Surprise, Suprise

After a two-week Easter break, we were back together. Firstly, we heard Alan wearing his author’s hat, giving us an interesting background of his journey to writing his first published novel. For those of you who do not have a copy, Alan is happy to order one for you. Just add your name to his list, or alternatively, you can purchase it on Amazon, and, if you ask politely, Alan will sign it for you. Then, surprise, surprise, we returned to the painful tongue circles and discovered how our voices need training again.

We started with True Colours, the song we learned just before Easter. 

The Altos started us off beautifully, remembering to come in after the little ‘ping’ of the piano.  All went well until we reached the ‘Oohs’. No surprises there!

‘Like a rainbow’ should be gentle.

Our audience is surprised when we sing the ‘Aahs’ with a smile and wide-open mouths, making it sound bright and shiny.

‘Like a rainbow’ at the end doesn’t slow down, even though it is repeated. 

Please mark your music score that this is the song's end, so you are not tempted to turn the page and spoil the wonderful, gentle ending.

Donald Sutherland faced the challenge of getting his cloud machine up the hill, aided by Kate Bush, and Flagrante Choir faced a similar challenge with “Cloudbusting,” a song by Kate Bush inspired by Peter Reich's memoir, "A Book of Dreams." The song recounts the close bond between psychiatrist Wilhelm Reich and his son, Peter, set on their family farm, Orgonon. It describes their experiences "cloudbusting" with a machine designed by Reich while highlighting the pain of Peter's helplessness when his father is arrested.

The music video, directed by Julian Doyle and conceived by Terry Gilliam and Bush, features Donald Sutherland as Wilhelm Reich and Bush as young Peter. It showcases their attempts to make the cloudbuster work, interspersed with flashbacks of their time together, culminating in Peter’s successful activation of the machine as his father is taken away.

The song’s rhythm is steady and gentle, with a dramatic flair needed for certain words, especially "dangerous." In the chorus, Basses and Altos harmonise, while Tenors provide essential notes. It’s important for everyone to practice at home to master their parts for a successful performance next week.

Now for the King of country and western

We sang Someone to Watch over Me for the first time for Eamonn. We haven’t sung this for some time, but it wasn’t a bad rendition. The main comment was, no surprise, do not breathe in the long phrases.

When we sing the echo of ‘watch over me’ for the second time, make it a little jazzier-sounding. At the song's end, ‘me’ should be soft and not have a hard-sounding ‘ee’.

Down By the Riverside was also well remembered, and Eamonn will decide when there should be dunce holes and will direct us accordingly, so keep watching him!

Next week, we will work on Cloudbusting, but be prepared to sing anything we have already covered. Just keep the words fresh in your mind so that we can surprise Eamonn with our knowledge and technique.

Earworms, what might you ask, are Earworms, and what does this have to do with us?

Earworms are short snippets of songs stuck on repeat in our minds. As Kylie Minogue sings, “I just can't get you out of my head.” If you can hear only Kylie, you may ask yourself how songs become earworms. What makes some songs mentally irresistible? Look at the features of pop songs that get stuck in people’s heads. And they are songs that are at a certain tempo range, are sort of more likely to get stuck with people. These tended to be around 124 beats per minute as an average tempo; obviously, there was some range around that. Music at that speed seems to get stuck in our heads more often. It seems like this kind of inherent link exists between our body rhythms, the music rhythms in our head, and so on.

I double dare you to listen