My birthday was yesterday, and it was wonderful. The joy started the evening before, Feb. 4th, at choir. My beautiful choir sang Happy Birthday, and it is a little thing but it felt really special. Also, the awesome way you sang You'll Never Walk Alone was so powerful, I was high for hours. I love my choir!
The small group singing Together Wherever We Go met at 6:30, and they were amazing! We created a little choreography for it, and it's sweet!
We had a brief warm-up and then sang O Canada. O Canada, we stand on guard for thee. We love being Canadian and we are singing quite a few Canadian songs, as we always do. We represent our community, York Region; something I am always mindful of.We added our national anthem to our binders because we need to sing it more often.
1. All the Little Rivers of Canada is one of our obviously Canadian songs. It's pretty hard but we're making good progress. We learned sections, A, B, and C. So now we can sing the whole thing except for section E, which is a cappella, and a little bit of F where it's special. If you feel like you want to work on this song, we have recordings on the website. Please make good use of them. Make sure you're accenting the word HEY, and then ride and rapids in C/F. It's very effective. Be very dramatic with the dynamics in G/E, the chorus which we learned last week. Coppermine Winnipeg Porcupine is very loud and then suddenly you're very soft for Saskatchewan Columbia. It should feel to the audience that they're riding waves up, up, up and then whoosh! down, then up, up, up agian.
2. Canon of Joy is not difficult. The challenge for me is getting the right tempo that's not too slow for the Canon and not to fast for the Ode to Joy. The challenge for you is turning the pages (repeat page 5, then DS al Coda and repeat page 5 again, skip to page 8 for the Coda/ending), and not getting bored with your Canon notes. If you get bored, you'll sound sloppy and the opposite of joyful. Try to put some emphasis on beat one every time, so you kind of bounce on the J of joy. We spent some time on page 7 where everyone has the Beethoven.
3. Song for the Mira is more Canadian content. We will have up to 6 soloists. We're going to omit the oohs, even though they're pretty. We're going to have a flautist play with us, because it's sooo prettty and it will add an element of surprise for the audience, a lovely special sound. We didn't start learning the song, but just looked at what to expect. There is one chorus and one verse in 4 parts, and the rest is solos. However, we might add some choir bits. If you want to get a head start learning this, you can use the recordings on the website.
4. Hockey Song is soooo Canadian, and our audience will love it. We learned parts, but don't stress over it. (If you must stress, there are recordings of all the parts on the website that you can study) The chorus is so powerful that the rest is more about the words. We'll make sure that the audience hears those names and we'll try to enunciate well throughout. Remember to watch in between the sections for entries. Sometimes, you'll need to wait a little longer. You'll see on page 4, there's a note for the accompanist "vamp if necessary". I found this definition: "A vamp is a section of music that is repeated several times while dialogue or onstage action occurs. It is usually directed by the conductor's cue." Theatre. You hear choral vamps a lot in gospel music, where the worship leader/soloist tells a story while the choir repeats a short phrase, and sometimes a bridge in a song is a vamp of a phrase, sometimes sung in changing keys that lead to the final chorus or a coda. I love vamps. You'll sometimes hear me saying, "We'll repeat that as often as it feels good; just watch."
Next week, Tuesday, February 11th
6:30 Alto Sectional: your chance to do extra review of your parts by yourselves
- Blue Skies
- Imagine
- On Eagles Wings
- Shenandoah
- Song for the Mira
- We Rise Again
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