Covid-related stuff you need to know.

Masks are to be warn at all times by everyone, with no exemptions, when inside the church.

Entry is only through the normal (southern) door on West Temple Sheen. Exit is only through the other (northern) door on West Temple Sheen.

Seating is in marked locations, three to a large pew, two to a smaller pew. Large pews with one at each end and one in the middle; small pews one at each end. Alternate pews are left empty.

Toilets are open but to be used only in an emergency, as they will require thorough sanitisation if we use them.

Touch as little possible, including each other. Helpful cooperation such as putting the piano out or finding a music stand is, sadly, to be set aside for now.

When you arrive, take your seat in the pew you are directed to and relax. Once you are seated in your spot, you won’t be able to move (well you can, of course, but it will be a pain) so if you must be next to (2m apart from) your best buddy, arrive with them or bring a cardboard cutout of them to save their spot.

At the end of rehearsal, if you are not part of the clean up rota, please exit (through the correct door) promptly so that cleaning can begin.

Nobody is permitted in the chancel (ie we all remain in the main body of the church, off the stage at all times)

Your name and telephone number must be provided for track and trace purposes. (We will let you know how to do this.)

Clean up and sanitisation will be by a rota – you will know when it is your turn. It won’t take very long and you will have the benefit of being able to ask a friend to have your drink ordered and waiting for you when you get to the Plough.

We have produced a risk assessment document, which has been provided to Christ Church. If anyone would like to see it, please ask.

There is also a cleaning/sanitising document, but you will have instruction on this when it is your turn so you should not need to print it off.

And finally… In the past, we have celebrated the start of a new singing year with a glass of something while we all arrive. We cannot do this tomorrow, as even Chateau Lafitte doesn’t taste very good when drunk through an N99 mask. So we will do our social reconnection at the Plough afterwards.

That’s it. Thank you for reading all the way through, and

SEE MANY OF YOU TOMORROW!

Dear All

You may have seen the good news is that the restriction on choirs singing together is being lifted and we can start to sing together again starting Tuesday 8th September. Dave is on board and excited to hear our sound once more.

There are, of course, some constraints to ensure that we all stay safe and we need to comply with Christ Church requirements for its “Covid secure space”. We have done the risk assessment for our Covid protocols and we will need volunteers to help with the additional setting up requirements and post rehearsal cleaning. We propose a rota per section and will go through what is required at the first rehearsal and share the risk assessment with you all. If anyone wants to see it before then let me know and I will email it to you. The key points are that as well as cleaning, for the time being we will have to wear masks while singing, be sure to remain 2m apart and not share paper copies of music.

We understand entirely that some of us may not feel comfortable to join in yet and we look forward to seeing you back whenever you are ready. Given the continuing uncertainty situation, we have decided to waive fees for the coming term and will be covering our costs from the choir’s rainy day fund. If this isn’t a rainy day, then what is?

So for now, nothing more to do than mark Tuesday September 8th in your calendars as our first rehearsal back and be ready to bring your rehearsal copies with you as well as your mask and sanitiser.

If you would like to read the research on which the government guidance regarding singing is based it is currently available on a web platform called ChemRxiv. With any luck you can find it by following this link: https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/pstorage-chemrxiv-899408398289/24339416/PerformSingersSubmittedVersion.pdf

Lesley

Lesley.morley1@gmail.com

Chris.hawkins2015@yahoo.com

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

Hi all, next Tuesday 11th is going to be our last informal summer meet up and its going to be a big one. Thank you to Suzanne for the invaluable use of her space over the past weeks, it has been amazing. We are MOVING to Mrs Joshi’s garden for our last one – 18 Roedean Crescent. Plenty of parking but you can also navigate there on foot via Palewell. Side gate will be open for access and bike storage. We start 7.30pm sharp and move on to drinks afterwards – please bring your Covid appropriate beverages. If you can’t come early, come late anyway. Plenty of space!

Please do homework on Shenandoah, Swansea Town and Ellen Vannin. We can definitely nail them all if you do. Find Chris H’s practice tracks via the post entitled July 22nd/28th. Sorry that practice copy of Ellen will suck all the ink from your printer or you can by a proper copy now. If you have Faure Requiem, please bring as we may do Agnus Dei (by popular request) but we also have another last minute treat being rustled up – it will be easy!

