We started with a brief physical warm-up, stretches and shakes, and then with more vigorous movement (twisting) and singing as a vocal warm-up with a recording of Do Wha Diddy Diddy! Fun! Many of us knew the words from a past YRCC season, but there’s a lot of repetition so it was pretty easy for everyone.
Star Canon, which we sang last season, was our first song. It’s our continued theme. We’ll do it the same way. It was excellent. Remember Part l is Soprano/Tenor and Part ll is Alto/Bass, but the 'Small Group' is Tenor/Bass, and the beginning is just Soprano and Alto.
Your Song: Many of us remember this, and we started learning/reviewing parts on the segno, pages 5 and 6. We walked through how the repeat works. There’s a DS al Coda on page 10. We sing all the way to page 10 there, go back to page 5 at the segno, but skip to the Coda where marked at the bottom of page 6. The Coda starts on page 10 where we left off. It’s the big ending. It’s big, and I love it! We sang through the whole song sight-reading and so we got to sing the segno that we learned twice.
Song for a Winter’s Night will be a little different from the way it’s written. For one, we’re skipping the first page. There’s a nice piano intro at bar 25 that will be perfect. There will be a soprano or alto solo and then a tenor or bass solo with no oohs to take us all the way to page 9. We learned page 9! I’m going to change the top of page 10 so that we all have words, no oohs. It’s not hard and will be gorgeous.
I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing is fun and easy. We might sing it with the audience as an encore, in which case, we’d have only sopranos on part 1 and everyone else leading the audience eon part 2, which is mostly melody. Or, we'll figure out where the melody is at all times and have all but one section on melody. We sang it with Soprano and Tenor on part 1 and Alto and Bass on part 2. It’s so good!
Why We Sing is always so satisfying, I love it. We’ve had solos at the beginning in the past. We all sang the whole beginning but I might change how we do it this time. We’ll see. I'm also hearing other versions without the descant at the end and it sounds stronger somehow. We'll try it without next time. (ultimately: dream, wish, pray, fine but, it's singing together that provides the best gifts)
We went through the whole binder, looking at all the song selections and how they fit the theme: Wishes and Dreams, what we want at Christmas and throughout the seasons of our lives.
1. All that Holiday Stuff was a small group song last Winter. We’re all singing it. It’s fun and funny, about the joys of the holidays, excitement, happiness of stuff, memories, pop culture and traditional.
2. Christmas Auld Lang Syne is about all the songs of the season, that we expect and enjoy from year to year.
3. For Unto Us A Child Is Born: serious, classical, traditional, Prince of Peace is the ultimate Christmas present.
4. Grown-up Christmas List: Childhood fantasies change to adult wishes for peace above all, right winning over wrong, and love never-ending.
5. I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing: my wish, my thing: the path the way to peace is singing in community.
6. Peace on This Silent Night: “Sing out with gladness: love, peace and joy, goodwill to all”
7. Song for a Winter’s Night: Canadian content and so beautiful! Our biggest wishes are for togetherness, love, family, not things. The warmth of gathering in the winter.
8. Star Canon is the theme.
9. The Twelve Groovy Days of Christmas was also a small group offering in the past. Now we’re all going to sing this song of gifts/things/stuff that people might have wished for in another era. And a message to enjoy the eras as they pass, and treasure the memories.
10. We Wish You a Merry Madrigal is an a cappella song so it has a unique sound in our repertoire and it’s a simple wish for happiness and an invitation to sing along with all the fa-la-las you hear.
11. When You Believe is a big musical theatre number which was sung as a duet by Stanley and Mona for us in the past. I love the Hebrew section, which is “I will sing, I will sing, I will sing” mostly. I like how it says you can “achieve” miracles when you dream, suggesting that the dream is the spark that you use to inspire your actions. Like Power of the Dream of last season.
12. Why We Sing: obviously for world peace, right?
13. Your Song reminds us that what we can give to our loves, our world, is not a thing, not stuff, but appreciation, to express “how wonderful life is while you’re in the world” in a song.
I’m also working on an arrangement of Santa’s Wish by the Tenors. It’s a lot of music to learn, so I hope some of you will make time to learn some of it at home so you can help to lead your sections.
Please go to the Recordings page on the website to find a lot of good recordings to listen to to help you learn your parts.
For small groups, I have Christmas Lullaby (Rutter) and the Twelve Pains of Christmas (contrast All that Holiday Stuff, pains, stuff that’s annoying).
I’d like to have a couple solos or small groups. What would you like to sing that fits into this season’s theme?
Next week:
- Song for a Winter’s Night
- Your Song
- When You Believe
- Peace on this Silent Night
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