My Singing Night at Trinity has a new earlier time

My Singing Night at Trinity Newmarket has a new name and earlier time. We sing from 7-8:30. 

But, don't come tonight! We're not meeting because of Halloween. We want to be at home to see the trick-or-treaters. Please consider coming on Thursdays in November. It's a dark month but we can brighten it up by singing together. 

No need to bring anything or prepare in any way. I prepare a playlist and we sing songs that we choose from it, singing along to popular recordings with the lyrics scrolling. It's like karaoke but without the microphones and drinking and divas. It's more like a campfire sing-song. 

Here's the latest poster:

YRCC 2024 Rehearsal Review October 29

Another beautiful sound I love to hear: the buzz (and occasional cacaphony) of my choristers chatting and laughing together. We had a coffee social breaktime with treats brought in by the executive and decaf coffee and tea and all the essential snack time accessories brought in by Kit. A few of us wore Halloween costumes. Daphne was the most festive and adorable. 

With Donna and Lauren sick, Renate led the Christmas Lullaby small group alone with the help of a recording. Well, it was not ideal. So, we're going to have the Christmas Lullaby rehearse at 7:15 for the next few weeks. I've updated the calendar. Please take a look.(see below)

I'm so very grateful for Tabatha! Tabatha was asked only hours before our rehearsal if she could step in for Donna, and she came! We are so very fortunate. 

1. Star Canon was our warm-up. We needed to get straight to work. It was very good. I had to remind the Sopranos to watch for the times when they need to come in on beat one, especially on the last two pages where it's a bit of a challenge for them to read the middle line. It's still the top of the choir bracket. The top line is the "small group" which for us is the tenor and bass section. 

2. Christmas Auld Lang Syne is finished! It's such a good piece; so many great melodies in that medley. And, it's fairly easy to learn the harmonies. As I said yesterday, the pianist has the most work, because she gives us all the transitions and the different moods. Thank heaven we can depend on our wonderful accompanists! Watch me throughout, but especially on the last piece, so that we're observing the rests together and slow down together. Something we found challenging: on the Christmas Waltz, there's a part that's very different from the version we sang last year. On page 10, bars 85 and 86: true 2-3 and. The and comes in much sooner that what you want to sing. It's right on beat one of the next bar. Watch out for the very long Christ-mah-ahss at the top of page 13. We have to all get to the s together. Watch me. 

3. 12 Groovy Days also gives a lot of bang for our buck. It's tons of fun and not a ton of work. We spent time on the grooviest section, starting at the pick-up to 63: Complete Disco! is what it says. And, I was singing the first part wrong. "And on the 'leventh day" (tha levin, not thee eleven). Groovy! Also, we did the ending starting at bar 94 . Sopranos divide on page 15. Watch me for the Boogie Down at the end. Because it's a bit chaotic, we'll hold signs up for each of the gifts, clearly printed words. I think the audience will enjoy it more when they understand what the silly gifts are. 

4. When You Believe is going to be spectacular. Jane asked me if I wanted the tea lights again this year. We had them for our star theme, and it was very effective. I didn't know, had no plan. And then, minutes later I was on Facebook and When You Believe showed up sung by an enormous choir. Toward the end, they all lit up lights! Bam. That's it. We're going to hold up tea lights for the ending. We have a couple bars to turn them on while we sing that very slow and loud Ashira Ashira Ashira and pause before the big finish. This huge group also swayed their bodies. I think we might be able to do that during Why We Sing, which is our finale number. Hold up lights and sway for our last song. Ta-da!

5. For Unto Us a Child is Born. Sorry, it's cut. A few people were disappointed that I decided to put this aside for this year. We will definitely come back to it. We spend quite a bit of time learning it and came very close. However, we are getting close to our concert date and still have lots of work to do. A few people were very happy to not have to worry about this one. I'm looking at Santa's Wish as well. It will be simplified or also dropped. 

INVITE EVERYONE TO OUR CONCERT!
Jane had posters for us to take. I'm posting mine at my church. Do you have a place to post things? Carol had tickets too. Please be sure to buy your tickets as soon as possible, and book your friends and family. Send them an email or a text with the poster pdf here and png here. and maybe write out the details for them to copy. You could also make a calendar event or use our calendar event and invite people from there. If you're on Facebook, invite people to our Facebook Event. Invite them out for pizza after or over to your place after for pizza, or a charcuterie board and champagne,...

