It was a snowy, messy day, but not as bad as the forecast said, warmer and wetter with less snow, and the streets were mainly clear. Sigh of relief. Still, it was not easy to deal with, so it is understandable if you stayed home. Those of us who were there learned lots and did well, and our power will help when everyone is together.
I was a little stressed and skipped the warm-up (it's especially when you're a little stressed that you need to warm up, but it is what it is) so we stood up and sang All I Have to Do is Dream. It wasn't the worst warm-up. It was very good. And, as usual, all the stress, all the worries in the world disappeared once we started singing.
1. Nella Fantasia: We started on page 6, where we start singing in English. (that means up to page 6 it's Italian). Important note: the music is written so you can sing either English or Italian throughout, so there are sometimes extra notes where the Italian has an extra syllable. *The bold notes are for Italian but we are singing the English words here, so choose the unbold notes where you need to choose. There are also dotted slurs, which are ours here. At first, the tenors and basses are in unison, singing the melody. At the bottom of the page the tenors continue with melody, altos sing a harmony, and basses have a special part that signals that the bridge is coming. The sopranos come in with another special part at the top of page 7, and the second half of page 7 is very cool, continuing to the top of page 8, a bridge to the key change at 37. Watch the page turn! Sopranos and Basses get their bit of melody right there! We sight read to the end. It's such a special and beautiful song. If you aren't familiar with it, please listen to some of the versions out there. I've got some on my YouTube channel. Here's a link to the YRCC Spring 2024 playlist. You'll see that there's a video of the YRCC performing this. We did it with Mary Ellen singing a solo at the beginning. This year, it's different. You might have notes on the first part that will need to change. Hopefully, they're all in pencil and you can erase them. This time, the sopranos will sing the melody from page 3-5 in Italian, and the rest will sing oos as written, Alto, Tenor, Bass. Everybody maybe gets to sing the words "fondo al l'anima" I haven't decided yet if we want to switch to English right there or not.
2. Joseph Medly: Let's start at the very beginning, a very good place to start. I have the last bar of Donna's intro circled (in pencil) to remind me of how it sounds when we start. We get three nice bass notes ba-ba-ba Way, way back. At 9, we all sing the melody. At 17, we divide. Tenors, you have a really special note that I really want to hear loud. Ja-co-ob. At the top of page 6, watch out, altos and basses start on beat 3. On beats 1 and 2, Sopranos and Tenors need to be good and loud! It says Molto allargando there. That means increasingly much slower and much broader. Big drama. I have to conduct the tempo change, so each note, and we get louder and louder, so that "sons" is fff. And look at Donna's accompaniement. She's got a accents on every note and a tremolo under that word. I love that! We also reviewed the Go, go, go Joseph section starting at the pick-up to bar 262 (page 29), but stopped before the ending at 285. We'll save that for much later.
3. City of Stars: If you are not familiar with this song, you can go to my YouTube channel to hear a couple versions, including the sheet music we have. We sight read the whole thing, and it's got some challenges, but it's very cool and not too hard. It's jazzy. **It swings. So, instead of a straight bum-bum-bum-bum, you feel a bum-ba-bum-ba thing. We started on page 6, where everyone is singing. This part has a very whimsical and positive feeling: that crazy rat-a-tat-tat feeling tells us our dreams of love may finally come true. At the beginning, there's an optional solo and I haven't decide yet whether I want that option or if we'll have all the bass clef singers singing there. Can you sing softly, tenors and basses? The beginning is slower and a little moody.
4. Rewrite the Stars: We learned parts starting at bar 19 until the end of page 5. We talked through the whole song. There are 3 sections: first after the positive guy, we're singing that we can rewrite the stars (it's up to you and it's up to me- no one can keep us apart) then after the girl is negative, we say that no one can rewrite the stars (it's not up to you; it's not up to me), after the bridge, we are just a little hopeful, asking How do we rewrite the stars (it's up to you) and why don't we? But, there's a sad ending "we're bound to break and my hands are tied." Not a Renate ending. Watch out for the timing with those slightly different words. You need to add a syllable here and take one away there (kind off like Nella Fantasia with the difference between the English and the Italian). Pay attention to the words. There are 2 solos in this arrangement. The first is written for a tenor voice, and in the movie it's a man (Zac Efron-mmmmm), and the second is written in the same range for an alto voice, and in the movie it's a woman (Zendaya). Visually, for the audience, a man and a woman is simplest, but we could to a woman and a man, or a woman and a woman, why not? The timing in both solos is tricky, so we do want those to be solos, not sections. Melinda's got them both down, and she's always willing to sing, so she can easily do either one. Let me know if you feel like one of those solos interests you. The two soloists sing page 15 alone as a duet (bar 104 to the end).
- City of Stars
- Joseph: Jacob and Any Dream
- Nella Fantasia
- Rewrite the Stars
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| * dotted slurs and small unbold notes |
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| Swing notation |
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