Relax and Keep it Loose

Keep Jaws relaxed!

Generally, our songs seem to need us to keep our jaws relaxed and loose to enable us to make the vowels more elongated in sound and to hit the high notes. Keep this in mind when practising at home and singing together.

The Circle Game will probably have different voice parts singing the verses so we will all get a turn at a verse, but we concentrated on the chorus.  Make ‘round and round’ with an ‘ow’ sound.

The chorus builds up to ‘where we came’ with the harmonies and then gets quieter at the end.  The very last time slows right down so watch for timing.

Downtown; Sops have very high notes, so it is essential you relax into them.

‘Down’ is slightly longer than ‘town’ and is syncopated.

Tenors have an extra ‘downtown’ so make sure you can be heard.  Altos be brave and sing louder.  You know it and can do it!

Listen the voice parts and learn the ‘doo doo’ section.

Diamonds are Forever; basses you get to sign the ‘oohs’ in the James Bond style, so make sure they swell up and can be heard.

Snow is very slow and controlled, so watch where you take a breath, which would be after ‘prayer’, ‘air’ and ‘slow’. It starts very quietly and gradually builds up with a crescendo on ‘might’ and ‘white’ bringing the climax to ‘Heaven blessing us ….’

 It slows down even more at the end with a long ‘prayer’ and ‘snow’ which fades down gently.

The sops have the highest part.

“Popoli di Tessaglia… Io non chiedo, eterni dei” (K. 316 / K. 300b) — a recitative and aria for soprano and orchestra composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in 1779.

Mozart wrote it for Aloysia Weber, one of the most celebrated sopranos of his time (and the sister of Constanze Weber, whom Mozart later married).

And for those who understand and can read music, this piece is indeed famous for its extreme vocal range, particularly the two written G6 notes — the G in altissimo above high C (C6), which is about 1568 Hz in modern concert pitch. According to the Guinness Book of Records, this is the highest note ever scored for the human voice in classical repertoire.

We only have a few weeks left to rehearse, so please listen to the tracks and practice at home so we can concentrate on singing the songs and not keep going over individual parts. Believe in yourself and you will succeed.

Just imagine singing with your younger self or not!

Before & After

We gathered in our dark downstairs room, but that didn’t deter our enthusiasm and with many sat with their extra lights we did our warm up and began with Walking in the Air.

With phrases ending with an ‘s’ or ‘z’ sound, put this on the next word to prevent hissing.

‘Eyes’ is very short in …’believe their eyes’ and the Sops come in quickly with ‘We’re surfing in the air….’

For the Basses and Tenor, …’Mountains floating by’ is like the notes of Three Blind Mice.

Not Three Blind Mice but The Three Tenors

Ole le Loyla is in good shape.  It is easier to sing from memory and not look at the music. Sing it like a cannon with a one bar difference.

Hold the last note until we all slide into the final note.

Harbour needs to feel like a warm hug.  Keep the jaw relaxed on the high notes.

Peace on Earth needs a slightly shorter note on ‘me’ and ‘soft’ to allow a quick breath.

With ‘Down on me’ put the ‘n’ of ‘down’ on to ‘on’ so it goes ‘dow -non me….’

Similarly, with ‘Christmas’; make it ‘Chri-smas’ so there is no hissing.

Be ready for the high note on ‘air’ and ‘past’

Check the rhythm of bar 19/20

Fairytale of New York – ‘Mountain dew’ should sound like ‘Mountain due’

‘The rare old …..’ starts on the off beat, so don’t come in too early.

Sops remember your harmony with ‘A lucky one …..’

With only a few more weeks left until the concert, we have a lot of work to do.  There is no time to keep going over the things we have done before, so please listen to the tracks before you come to rehearsal and after rehearsals to keep it fresh in your minds.

We all need to listen and learn so we can be ready for the concert.

See you next week in good voice with all the right notes in the right order!

Keep it Choral

We started the evening with great news that our Treasured Treasurer has been given the all clear after 18 months of uncertainty and dangled the carrot of a free drink in the break! 

As we are approaching the darker evenings, we have our first challenge next week with our rehearsal being in the downstairs bar, which as most of us know, can be a little gloomy, so please remember to bring any torches, headlamps etc if you need more illumination.

This week we started a new song, Harbour by Anna Tabbush who is a composer/arranger, choir conductor, singer and multi-instrumentalist based in West Sussex

She wrote Harbour two years ago in response to the Syrian refugee crisis. With the appalling response by the British press and government to the tragedies that were happening at sea, she felt hers was a lonely voice in wanting a more welcoming and compassionate country to live in.

It consists of three simple verses with the first three bars with everyone singing in unison before splitting into harmonies. 

With the speaking voice, the vowels are at the back of the throat, so when singing think of bringing them forward in your mouth to give them a more elongated sound.

Altos, you know your notes, there are lots of you, so be brave and make yourselves heard.

Generally, everyone sing out and don’t be afraid of making a mistake.  If you do it will be clearly heard (no one will shame you) and then it can be corrected.

We have covered all the notes in this song, although we have not sung it all from start to finish.  Keep it fresh in your mind and check the vocal tracks, so you will be  ready for next time.

Gabriel’s Message as sung by Sting. We performed thus at our last Winter Concert, so this should be fresh in most minds. Only those of you who joined from the beginning of the year have an excuse not to know it!

It is a Basque Christmas folk carol about the Annunciation to the Virgin Mary by the archangel Gabriel that she would become the mother of Jesus Christ the Son of God.

It was originally based on Angelus ad virginem, a 13th or 14th Century Latin carol and was collected by Charles Bordes (pub. Paris 1897) and then paraphrased into English by Sabine Baring-Gould (pub. 1922), who had spent a winter as a boy in the Basque country. The tune is called Gabriel's Message. It is commonly performed in an arrangement by Edgar Pettman published in 1922.

The Altos start us off with the first verse with us all joining in harmony with ‘All hail said he …..’

‘Gloria’ is different for each voice part.

Each voice part has a verse to sing with the Sops being very quiet and gentle on their verse.

We all sing together boldly, ‘Of her Emmanuel the Christ was born….’  and when it comes to  ‘And Christian folk throughout….’ the Sop 1s have the harmony while the Sop 2s have the tune.

The Glorias at the end are different for the Sops with the first one sung as previously, but the last two are shortened.

‘Gloria’ should sound like, ‘Glor-ray-ar’ with elongated vowels and a serious face and not, ‘Glor -ee-ah’ with a smiley face.

Not quite choral, Walking in the Air was revisited from a couple of weeks ago, and like Harbour and Gabriel’s Message, it should have the elongated vowel sounds giving a choral effect.

Starting on page 3 with the ‘Aaahs’, keep them light and going to the end of the phrase without pushing it.

When singing the ‘oo’ sound in ‘you’ and ‘blue’ make it a surprised pigeon ‘oo’ sound.

Ed Sheeran and Anne Marie covering the

Fairytale of New York.

From page 7 of our score there are a lot of Scotch snaps (A scotch snap is a short, accented note followed immediately by a longer note, creating a distinctive rhythmic "snapping" effect.) so watch out for them and get the rhythm right.

This song has such a variety of rhythms and tempos, it is worth familiarising yourself with them from the very slow start to the lively jig section.

See you next week, in the downstairs bar!