Next week, you can pay for the pointsettias too! This is an excellent way to make the church look festive and fancy, and we get fantastic flowers to take home or to give to our guests. 

We have square so that you can tap your credit cards! (cash and cheques are good too)

Next week: Tuesday, November 5th

6:30 Alto Sectional Rehearsal (7:15 Christmas Lullaby)

• Song for a Winter's Night
• 12 Groovy Days
• When You Believe
• Your Song

Below is a snip of our calendar in the agenda/schedule view. Please take note of the upcoming early rehearsals. Next week the Alto section is coming at 6:30 for special sectional review. Christmas Lullaby is going to take a few minutes of that early time to go over their song. 

The following week Pains of Christmas comes back, and then after that the Tenors get a sectional rehearsal at 6:30. Each week Christmas Lullaby comes a bit early.

At Trinity Anglican, for our run-through, we have small groups and soloists coming early to work with microphones. Everybody comes early so that we can go through the whole show. We might end up going late, so I entered 10:00 as the end time. It will be a long night for us. 

YRCC Calendar

YRCC 2024 Rehearsal Review October 22

 I wish you could hear what I hear! The choir sounds beautiful. I know you get worried because you can hear the people around you and sometimes they're not singing or making mistakes (mistakes mean you're trying, you're on your way). But, I hear lots of people getting the parts and I hear all the sections harmonizing and blending together. It's awesome. 

The Christmas Lullaby small group met early and they've finished learning the song. Now, we just have to polish it up and get more practice with it. Rutter songs have a special choral sound which is really pretty, and you are nailing it. 

The choir warmed up with stretches and breathing and rhythm exercises to a groovy version of Your Song by Billy Paul (known for Me and Mrs Jones). We all clapped and snapped on beats 2 and 4 with confidence and some bouncing and dancing. 

1. We sang Your Song beautifully. There were a couple spots where Sopranos (maybe Altos too) didn't come in with confidence consistently. At the top of page 4, before bar 36 on beat 4. It's weird how the I comes on beat 4 and then you have a rest on beat one before the rest of the sentence. Maybe listen to the tenors and basses singing "Show" and count show-2-3 "I". Or, sing your oohs: ooh-1-2-3-I/ or ooh-sho-oh-oh-3-I? Middle of page 6, Soprano solo on the word "how" of how wonderful life is. You have to come in strong on that beat 4 too. Think "words-2-3-HOW wonderful". That one happens twice. The ending is excellent. You're watching and doing exactly what I want you to do! Yay!

2. For Unto Us: It's coming along. We spend time on the last section, bottom of page 7 to the end, with lots of time on the last system of page 8 (pay attention to this line when you're reviewing on your own, especially if you missed this rehearsal) If we get the ending strong, people won't notice -and won't remember if they do notice- messy bits along the way. And, really, Handel is messy, with all the parts doing different things most of the time. 

3.Twelve Groovy Days of Christmas. This was our first time looking at it and we did great! We started at page 13, bar 79, to learn all the 12 days first. It was not too hard. We learned parts up to bar 94, and then we sight-read the whole piece. It's fun and special and I think I want whole sections where solos are indicated, so that it sounds stronger and clearer. We might want to hold up signs with each of the 12 things so that the audience understands what we're singing. So, you can have a non-vocal solo, if you get to hold up a sign.

4. Santa's Wish. We walked through the lyrics to get an idea of what's going on here. It's kind of a solo/duet with choir back-up. There's a storyteller and the Santa character that he/she meets, and the choir joins the Santa part singing I'd like to teach the world to sing, and there are some oohs in a bridge that we all sing. We looked at the parts from 53-68, and sight-read to the end. 

5. The Medley (Christmas Auld Lang Syne): We looked at parts from the beginning to the Christmas Waltz. We're almost done! It's pretty easy and sounds really good.

6. We didn't get to Grownup Christmas List. Please take a look at this at home if you're feeling nervous about this one. It's really good already since many of us have sung this recently.

