YRCC 2025 Rehearsal Review October 21st

Another big, beautiful choir rehearsal! What an amazing job you're doing learning this season's music! 

The Mele Kalikimaka small group is performance-ready. We cleaned up some of the phrasing: Please be sure to observe all rests, especially the ones that follow a note marked staccato. The note that's half as long makes the rest seem longer. There are a bunch of short and punchy words on the first beat of the bar. Make them fun. Here's an example of one:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Once assembled, the choir did some warm-ups. One thing we did was to open and close our faces, and then open and close our whole bodies by bending down and then slowling getting back up. We did rollercoasters with lip trills just to see how much easier it is to do our Wow! and What?! exercise.

1. Peace on This Silent Night is also performance-ready (not perfect, but excellent)! It's soo good. The solos at the beginning are sweet (Lorraine/Lauren and Nadine/Cathy). We went over all the parts, and found a few tricky bits: 

-the word "turn" was hard for the sopranos-every time it comes you want to sing it too high. It's the same note as  in "celebrate". Here it is at bar 35, where you can see those two phrases are the same. At bar 75, they're also the same, and again at 99. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

everyone had some trouble coming in on beat one after a rest. Observe those rests and be sure to come in confidently on beat one. (listen to the recording below, and see how messy the first note is, "sing", and I yell "gaze" so you come in loud and clear. The first word of every phrase can be improved.)

-dynamics: learn your part well so that you can watch me, and I'll show you how to get louder and softer ;-)

Here's a recording that Jen made of us singing this last night. (cool! thanks, Jen!)

2.  For Unto Us a Child is Born: Altos and Tenors were on the spot with their melismas. They did great! We learned all the parts from the bottom of page 5 to the Wonderful part, and we sang from the beginning to the end to see what else we have to learn. I like the way shoulder is shorter in this section. The shoulders from the previous section were hard, and we had the world "older" on beats one and two at the end. Page 8 looks scary, but it's not that bad. We talked about how we're not singing them in the classical way, which is to kind of say ho-ho-ho-ho so that each note is clear. We don't really want each note to be clear, so we're slurring them, joining the notes together so that if we're off a little, it's not so noticeable. People will love hearing this piece, and will be grateful that we're doing it. If you're stressed about it, there are lots of videos to help you with your part.

3. Do You Hear What I Hear? No, you don't. I'm in front of all of you, but you're surrounded by people singing your part, and you might hear a little bit of the other parts. I hear it all. And, it's awesome. We started learning parts backwards, from the end. It's a big ending. It's really all big, and I'm thinking it will be our finale. We have recordings of parts. Log in to get the recording of your part. Listen and sing along while looking at your music. It's not too hard. There's only a few little tricky bits. Tenors and Basses have a lot of melody! Yay! It's cool. Listen to this recording that Jen did of us rehearsing it last night. Wow!!! Not bad for, like, the second time singing it, right?! This song builds from soft to medium to loud to very loud, verse by verse, picking up volume like a snowball. 

4. Why We Sing: This is going to be our encore song. Yes. We will have a standing ovation, and we will have an encore ready. This is it. And, it's so appropriate for our 30th Anniversary, that we end with this song.  It's true, all the things we sing in this song, really what singing can do, and does, and why we sing. We've done different things with the beginning to make sure it's soft, but it also sounded good with everyone soft from the beginning. I still haven't decided how we'll end up doing it this year. 

We talked about: 

November 11th: Our room is not available, so we would have to rent a space, but luckily we were asked to sing at an event for a Catholic Women's group. They want us to sing for 45 minutes to an hour and then we will have a space to complete our rehearsal for the evening. I expect we'll be there from 7-9, but you'll get details soon. It's in our calendar, and I'll updated it when we know more. We'll have a peace theme, which is perfect, and we'll also do a few sing-along songs. So, the Dona Nobis Pacem small group will have an excellent opportunity to rehearse their song with an audience. You don't have to sign up for this because everyone is expected to participate. It's a Tuesday evening rehearsal.

Let There Be Peace on Earth: We didn't sing it but we need to get it ready for November 11th. We have Robyn and Melodie on the descant/small group part at the beginning, and Linda and Kim are going to look at it too.  If you have some time, please review this piece.

