Warm-ups: Interval sheet, major intervals going up and minor intervals going down.
1. Magic of Winter:
"We could perform this right now!" Beautiful, always satisfying.
2. River:
We're all doing it! Well, there will be 2 solos, but we all get to participate and the choir does the third verse in harmony with a special a cappella ending. Joy and I created this arrangement in her basement. It was cool. Today, we just walked through it, getting the general idea of how it goes. Trix will do one of the solos for sure, probably the second (who else is sexy enough?). Yes, you don't have the words for the second verse. It's okay. It's a solo and if you want to sing it, I'll give you that part. I'm already thinking of how to improve this arrangement (even my own arrangements, I have to "interpret"). I think we'll have the choir come in for both 1 and 2 at the top of page 3. We'll have to change the first ending to give everyone a landing note. We're going to start learning this next week.
3. Noel Nouvelet:
We learned the middle section where the flute and piano are the focus, pages 5 and 6. The choir comes in at the 3/2 bar at the bottom page 5. It's reminiscent of the beginning of the song where there are also 2 bars of 3/2 time. The counting here goes: 1and2and3and1and2and3and1and2and1and2and...
The altos, tenors, and basses start first in bar 48 on the and of 1
(1No-eland3and1No-eland3andnoo...).
The sopranos come in on the and of 1 in bar 49.
(1No-eland3and1noo-noo-noo-noo...).
Remember that you are the "accompaniment" here, so keep it soft and sweet.
We sang through the whole song a couple of times, and it's getting pretty good! We reviewed the ATB parts, which are not easy, but repetitive. The hard thing with this song is getting all the timing to come together, the 2 voice parts, the piano, and the flute. It will be so impressive when we're done!
4. We Rise Again:
We also worked on pages 5 and 6 on this song! This part I call section C. It goes from bar 19 to 28. This is the most important part of the song. The first time the audience hears the chorus, we sing it in 4-part harmony. It's broad and moody and moves in mysterious ways. It will be very impressive if we can hear the tenor and bass parts. Tenor especially had a cool part. Give it all you've got, Tenors and Basses, and lean in on all notes that you have in interesting places (beat 3 of 19, beat 2 of 22, beat 3 of 23, beat 3 of 24). This is the first time we hear that Soprano descant part too and that's really impressive, but it has to be soft and light. Let those high notes float gracefully out of your eyeball sockets. Second Sopranos and Altos have the melody, and it has to be tight and light. Timing cannot be mushy and you have to be able to hear the Tenors. We even had to ask Joy to be softer on the accompaniment! The blending here is very important!
Next week:
7:00 Blair and Trix
- We Rise Again: oohs and aahs: section D (and reviewing section B)
- Noel Nouvelet: timing
- River: Page 3
- Somewhere A Child is Sleeping: dynamics
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