We talked about: The Website. The executive met last week to review the work we (mostly Jane) did researching options for updating or overhauling our website, the quotes we have from website developers and app providers, and the costs. We decided to continue using Wild Apricot but pay for a re-design with better mobile function. The designers will also teach the admin members how to use it more effectively. We will need to increase our membership fees a little. Starting September 2025, one year will cost $100 (still a steal) and one season will be $60. Considering that many activities cost $20/ evening, this is still a very affordable community program. 

We talked about: spreading the news of the concert. Jane designed posters and tickets, and they'll be available in hard copy next Tuesday. The pdf and jpg/picture versions are attached here and here. 

I've created a Facebook Event that you can send to people on Facebook. Go to the Event, and share from there, instead of the choir's post. That way, people can respond with "Going" or "interested".

For everyone who's not on Facebook, you can send them an email with the poster attached as a pdf or with a picture of the poster embedded in the email (my preference). 

Of course, another nice way to invite people to the concert would be to send them a card in the post with tickets included as a gift. Wouldn't that be deluxe? Invite them to dinner after too! With champagne. I can dream, can't I?

Next week: Tuesday, October 29th     Halloween at Choir

We're having an extended break with social time, coffee and treats! Treats will be supplied by the executive. If you need an excuse to wear a costume, here it is. Let's celebrate Halloween at choir. 

6:30 Christmas Lullaby Small Group

• Christmas Auld Lang Syne
• For Unto Us
• Santa's Wish
• 12 Groovy Days
• When You Believe

YRCC 2024 Rehearsal Review October 15

We enjoyed another successful and satisfying rehearsal, ending off with lots of Christmas! It was a cold day that started with frost, and it was a perfect time to start singing more Christmas music. 

The Christmas Lullaby small group met for the first time and were able to get through so much of this beautiful choral piece. It's so beautiful, and the chorus is really very sticky; it sticks in your head. You'll find yourself singing the ave Marias all week long. 

We had a fun warm-up stretching, dancing, and singing along to Lollipop by The Chordettes. We did some rollercoasters and noticed how our range is much wider when we are doing raspberries, lip trills. 

1. When You Believe was beautiful. We sang it with Mona and Stanley singing the solos and the duet. Everyone comes in at bar 11. We reviewed parts throughout, especially the Hebrew section, which we slowed down to get the sounds and the rhythms right. Please do a little homework on this if you find you're having a hard time. There are lots of recordings to sing along with, and there's a video to help with pronunciation too. 

2.  Grownup Christmas List sounds very good with a solo on the first verse. We'll do it that way. Cathy and Melinda went for a test drive on that solo, which starts at the beginning, and then ends on bar 14, just before the key change. Everyone comes in at bar 15 "No more lives torn apart..." Don't come in too strong after that first verse. When we go back to the segno, at the top of page 5, everyone starts on page one on the second verse on bar 7, "As children we believe" and there's an ooh for the Baritones right on beat one. The second time we sing "no more lives", it's louder. We spent some time on the bottom of page 5 at that bridge, especiallly bars 28-31. Another tricky spot was at the bottom of page 7, bar 41 with the triplets, and the big ending. So good!

3. Santa's Wish: This is a new thing that I adapted for choir from a piano solo. I couldn't find a choral version but I really love this song. So, we tested out my arrangement. Notice that a lot of it is focused on two soloists, a storyteller and Santa. The choir joins Santa singing I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing. And there are some pretty ah ah ohs. We just walked through and took some time to think about who would like to sing those solos. Please listen to the song in the video at the bottom of this post. I'd like to keep that slowish, ballad feel, nostalgic and just a little whimsical. 

4. Christmas Auld Lang Syne: A new Christmas medley, well, actually an old one, but it's so old that very few of you have performed it before. It won't be hard. We sang through sight reading it twice! The Sopranos are very lucky and have melody throughout, I think. Altos and Baritones have lots of sections with only 3 or 4 notes. This is energetic and jazzy (swing notation)! The Christmas Waltz which we learned last year is one of the songs. It won't take long to get this performance-ready.

5. We didn't rehearse For Unto Us a Child is Born, but we talked about how useful the recordings are. Winston suggested that you might be able to play with the settings of YouTube to slow down the tempo. Try it out! You can also try out some of the many rehearsal recordings that people have uploaded to YouTube. I've got a couple in my playlist, but there are many more. 