Have a great sweltering weekend. Any queries please call me or email Lesley.morley1@gmail.com; 07802796410

Hi all, all those willing, able and not in quarantine are welcome to meet again on Tuesday at the earlier time of 7.30pm in Suzanne’s garden for a full group but suitably distanced session. There is plenty of space to spread out and to arrive and leave at appropriate distance. Apologies if this is too early for some, please come late if you wish, but we expect to finish by 8.45pm latest as it gets dark and chilly earlier. Look back at Chris’s last post for easy access to practice tracks and temporary copies. You will need:

Amazing Grace; Rainbow; Danny Boy; Shenandoah; Mozart score – to do Lacrymosa (by popular request), Linden Lea (if time allows). If you can please have a brush up beforehand with the recordings on the Danny Boy and Shenandoah sections which Chris discussed in the last post, we can have a good go at them. Robert will again be with us for support but it would be great if we can give ourselves the confidence by refreshing at home first.

Hope everyone is well and especial best wishes to those who don’t feel ready yet to be with us. We have not forgotten you!

Lesley

Thanks all, and especially Suzanne, for another lovely little sing last night. It truly is an uplifting, joyful thing, just to make pleasant sounds together.

We sang:
Amazing Grace and Somewhere Over The Rainbow for warm up. In a perfect world, we would learn these by heart so that we can close our eyes and sing them together, relying only on our ears and the singers around us. These are only warm up pieces, but by all means give them a few minutes of your time. It would be lovely to have little pieces like this that we can sing together perfectly any time.
We ran through Linden Lea – this is already solid. Maybe a couple of places where the lower parts could be more precise. Practice tracks are there for you to check at home.
We took our first look at the beautiful Erb arrangement of Shenandoah. We picked up the tune straight away, and there was brilliant work on both sides on staying in tune. Nobody slipped at the two places I highlighted as risks. Excellent musicianship all around. Followed up with a fantastic first shot at the verse 4 ‘stretto.’ Sop 2s got it straight away – but it gets harder with the lower parts trying to throw you off. I’d suggest spending 10 minutes with the practice track, then singing with the YouTube recording by Royal Holloway. Altos – we didn’t get to your second echo in V4 – by all means have a look and a listen. And for all – take a look at the 6-part harmonies of verse 3. Hopefully we could have a bash at this next time we are together.
Then we turned to Danny Boy, and reviewed the 8-part harmonies of verse 1. Again, this will benefit from some practice at home. Tenors, very best of luck with your crazy passage at the top of p2.
And for the simple pleasure of singing something we know well, we had a ragged attempt at the Hostias from the Mozart Requiem, and a much better crack at the Cantique. Suggestions for other things we can knock out without much effort greatly appreciated.

Music and other resources:
Following multiple people telling me that they couldn’t find music, I have reorganised everything and it now resides HERE. You can navigate to this page from the top menu: click on Music and Media Library, and then Repertoire for Autumn 2020 Concert. There are unofficial copies of copyrighted music here, for private rehearsal use only.
The warm-up pieces are in the Downloads page, again accessible from the Music and Media Library dropdown.

Next week, July 28th:
We agreed that it makes sense to have another sectional session to work through some notes before we put things together as a choir again. So look out for an email from your kind section host, and please RSVP promptly.

Have a lovely week!

Just wanted to let you all know that I’m doing a concert on Monday 27th July. For those of us who have now forgotten what this means it basically involves getting a bunch of musicians together and performing some pieces of music. In my case I’ll be joining cellist Jonathan Stallick and violinist Liz Baldey to play a Haydn Trio. I’m not sure what our trio is called, as we’ve yet to meet, but as he’s balder than me I’m going for The Three Baldeys. We are going to livestream from the Great Hall at Fulham Palace, reputedly the most haunted room in London, so there may be a few unexpected guests. We’re starting at about 7.15pm when Jonathan will play the opening movement of Bach’s G major Cello Suite, then I’ll join him for The Swan by Saint-Saens and then all three of us will rip through the G major Piano trio by Haydn, known as the Gypsy Rondo trio. It will be seat of the pants stuff as our first rehearsal will be at 6pm that night but I think it will be a lot of fun.

