YRCC 2024 Rehearsal Review January 16th

We're back!!! Wow, what a wonderful sound we had!

We had a bit of a rough start, with the door by our room being under construction, with Peggy's power failure, and the generally frozen world to deal with. But, we managed. Thanks to Marlene, we found our way and had a cart to help us get the equipment there. Peggy got her car charged and got all of our binders there. And, within a short time, we all had binders in our hands. Once we started singing, the whole world, every worry, washed away. I love my choir!

Before I do my review, I have to talk about binders. I meant to do it yesterday and got carried away with other topics. It is very important, imperative, that you return your binder and all the music in it at the end of every season. 

We have an enormous library of music, currently living at Peggy's house, 5 filing cabinets full (I think it's 5, along with a printer/scanner and all kinds of stuff). When the binders get emptied, it's a huge undertaking that upends her house. Then, when the reading committe and I have determined the new season's music, filling the binders up again is another big operation. Still, it's like a conveyor system, and works like a well-oiled machine. EXCEPT when people don't understand and hold on to their old music, it puts a wrench in the system. If you were one of those people, don't feel like I'm pointing my finger only at you. There are a few every season. 

We all like to have the same score we marked up last time. We've done You'll Never Walk Alone so many times, and each time you'll have the same notes to remind you of the tricky bits, or things that I've changed, like singing the first verse in Italian this time when we sing Nella Fantasia, which the sopranos will want to make notes on (pencil only, of course). Giving everyone the right number is not easy if we're not all cooperating. Please keep that in mind.

Another thing I forgot to talk about is small groups and solos and duets. I've got some music for small groups, and I'd like to have a couple duets or solos. The theme is dreams, wishes, stars. Small groups will meet at 6:30 starting the week after next. 

We had a short warm-up so we could start singing as soon as possible.

1. All I Have to Do is Dream: We learned the whole song and sang it beautifully! If you misssed rehearsal today, don't worry. We'll do it again, and you can always listen to your part on the website, see screenshot below. We went over parts that I had marked in my music as being difficult in the past. Luckily, I had my copy again. I've been #16 for over 20 years. 

2. Somewhere Out There: We sang the whole thing, but without going over any parts. We sang this recently and it shows off our nice big bass clef sections. We have recordings of all the parts that you can get from the website. 

2. Nella Fantasia: We didn't start singing this, but I introduced it, and let the sopranos know that they will be singing the first verse in Italian. The rest of you will sing 'ohs' until the last few bars of that first verse. Then, the rest of the song will be sung in English, starting with the tenors and basses on the second verse. If you're not familiar with this song, I've got 3 versions on my  YRCC Spring 2024 playlist on YouTube. There's also a link on the recodings page of the website for you.

3. City of Stars: We sang through the whole thing, but didn't learn any parts. It's got a really special mood, an interesting change of pace for our concert. There's a recording of our sheet music on my YouTube playlist, and a movie clip too. 

4. Medley froom Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat: We're just going to call this the Joseph Medley. It's big! We "walked through" the whole thing and sang a little, then started learning the last song the "Go, go, go, Joseph!" part, starting at page 29. Yay! BTW, I have the note names pencilled in on my music. It's from way back when I was not used to reading the bass clef, so I had just started singing Tenor. Thanks to all the music librarians over the years for keeping the numbers in order so that I could get it back every time!

5. You'll Never Walk Alone: Truly amazing. I love, love, love our arrangement of this song! If you're new and felt a little lost, we have recordings on the website of the accompaniment and each part, so you can sing along with your part. You can have your binder in front of you, or open the pdf on your computer. 

Next week, Tuesday, January 23rd.

• City of Stars
• Joseph Medley: Jacob&Sons, Go, Go
• Nella Fantasia
• Rewrite the Stars

Here's a screenshot of the page on the website with the recordings. You can work on the music at home if you like, but it's not required or expected. It's up to you. The page is called Recordings and Music Scans. There's a quick link on the home page called Music Recordings. You need to sign in. You can see that my name is there at the bottom left. I was logged in. The menu on the left is the Members section with the Executive pages which you won't have access to, unless you're on the executive.