Be Energised and Be Prepared

We welcomed Elliot back as our guest Musical Director this week. He was pleased to meet our new members since he was last with us.  The name badges were very helpful for him too.

Even though we were short on attendees due to illness etc. he thought the new set up of voices with the Tenors and Basses in the middle was a positive and was very impressed with the overall sound we made which he thought had greatly improved. Praise indeed for someone who knows us well!

During the warm up he explained how we can sing the high notes without strain and to relax the throat and jaw and control your breathing and not to force out the sound. Also with high notes, be prepared for when you know one is coming and don’t let it be a surprise.

We sang through the first part of You’re the Voice, which we had only covered once before, so this is still fairly new to us. There is very tricky timing in this song which needs to be precise.  It is important to work hard on your diction.

You need to feel the pulse of the music in the piano part.

The Oohs need to be bright, so smile within your mouth at the back of your throat otherwise they can sound very dark with a tendency to go flat.

At the start, the second part of the oohs should crescendo before the singing starts. You have one beat after the oohs and then come in with. ‘We have…..’

With the phrase, ‘….the chance to turn the pages over’ ‘over’ is very long, so Sops, Tenors and Basses hold it for 8 beats, keeping the energy going and don’t let it tail off and go flat at the end.

Sop 2s and Altos sing, ‘….the chance to turn the pages ooh’ as one complete phrase without a breath.

In the part, ‘….we gotta make ends meet before we get much older’ ‘older’ is sung in different ways by all the voice parts, but they all stitch together and finish at the same time. Sops, Tenor and Basses hold on to your last note until the Altos have sung their twiddly notes.

Sop 2s, Altos, Tenors and Basses make it very clear there are two whoas, with the second one coming in after a very short gap.

‘How long’ – keep your mouth open to emphasise the vowels.

‘..down the barrel of a gun’ pronounce it more like ‘garn’ and be ready to take a very quick breath before going into the energetic chorus.

With all the ‘Whoa, whoas’ keep the energy going and driving forward. They should be more like a football chant than a moaning wind.  Each voice part has their own rhythm, so practice your part at home, as they are quite challenging.

Although we haven’t completed this song yet, we have secured the main parts which will be repeated as we move on. We will then be able to sing the next part of the song with confidence as we’ve already done the hard part.

Remember this is a protest song. Another little less well known protest song is, The March of the Women. In 1912, composer Ethel Smyth was imprisoned in Holloway Prison for militant suffrage activism. While incarcerated, she led fellow suffragettes in singing her anthem “The March of the Women,” famously conducting from her cell window with a toothbrush, a scene witnessed by Thomas Beecham, who called it “one of the most moving and impressive sights I have ever seen. It also featured in the TV series, Shoulder to Shoulder sung by Georgia Brown.

After a well earned break, we came back to the Irish Blessing.  A totally different tempo and feel.

Sops there is a great big leap of 6 notes from ‘ meet’ and  ‘again’.  As in our warm up, preempt the high note of ‘again’ and think about as you are singing the lower notes as if they are high and you will land on it cleanly.

As you sing, ‘May God hold you’ for the second part, sing through ‘you’ right to end of the bar, so it doesn’t just fall off the end.

Keep your vowels long, especially with ‘sun shine warm…’ – the Basses led the way on this. However, they need to keep up the tempo when they join in with ‘May the road rise to meet you…’ and not drag everyone down

Crossing the Bar is in a very good place and there wasn’t really anything to pick on other than the occasional trick timing at the end with last ‘.. I hope to see my Pilot face to face….

Next week our Maestro will be back, so do your homework and check out all the music in Dropbox and impress him with our singing. Have a listen, Rhythm of Life from Sweet Charity.

"Crossing to the Bar"