We’re live streaming on FaceBook Live and here is the link – https://www.facebook.com/jstallick/posts/10159324498344625

for which I suspect you will need access to a FaceBook account. I appreciate this may be an obstacle for some of you but if you can join please do. It would be nice to have a decent virtual crowd. We have to finish by 8pm because that’s when the ghosties have their Bingo evening so it will be short and hopefully sweet.

Robert

Hello choristers! After the genuine joy of being able to sing together again last week, we are going for a repeat this coming week: Tuesday 21st – meeting again at Suzanne’s (45 Fife Road, directions below – THANK YOU, SUZANNE!). 7.45 kick-off, sing for an hour or so. Plough afterwards. TWO ADDITION THIS WEEK – PLEASE BRING SOMETHING TO DRINK TO KEEP YOUR WHISTLE WETTED, AND ROBERT WILL BE THERE! (No need for glasses, I have the choir stash. And these two things are entirely unrelated.)

PLEASE RSVP TO LET ME KNOW IF YOU ARE ABLE TO COME. THANKS. chris.hawkins2015@yahoo.com

The draft repertoire for the Autumn concert of traditional songs is now on its own page on the website, with links to sheet music (FOR REHEARSAL ONLY, SOME IS STILL UNDER COPYRIGHT), practice recordings and YouTube recordings. Find it HERE.

Running order for Tuesday evening:
Warm up – Amazing Grace; and another little arrangement of mine – Somewhere, Over the Rainbow. A tiny nugget of musical beauty, and an excellent piece to encourage us to listen to each other. I have uploaded to the Media page (not the concert listing page). Please take 1 minute and 44 seconds to have a listen through and print off.
Singing for fun – Hostias from Mozart Requiem – once through.
Autumn pieces – Linden Lea – run through once; Danny Boy – just verse 1 again. Please take another look at your part, especially those that are divided. Aim to get notes learned ready to move to v2; Shenandoah – NEW, uploaded to the website, please take a look and listen. Work on the tune for all, and stretto last verse to help Sop 2s.
Singing for fun – Cantique de Jean Racine – once through

So, music to bring:

Mozart Requiem (book)
Cantique de Jean Racine (here if you don’t already have it or have lost it!)
Linden Lea
Danny Boy
Shenandoah
Amazing Grace
Somewhere, OtR (here)

And, looking ahead to the following Tuesday, we thought it was worth reconvening as sections, and taking a look at the trickier parts – v2 of Danny Boy, the harmonies of Shenandoah specifically – to get those notes laid down before we try those again as a choir.

The idea is that our time as a full chorus is precious right now, and we want to make sure that we are able to make a nice sound when we are together, not spend those few minutes trying to learn notes.

Any thoughts or suggestions (especially for things we can sing just for fun) please shout!

Directions: Turn left at the top of Sheen Lane if you are facing the park, 45 Fife Road is on the dogleg corner of Fife Road and Sheen Gate Gardens. So you can also get to it by turning into Stonehill Road or Clare Lawn Ave and taking the next right. The garden gate to the left of the house will be open.

Hello all, Hope everyone is well and enjoying the improving weather.

So, we have had a smattering of sectional rehearsals, learning a bit of a couple of songs that Dave is looking to perform in the Autumn. Now we would like to try to put things back together.

Ongoing regulations mean that we cannot all meet, even outside, and sing together, unfortunately. But we have a number of gardens in which we can stand far enough apart, and try singing as a 4-part choir again, with no more than 8 of us in a group. So that is what we are hoping to do.

Right now we have ten people signed up, but I am sure that I have missed a couple of emails – apologies to those who replied who are not listed below. Could I ask for any more who would like to sing a little on Tuesday evening, to remind ourselves (and our neighbours) how wonderful it is to create music together? We really need at least 4 from each part to be able to create 2 minichoirs, 6 of each to go up to 3.

Look forward to making nice sounds in a few days.

Chris – RSVP to chris.hawkins2015@yahoo.com

Currently signed up:
Soprano
Paula Frew
Trish Joshi

Alto
Marilyn Tyler
Lesley

Tenor
Stephanie

Bass
Chris H
Gareth
Nick
Simon
Roger