Colby brought a box of the book that he had published! Quite a number of us bought one, and Colby even signed some. So exciting, and I'm so proud of our Colby. 

Here's a link to my YouTube playlist again, and a link to the page on the website with recordings. You'll need to sign in to the website. The recordings of parts for Your Song are there!

Next Tuesday, October 22nd

6:30 Christmas Lullaby Small Group

• Christmas Auld Lang Syne
• For Unto Us
• Grownup Christmas List
• Santa's Wish
• Twelve Groovy Days of Christmas
• Your Song

YRCC 2024 Rehearsal Review October 8

 I love my choir! It was so much fun singing together last night and we still got a ton of work done. 

The Pains of Christmas small group had some challenges with timing but we worked it out, mostly by slowing the song down and getting really frustrated and mad at all the pains. Hilarious. I recommend that everyone in that group spend some time singing along with YouTube videos or other recordings of this song to be able to sing/yell your part without needing to look at your music. Here’s a link to a video. We’ll have the lyrics on a couple of music stands but you want to be able to use your prop to clarify what you’re saying. We remembered to have a warm-up for this small group, something we often forget.

Our choir warm-ups included stretching, breathing, rollercoasters,  and mi-may-my-mo-mu, among others.

1. All That Holiday Stuff is done! We’ll need to practise and perfect this, but we learned all the parts and sang it through wonderfully. Melodie did a fine job on the solo. She’s the most devoted fan of Christmas that I know. 

2. When You Believe: We made very good  progress moving backward from the end, learning the section at bar 29, then bar 21, then 11. We sang from 11 to the end! The beginning is a duet, so we’ve done all our initial work. Now we have to get more comfortable with it. You will want to review the Hebrew section, for sure. There are links to each part, plus there’s a link to a tutorial on the pronunciation of the Hebrew words. It’s not the best because it’s the words on their own and not in the song with the rhythm, but it might help you to feel better if you hear each word how it is by itself. I suggest you sing along with a choir, and here’s a link to a choir singing it very nicely and clearly. If they can do it, we can too. 

3. Santa’s Wish: We’ll have to wait until next week to get the music, but I’ll put it on the website so you can look at the electronic version. I played a recording of the Tenors singing this song. I created a choir arrangement based on this: here’s a link to the video. It’s my wish too: the world singing in perfect harmony. 

4. For Unto Us: Wowza! You guys are amazing. I discovered that there are a bunch of people in the choir who have sung this before, and it makes a huge difference for us. Having even one person in each section who has some experience with this is a big help. We reviewed parts from the beginning and added on everything to the end of page 7. We’ll continue to review parts and add on more, and it will keep getting better and easier. I recommend doing some homework on this piece as well. Here’s a link to my YouTube playlist where you’ll find videos of your parts. You can find more by searching YouTube. There are lots of different sounding ones for you to choose from. 

5. Grownup Christmas List: most of us have sung this before, and it will be very easy to get this one brushed up and shiny again. I’m considering using a soloist for the first verse. Think about whether you’d like to sing it. This is our theme. What we wish for, our wish list, changes over the years, over our lifetimes and over generations too. As adults, the older we get, the less stuff we need or even want, and the more we wish for togetherness and harmony, peace in our homes and our communities, and in the world.

Next week: Tuesday, October 15th (right after Thanksgiving Monday)

Christmas Lullaby small group at 6:30  (videos of parts are up on the website)

• Christmas Auld Lang Syne
• For Unto Us
• Grownup Christmas List
• Santa's Wish
• When You Believe

YRCC 2024 Rehearsal Review October 1st

October started well, indeed. We had a very productive and thrilling rehearsal. If you missed this one, you'll definitely want to read this and do a little homework to catch up.

First, the Pains of Christmas small group had a blast and did really well with their song. We discovered that the challenge with this one is to come in on time with your part. I think that the props will help, and standing in order, more or less could help too. We'll try out some strategies next week.

Our warm-up was a stretch, dance, and sing-along to Billy Joel's Uptown Girl. Fun!

