Happy New Year! Nowruz Mobarak!
It's the first day of spring, and a really good time to celebrate new beginnings. Persian new year makes sense, and it's been celebrated for more than 3 thousand years. I spoke a little about the Persian new year traditions, and my favourite part is the symbolism of the items of the 7-Seen spread. If you're interested, here's a link to what Wikipedia says about it. My husband, Harry Hooshang Naghavi was born in Iran and this is one Iranian tradition that I love maintaining. Our grown children have created their own haft-seen spread in their house in Ottawa.
The Anthem from Chess small group, tenors and basses only, met at 6:30. This group sounds so special! If you've missed the first two rehearsals, you can still join and sing the melody in the four-part sections, up high if you're a tenor, or an octave down if you're a bass.
We had a brief warm-up with deep breaths, some of our usual stretches and arpeggios on la, mi, ho, and ha.
1. Somewhere Out There: We reviewed the way the D.S. al Coda works. D.S. al Coda is an elegant way to repeat a section. It stands for "dal segno al coda." It means repeat from (go back to) the 𝄋 sign, the segno at bar 25, sing that part again until you come to the bar marked To Coda, 36, then jump to the coda on page 7 (so second time, we skip page 6). Coda means ending or conclusion. Musical notation is a little like a road you follow, or a map, and the segno is a navigation marker like an inukshuk or a buoy or a blaze on a tree. When you see a segno, take notice, because you'll need to find it again. We also looked at the way the lyrics are written at the top of page 7 right at the Coda. It's just like last week's Power of the Dream section where the lyrics suddenly appear in three places instead of only in the middle. Look at how the lyrics match your section's notes. The altos have a special little melody here while sopranos and tenors and basses are holding a note. The middle line is for the altos, and you'll see the syllables match the melody there. Soprano, tenor, and bass words have moved. Sopranos go up and tenors and basses go down. Be careful to sing "love can see us through, then we'll be together. Altos sing "love can see us, love can see us through. We'll be together."
2. Joseph Medley: From Angel to Calypso. We reviewed the timing at the bottom of page 12 and top of 13 in the bass clef. Make sure you're coming in on beat 4 and observing the rest in "well, now that's __not quite true." make "that's" short. For the sopranos, we reviewed the ahs at the bottom of page 13 and top of page 14. It's very important to come in on beat one after you turn the page. At the bottom of page 18, we reviewed the hum-uh part for the basses. It's a super-cool moment for the basses. The transition from Close Every Door to Benjamin Calypso, will not be long, as written. We're cutting out a bar. We don't have drums, so Donna has to play the pick-up to that second bar at the bottom of the page, but we'll put that in the last 3/4 bar. Luckily, Donna will take care of us through all of the transitions, as always, watch me for beginnings and endings.
3. Power of the Dream: Oof! This is harder than it looks. We started at the beginning, where the melody gets passed between the treble clef and bass clef voices, mostly in unison. Looks easy, but the rhythms are difficult. Winston asked what the word marcato means in the performance note at the top of the first page. It usually means accented, coming from the Italian "marked" (not march), and is applied to a note. In this case it says a mercato feeling. Which Donna and I interpreted to mean the rhythm should be strong and regular. In the accompaniment, there is a focus on beats one and three. However, having thought about this for a bit, I think the instruction is to not let the slow tempo influence a relaxed approach, nor to speed up to make it more animated, or passionate. The tempo is slow, but the feeling is intense, so mark the words, stress the meaningful parts of words, enunciate them well, and resist speeding up. There are some phrases which I've changed to make them more gender-inclusive. They are marked on the pdf on the website, and I've listed them in the last two review posts.
4. Nella Fantasia: It's getting closer and closer each time! You're getting really good at this. It's a really hard piece, but it's one of my favourite songs ever. The Italian is excellent, and the oohs changing to ahhs is perfect. We just have to keep at it.
5. Star Canon: So pretty! All you have to do is remember when and where you're singing, which by the second time, you did perfectly. Sopranos were much better coming in on beat one throughout. Maybe all you needed was a reminder to sing in Part l and not in the top line on pages 6, 7, and 8.
Next week, Tuesday, March 26th
6:30 Small Group: Anthem
- City of Stars
- Joseph Medley: King to the end
- Power of the Dream
- You'll Never Walk Alone
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| D.S.al Coda |
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