- Trills on a Tuesday
- Oct 1, 2025
- 3 min read
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!
- Trills on a Tuesday
- Sep 24, 2025
- 3 min read
Updated: Sep 25, 2025
We had a most challenging warm-up with the Grand Old Duke of York! Singing it with ‘up’ missing and then ‘down’ missing and then ‘up’ and ‘down’ missing was not easy! It certainly gets your brain working and coordinating your voice to sing at the right time!
Fairytale of New York moved on to the part where it goes from the really quiet reflective stage to the lively jig. The rhythm of the phrasing is important: ‘… wind goes right through its no place….’ ‘through its’ is very quick and sounds like one word ‘throughits no place ….’
The Irish lilt sound comes into play with ‘for’ having three notes in ‘waiting for me’.
There is a surprise in this song as the Sops don’t always have the tune! ‘Sinatra was singing ….’ Starts with the tune and then goes into harmony, so Sops be prepared!
Altos be bold and sing out confidently. You are the linchpin to the In Flagrante sound!
Happy Together needs to be bright and sparkly with an equal sound in all parts (altos sing up and Sops and Basses tone it down). Make the ‘ther’ on ‘together’ bright with raised eyebrows!
Diamonds are Forever – in the part ….’desert me..’ put the ‘t’ onto ‘me’ as in ‘deser-tme’
And ‘when love is goooooone’ feel it rather than trying to sing every note! After the long ‘gone’ don’t forget to come back in again with the next phrase. Don’t let it take you by surprise!
Lean on Me is a song written and recorded by American singer-songwriter Bill Withers. Lean on Me” already carries so much heart as Bill Withers wrote it from a place of genuine empathy and community. Having John Legend, Stevie Wonder, and Bill Withers together makes it especially poignant.
Bill Withers' childhood in the coal mining town of Slab Fork, West Virginia, was the inspiration for this song which he wrote for his album Still Bill after he had moved to Los Angeles, and found himself missing the strong community ethic of his hometown. He had lived in a decrepit house in the poor section of his town. He made an effort to keep the lyrics simple
We first performed this song with the arrangement by Elliot Clay in 2018 and again in 2023.
Emphasise the start of each phrase. There a few surprises in this song. Sops, Tenors and Basses be bold with your ‘Carry on for’.
Altos this is your moment to shine singing the words out boldly while all the other parts are ‘Oohing’ underneath you.
For any of you who have previously sung this, you know Sops and Altos have the tricky timing of ‘Might’. The Tenors and Basses sing ‘I just might’ and then you quickly come in with your ‘might’ so it’s like a little fast echo.
We finished peacefully with Peace on Earth which is slow, so don’t forget to breathe after the phrases before singing ‘Peace on earth’. This is the opposite of what we are used to as we are usually told not to breathe!
We are still working on the mystery of Zoom settings and are determined to get it up and running. WE thank you for your patience in this rather long process!
Keep up the good work and look out for the updates in Dropbox.
Zoom it's a mystery
- Trills on a Tuesday
- Sep 17, 2025
- 3 min read
Wanted! Soloist for the circle game. There is an opportunity for choir members to put themselves forward at the beginning of the rehearsal next week if they would like to sing a solo/duet. Alternatively, the verses may be sung by the different voice parts.
Changes in our membership with a bitter sweet very funny and sad farewell resignation letter from Michael Daly, who has decided it is time to leave us, although he will stay in touch and, hopefully, come to our concerts. His presence and bass voice on a Tuesday night will be sadly missed.
As we get used to a new style of Musical Director, there will be changes to the repertoire.
Keep your eyes open for these in Dropbox this week and the relevant backing tracks.
With the change of style, we have only completed one song, which is the Finnish
Reindeer Call, Ole le Loyla. This is a song used to summon reindeer. It's Close, and who doesn't love the Kinks?
It is familiar to some choir members who have performed this in 2022. It is sung in three parts and can be done with the Sops starting and singing it all the way through and the second time round the Altos join in and the third time the Tenors and Basses join in.
An alternative is to have the Sops sing the first line and the Altos singing their first line as the Sops sing their second line and the Tenors and Basses joining in with their first line as the Sops sing their third line and the Altos sing their second line and just keep going!
We revisited Fairytale of New York and Downtown and will hopefully complete them next week.
Happy Together is a song written by Garry Bonner and Alan Gordon and recorded by the American rock band the Turtles. Bonner and Gordon composed the song while members of The Magicians. Its lyrics are about an unrequited love, despite the joyous sound. The composition was rejected by many artists, before being accepted by The Turtles, who were passing through a lowdown in their career.
In Flagrante Choir sung the beginning of this song confidently as this is one from our back catalogue and the majority of us have sung it previously in 2023, so it was fairly fresh in our memories. We will probably complete this song next week.
The Circle Game is a song by Canadian singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell composed in 1966. It is one of her most-covered songs and was originally recorded by Ian & Sylvia in 1967, and then by Buffy Sainte-Marie the same year,
The song shares a title with an award-winning collection of poetry from 1964 by fellow Canadian Margaret Atwood. However, Joni Mitchell has said that The Circle Game was written as a response to the song Sugar Mountain by Neil Young, whom she had befriended on the Canadian folk-music circuit in the mid-1960s. Neil Young wrote Sugar Mountain in 1964 on his 19th birthday, lamenting the end of his teenage years: "You can't be 20 on Sugar Mountain". The Circle Game offers a more hopeful conclusion: "So the years spin by and now the boy is 20 / Though his dreams have lost some grandeur coming true / There'll be new dreams, maybe better dreams and plenty / Before the last revolving year is through."
The song inspired David Clayton-Thomas when he was writing Blood, Sweat & Tears' 1969 hit Spinning Wheel. The line "The painted ponies go up and down" gave him the idea to write "Ride a painted pony let the spinnin' wheel spin"
In Flagrante Choir sang this in the Summer Concert 2022. Alternatively, the verses may be sung by the different voice parts.
Keep a positive attitude, even if results don’t seem to be occurring as quickly as you want them to, we will get there!
