In Flagrante In Training

Our beloved Financial Director, Jan, is generously giving her time and sharing her knowledge to give us vocal techniques to strengthen and project our voices before our choir rehearsals start. The first session was this week and eight of us were able to take up the offer. It was most informative making us aware of our bodies. posture and breath and how much (or little) we use our lungs! We were even able to lie down on the floor and feel how our back muscles are used when deep breathing. We learned how to control our breathing to get resonance to project our voices. This is just the start and this lesson will be repeated in a few weeks’ time for those who were unable to attend as well as a reminder for those who have already attended.

When our usual warm ups were completed, we sang through Those Were the Days and went over the harmonies and aimed to get the muscular ‘Ls’ in the La, la las, starting softly and building up. The tenors learned their ‘Oohs’ and now they know the notes they just need to add line and melody to make a beautiful sound.

Then came a new song, Matthew & Son, a single written, composed, and performed by Cat Stevens. It was selected as the title song for his 1967 debut album.

Stevens was a newly signed teenage singer-songwriter, who performed to elaborate arrangements quite different from the skiffle which had, in part, inspired him to begin writing and performing. The song remains Cat Stevens' highest charting single in the British Isles, reaching Number 2 in the UK and Number 3 in Ireland in early 1967. The song, according to Stevens, took its name from the tailor, Henry Matthews, who made suits for Stevens, who thought up the story of the worker who is the main character in the song. Stevens later commented, "I had a girlfriend, and she was working for this big firm, and I didn't like the way that she had to spend so much of her time working. The riff seemed to fit the words, Matthew and Son. There was a bit of social comment there about people being slaves to other people.

Eamonn’s version, of course, needs lots of energy and athletic breathing as well as a little yodel in it. ‘Do, do, do do, do dyoo do do’. He wrote it so he wants to hear it! There are a lot of traps with timings etc in this song, so listen to the tracks. Homework for all!

We eventually completed Mr. Blue Sky and carefully went over the ‘Ba ba ba’ ending. The tenors and altos need to Shut Up, Shut Up before starting their ‘ba ba ba bas’ as the sopranos start them off. Once we had mastered this, we sang it from the top. By the time we reached the bottom, Eamonn was very pleased.

We will be singing Mr, Blue Sky every week from now on until the concert!

For those of us who experienced Jan’s tutoring beforehand, we really felt the benefit from the breathing techniques to help us regulate our breathing through these challenging pieces and engaging the back muscles to hit the high notes. It really does work! And we’ve only just begun learning the methods. We finished with Here Comes the Sun which was well remembered.

We are improving all the time with listening to the tracks and feeding the short term memory into the long term memory!

Keep up the good work!

Chuffed to Bits

Song for Ukraine

Hallelujah

We recapped Hallelujah from last week with reminders of not breathing in the middle of the word ‘hallelujah’ and to make the ‘lu’ part sound like a train whistle. Don’t forget to smile while you do this!

Hallelujah is coming together well and once the notes and rhythms are right the next stage will be working on the nuances of soft, loud etc.

Mr.Blue Sky made it to end of the song at last!

So many ‘do, do dos’ and ‘Ba ba bas’ to interlink with the different voices making them sound crisp and sharp. Eamonn wanted it to sound a little like the Antiques Road Show. This song needs so much energy from start to finish, it is like running a marathon at a sprinter’s pace!

Those Were the Days was looked at as a new song, although the majority of us had sung it before.

Eamonn O’Dwyer has arranged his own version of this song and from the tenors point of view, they sometimes have the tune and sometimes they don’t. This tends to be a running theme for them! As this can happen within the same line they need to know when to put on their ‘melody hat’ or their ‘harmony hat’.

As the’ La la las’ need to be very muscular for everyone, you can see the benefits of the warm ups we do before we start singing.

Verse three has the first sopranos singing an echoing ‘Ooh’ like a ghostly wind to add atmosphere. We should be able to complete this song next week and sing it from the top.

Mary Hopkin's 1968 debut single of "Those Were the Days", which was produced by Paul McCartney of the Beatles, and arranged by Richard Hewson, became a number one hit on the UK Singles Chart.

The song appears in the 1953 British/French movie Innocents in Paris,

in which it was sung with its original Russian lyrics by the Russian Tzigane chanteuse Ludmila Lopato. Mary Hopkin's 1968 recording of it with Gene Raskin's lyric was a chart-topping hit in much of the Northern Hemisphere. On most recordings of the song, Raskin is credited as the sole writer, even though he wrote only the later English lyrics (which are not an English translation of the Russian lyrics) and not the music.

All our hard work paid off and Eamonn was chuffed to bits with how well we’d done and was really pleased with all the effort we have made. You always know we have produced some good sounds if Eamonn is happy!

We will not be taking a break this Easter as there are enough singers available to come next week to make it worthwhile.

Have a very happy Easter and keep up the good work!

Listen and Learn

Listen with Mother was a BBC Radio show started in 1950 and each story on opened with the phrase "Are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin" (sometimes "...Then we'll begin") At the start of each programme a short introduction on piano was played. The tune went to the rhythm of the words quarter to two, which of course was the time of the broadcast, and many children were helped in learning to tell the time by this ingenious device.

Jump forward to 2022 Eamonn's Listen and Learn. Eamonn explained that learning and retaining information is not automatic.

After 12 hours 30% of learning is gone from short term memory

After 24 hours 30% of the remaining 70% is gone from short term memory

Then 6% of the remainder is gone from short term memory

However, all is not lost if you drip feed your brain by just listening to the music each day, even if you don’t have time or the opportunity to sing along. This will embed it in your short term memory and after two weeks it will go into your long term memory.

Listen to the tracks as you go about your day; on a walk, in the office etc. Gradually feed your short term memory and by doing so embed it in your long term memory.

Do your homework! You’ll be amazed at the difference.

Here Comes the Sun was more like a sleet cloud until we smiled and brought out the sunshine. Altos need to do their homework (see above)

As Time Goes By was well remembered, however there was a phantom Soprano found in the Altos! Altos have the tune most of the time in this one too! Sopranos need to remember the phrasing and syncopation to keep the song as interesting as Eamonn’s arrangement.

Mr. Blue Sky is still work in progress with the syncopation still causing problems, so we need to work on getting it funky with lots of push. Maybe next week we’ll get to the end of the song!

Hallelujah those of us who had already done this one remembered it fairly well.

However, do NOT breathe in Halle – lu - (no breath)- jah

If necessary, turn purple and die, but do NOT breathe.

Sopranos beware of the final Hallelujah – take a big deep breath - you WILL be hunted down if you breathe

Keep drip feeding, do your homework, smile and only breathe when absolutely necessary😊