Angels Among Us: Same with this one. I'd like us to sing it on November 11th. Sharon and Robyn are the soloists, but we need back-ups so Ellie and Cathy are looking at it and we'll hear them next time. We need to look at the ending, from 42 to the end, but it's just a little bit and the chorus, really. Tenors and Basses, please take a look at your part. We have recordings of parts. 

Next week, Tuesday, October 28th

Small Group at 6:30 Mary Did You Know/Breath of Heaven

• Angels Among Us
• Do You Hear What I Hear
• For Unto Us a Child is Born
• In the Bleak Midwinter?
• Let There Be Peace on Earth 
• O Holy Night? 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Encore Post from 2012 about Breaths, Rests, and Phrases

 I just copied and pasted this old post so new members can get some extra music theory and everyone can remember that breathing in choir is intentional and important, so it's often written into the music. 

There are a number of old posts that deal with music theory. I like seeing which songs we were doing, the songs I reference for examples.  

Breathing and Phrases in singing

Because we have so much music to learn and want to spend our time together singing as much as possible, the music reading and music theory lessons will have to be limited to quick mentions as needed and posts here on my blog.

Today, I am starting at the very beginning, and it's not Do Re Mi. Before we can sing notes, we need to be able to breathe.

You might be thinking I'm a nut because everyone just breathes naturally. It's just there, breathing. You're alive; you're breathing. You're not breathing; well, you're not.

Singers, like athletes, cannot take their breathing for granted. 

We need to breathe consciously and deliberately. Breathing properly gives us good sound and helps our body to sing so that it doesn't hurt our vocal apparatus. We have to be aware of our breathing and understand what a breath can do for us, how far it will take us. Then, we need to be in control of our breathing.

Fist of all, you have to be sure to breathe with your belly and not with your chest. We do that in our warm-ups most Mondays. Here's a cool video of a guy with a shoe on his chest and a shoe on his belly to show you what it looks like when you're breathing using your belly (and most people focus on the diaphragm, but it's more complicated). The shoe on his chest stays still while the one on his belly moves.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmi6sNG9ttM&feature=related
There are lots of videos on how to breathe properly, posted for people who do Yoga, and run and do other sports, and specifically for singers.

If you're not accustomed to breathing consciously, you might feel a bit dizzy when your start. Lying down like the guy with the shoes is a good thing. And, don't exaggerate. It's more about paying attention to what your body is doing than making it do what you want. Don't fill your body up like a balloon about to burst. Allow it to fill up.

There are all kinds of articles on how we breathe and which muscles are used, and they'll basically tell you not to breathe too far down in your abdomen and not too far up in your chest, and to be aware of all the muscles that are used, not just the diaphragm. I won't go into detail, since most of you are not interesting in singing like an opera singer, or like Madonna (both of whom have strict daily physical work-outs and tons of exercises that focus on breathing) and if you do, you'll want to get a good vocal teacher who will go into detail.

In a choir, you have to breathe as a team.

We take breaths together sometimes and at other times we deliberately breathe at different times like a relay team: first me, then my neighbour, then another singer. Most of the time, we breathe together and the music tells us when to breathe and when not to breathe.

You need to pay attention to your body and to the music. There are lots of signs in the music that tell us when to breathe.

The most obvious musical breath is the apostrophe above the music.
Some music has breaths written in with an apostrophe ' When you see that, take a breath. Easy. (Go Now In Peace has one on page 5, and Let There Be Peace On Earth has lots.)

A lot of rests are there for you to take a breath. We had an example in our music yesterday: In One Voice, at the top of page 7, Sopranos need to hold ring for 7 beats and there's a big quarter note rest before shout it out and then a little eighth note rest before and let it ring. Use them to take breaths.

In fact, mark all the rests in your music. Make sure you take a breath there and then you won't be holding a note longer than your neighbours, and you won't run out of air.

For a review of rests and how long to hold them, click here.

Rests are about half-way down. Pay as much attention to the rests as you do to the notes! Silence is important, not just for giving you time to breathe, but to give another part prominence, to create contrast, provide drama, and more. The rest is as important as the note.