1. All That Holiday Stuff: we're almost done learning this! What a great job everyone did with their parts, super! I reconsidered having the solo at the beginning, and think it would be fine. Lauren and Robyn were the first to have a go. Please let me know if you'd like to be the Christmas enthusiast for this solo. We stopped learning parts at the bottom of page 11 at the sfp (sforzando piano) with a crescendo. That notation means that we hit the word sleigh hard, with force, and then drop quickly to piano before getting gradually louder and louder again. Drama; the drama leads to the next section which is a kickline (think Rockettes) at double forte (extra loud)! We sight-read to the end. We've got this.

2. For Unto Us a Child is Born: Wow!!! I had planned for us to just walk through this one, singing along to a recording, to see what was going to be challenging and to let everyone know that there are videos of each part by itself to help you learn it. I've put links on the website, but you can go to YouTube and search "For unto us a child is born tenor part", for example, and get a number of rehearsal aids. So, you'll have options with speed and formats you might like better. I suggested that if the sheet music is too small for you to read, you could get someone to enlarge it to regular paper size (8 1/2 x 11). You can legally make a "working copy" for marking up and study. We ended up starting to learn the parts, ahead of schedule! And, we got to my favourite part at the bottom of page 3, the double forte "Wonderful". We sang along to a recording of this at my Thursday singing night as an example of a classical song with la-las (melodies without words that we sing, like the whoas in Uptown Girl. We laughed and sang parts of all the parts.). Here, every section has a turn with a big long oh, on the word born. The sopranos start with one in the 4th and 5th system on page one. What we did to make it a little less intimidating is to focus on the first note of each set of 4. Those sixteenth notes don't have to be super fast and they don't have to be super accurate. If we can all land on the right note on the beat, it will be very good. You'll see that Donna plays that part too, and she will be accurate for us. We were reminded of "Tup Tuppa", our choral version of Bach Badinierie. We laughed learning that, it was so hard, but our conductor Svetlana pushed us and we did it, and it was really impressive.

3. When You Believe: We sang in Hebrew! We got through the whole Hebrew section, ending on "I will sing, I will sing, I will sing!" (my favourite part) at the bottom of page 10 and then we sang to the end. It was awesome. Some people had printed out the Hebrew helper from the PDF side of the Music and Recordings section of the website. Excellent! There is also a video link on the Recordings side to help with the pronunciation if you want. But, we did pretty well on our own. I demonstrated how the ch sound is similar to the French or German rolled R, but softer, in the same way that the F sound is softer than the V sound, but produced in the same way and in the same place in your mouth. (that's called voicing in phonetics, pairs of voiced and voiceless sounds. ch is voiceless). You'll get it, but you can substitute an H sound, maybe a hard or hissing H? Play with your voice. For me, it's more important that you get the notes and the timing right. There are videos of choirs singing our arrangement of this song on YouTube, and I've put a couple on my YouTube playlist. Mona and Robyn sang those solo parts. 

4. Your Song: We learned all the parts all the way through! And now, we're singing with some big dramatic dynamics. I played the version that inspires me, from the YouTube recording of the Vocal Collective, a choir in New Zealand. We listened to their beautiful sforzandos at the ends of most sections. Remember, the sforzando is a forceful accent, a sudden and strong attack, on the beginning of a note which then sometimes goes very soft (sfp) and then louder. You could make a note on your sheet music in pencil. Write SFZ or put an accent on top of the word "v" and a crescendo <. Watch me for my big crescendo arms. We learned the oohs on page 3. The sopranos divide here. The notes are nice low alto notes, but second sopranos can sing those very nicely too. Donna will record parts for this song, so look out for that on the website, coming soon. In the meantime, sing along with the video:

Next week: Tuesday, October 8th*

      *Note: we will be rehearsing in the room across the hall.*

Small group at 6:30: Twelve Pains of Christmas: bring props

• All That Holiday Stuff
• For Unto Us a Child is Born
• Grownup Christmas List
• Santa's Wish
• When You Believe

Our Friend Colby is a Published Author

 How exciting to find out that the nice person you sit next to in choir is a published author! A charming young author is in our midst: our very own bass/baritone Colby! He is a little shy but somehow we got the good news out of him that he's had a book published and he's working on more writing. 

It's always good to strike up a conversation with the people in the choir. They're amazing individuals with lots of stories to tell. Talk to someone at break, someone you haven't talked to yet, and you'll be glad you did. 

Here's a link so you can buy a copy of Colby's book. Support a young author. You can say "I knew him when..."

 The Eagle's Last Flight (2024)