The generosity of the Artisans allowed us to still rehearse last night and, after navigating to the back door, we were all in place and ready to sing. Well, there was a musical chairs moment while Eamonn arranged us in our seats with some singers out of their comfort zone due to the constraints of the room.
The tongue twisters are still a challenge to some and the advice was; if you fall off, don’t give up!
If you only sing one word on the right note at the right time you will be able to build from that!
We completed The Windmills of Your Mind after first singing up to the point we reached last week.
It was not all bad. With a little tweaking we progressed through the rest of the song.
Although the Lady Tenors are mainly singing on one note (not an easy thing to do to keep it interesting and bright) they are the lynch pin to the song.
The “Keys that jingle in your pocket” section is sometimes sung in unison with everyone on the tune and then suddenly there are bursts of harmony making is sound wonderful. It might be worth marking your music score to highlight when you are singing the tune or the harmony, so you are prepared when the moment comes! Homework for Altos on this part.
We then reached the multi layered ending with the “circles that you find” sung by the different voices overlapping and interchanging giving a mysterious sounding ending. The sopranos wanted to slow down, but Eamonn told them, in no uncertain terms, that he slows down with the piano and we sing at the same pace! After a break for refreshments, we reconvened and sang The Windmills of Your Mind from the top to the end and completed the circle of our minds!
Circles of our minds at times seemed like, Ever Decreasing Circles of the mind. A blast from the past
Next came Make You Feel My Love a song written by Bob Dylan for his album Time Out of Mind, released in September 1997. It is one of the few songs to have achieved the status of becoming a "standard" in the 21st century, having been covered by more than 450 different artists. Cover versions have been recorded by Adele, Michael Bolton, Neil Diamond, Boy George, Bryan Ferry to name but a few.
Adele or Dylan! You decide?
Critic John Paul described it thus: "Accompanied by a lone piano, ghostlike bass line and slightly woozy sounding organ playing sustained notes throughout, the arrangement of the song isn’t terribly remarkable, the meat of the song itself relying on Dylan’s surprisingly emotional read and jazz-like chord progression".
Our Eamonn has arranged his own beautiful version of this song. However, he wants us to get the timing and rhythm right and not just to sing it like karaoke!
It is always a challenge singing a well-known song that we’ve all sung along to many times in our own way. We now have to unlearn that and conform to the notes that are written so we all sing as a choir.
The sopranos, who usually get the tune and the words and tend to struggle when Ooohs and harmonies are thrown into the mix. We were doing rather well with our Ooohs in this song and sang out boldly only to be told we are not the most important section and to sing quietly!
As usual, we all have plenty of homework to do. Keep on top of The Windmills of Your Mind, and do some work on Make You feel My Love and The Impossible Dream for next week, back at are usual venue.
Comments