Warm-up exercises to shake off our day and relax and warm up our "instruments" featured the song Longer from the Jim Brickman album, Soothe Sailing. Might be nice to sing this song some day. Check out this sample of its lyrics, by Dan Fogelberg:
Longer than there've been fishes in the ocean
Higher than any bird ever flew
Longer than there've been stars up in the heavens
I've been in love with you
Stronger than any mountain cathedral
Truer than any tree ever grew
Deeper than any forest primeval
I am in love with you
(omg- what a rhyme! mountain cathedral and forest primeval)
We did a few vocal exercises from the book I have. We sang da-ba, doo-bee, and moo.
- Winter Song: We were able to sing all the way through. All we needed to do was learn the last 3 "is love alive" parts, and really just the first sopranos have a special thing. It's a soft ending, but it's dramatic, so I'll accept it ;-) The accompaniment stops so that the last line is a cappella, just voices, and it comes after the big layered part with the treble group. We do have to give that treble group an opportunity to learn their part, but they're going to be great. We reviewed the "oohs" because they're always hard to remember.
- Shine Hanukkah: This is super, and we just need to work on dynamics now, to make sure we're not just singing loud all the way through. Also, we'll need to practise watching for cut-offs (and I have to practise making them) whenever there's an "s" at the end of a word, like "little lights." We don't want to ask some people not to pronounce the s, but if you're really nervous about it, then don't. No big deal. The descant group will need a little more work too, and we have to figure out who's going to be singing. Right now, we've got the first row sopranos singing the descant, with the first row first sopranos singing the top and the second row sopranos singing the bottom. I suggested that all the sopranos who might end up in the front row should take a look at that part, just in case. It's not hard, except you have to come in strong on beat one, which is different from everyone else and different from what you've done up to that point.
- Breath of Heaven: We did a test drive to see if it works with men's voices. We've done this with only women in a large small group in the past. I really love this song, so I though men should be included too. We will try men on the Alto line. It's mostly, but not always melody. They'll need to adjust to reading in the treble clef, which basses never do, but tenors occaisonally do.
- Christmas Waltz: Oh, this is going to be awesome! We started at bar 103, right after the key change, the last chorus to the end. It's a nice big ending. The choir sounds so good! We had 6-part harmony and it felt fabulous.
- One Voice: Let me know if you'd like to do one of the solos at the beginning. We have recordings on the website, and we all sang them to see how they work. We didn't "learn" the next page, but we sang it and it was good. We're pretty good from 31 to the end. The first time through, it was too fast, so I have to remember to slow it down a bit. That's good, because then it will be a little longer. I love this song!
At breaktime, I played a recording of All That Holiday Stuff, our first small group song. The small group will start next week at 6:30. Please sign up on the Event on the website. It will have the pdf of the sheet music and a link to the recording, and all the dates and times (3 early rehearsals). It's fun and energetic, and I can't wait to hear you sing it!
I announced my new Singing Night, Thursdays at Trinity United in Newmarket (aka Trinity on Main).
I've posted more about it on a separte post. Please come if you're free Thursdays. Come tomorrow night. It would help us learn Wonderful World if a bunch of YRCC folk are there.
There's also an opportunity to sing with an auditioned choir, Chorus York, sight reading Mozart, on October 14th. There's also a whole post about that.
Next week, Tuesday, October 3rd
6:30 All That Holiday Stuff
- Do You Hear What I Hear
- Winter Song
- Little Tree
- Christmas Waltz
- Breath of Heaven
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