Generally speaking, you breathe before and after a phrase, but not in the middle of one. The phrase could be a sentence. Look at the words, and see where there's punctuation. Breathe if there's a period. Take a breath if there's a comma or another natural pause as in speech.

There's also a musical way of marking a phrase. When a phrase is marked with a curved line above it, you need to take your breath at the beginning of the phrase, because you  must not breathe in the middle of a phrase.

Last night, we learned our ahs in Hymn to Freedom in phrases. Curved lines divided the ahs into sections, phrases. We had an example of an unusual phrase in Chorus of The Hebrew Slaves, on page 5 at F, and again at the top of page 9. Here you have thronging, oh my homeland joined by a phrase mark, so you can't take that natural breath at the comma but must wait until after Oh. People often swoop there (another topic for another time). Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves has a few examples of phrase marks to show you not to take a breath at a comma in the words. Check it out. You see a comma in the words, but in the music there's a curved line above or below the notes. You must pay attention to the musical phrases.

If you find yourself short of air from time to time, unable to hold a note as long as you're supposed to- like most of us- then mark more breaths on your music. Put in apostrophes above the rests that you want to remember to use, and put them in at the beginnings of sentences and phrases. If you come across a note that you always have trouble holding, work your way back from it to a place where you can take a breath, and mark it in your music.

If there is a place in the music where everyone has trouble holding a note, or keeping the sound going through a long phrase, then we do what is called staggered breathing. Singers singing the same part take turns taking a breath during the long note or phrase so that there is no obvious break, so that the sound continues. You sneak a breath where nobody else is sneaking theirs. You have to mark these breaths on your music and do it consistently so the team can count on you.

Soloists: rehearse with deliberate breaths, mark them in and observe them every time. Don't breathe randomly, or you will find yourself nervous and unable to hold a breath properly when you perform. Likewise, don't stretch yourself in rehearsal, or else you put yourself in danger of running out of air in a performance because you didn't anticipate your ex being in the audience.

The conductor can also help you with when to take a breath. When I'm conducting, I often breathe with you. You'll see me open my mouth and I'll exaggerate a deep breath along with the arm movements when I'm leading you in. When I sing a hard bit for you, I often exaggerate a breath so that you notice where to breathe, to make sure you observe the rest, and to emphasize the role of the rest in the rhythm.

When you do breathing exercises, you want to increase your ability to take a good amount of air in with a breath and then to use it evenly throughout a phrase, or while holding a note. Evenly. You want to have the same quality of tone at the beginning of the note and at the end. You don't want your sound to peter out, even if you're supposed to get quieter.

There's a breathing exercise that we do where we go ts-ts-ts-ts... as we let out air. This is to train us to let it out gradually and evenly.

The best thing you can do to help you with singing and breathing is to keep your body in good shape. If your lungs and heart and all the other muscles that you need to sing are in good shape, your voice will have all the support it needs. Don't smoke. Limit your caffeine and alcohol consumption. Keep hydrated. Take care of yourself. And, singing will help to take care of you too. It's a good cycle.

YRCC 2025 Rehearsal Review October 14th

Wow! What a big, wonderful sound we had! Some moments took my breath away. 

6:30: the Small Group was Mele Kalikimaka, and they got through the whole thing, except the special little introduction part. Amazing. It sounds great. 

Our warm-up included movement, clapping, and harmonizing with the Beach Boys' Help Me, Rhonda. The sports teams disappointed us, but we still did some Wow! and What? rollercoasters. 

1. 12 Songs of Christmas. It's officially Christmas music season (mine, anyway. Mid-October) and we sang this medley of 12 Christmas songs to see how fun and easy it is. Sopranos especially have an easy and fun time with this medley. The harmonies are not difficult and the transitions are pretty easy too. We sang the whole way through and spent time on the intro and first two songs. Watch out! The intro is tricky: after "the twelve", "days of Christmas are" is unexpected and all equal quarter notes. Circle that, or make a note to yourself not to be tricked into singing the twelve days of Christ--mas. 

2. O Holy Night: Wow, wow, wow. I love this! We learned the chorus, and learned that we've been doing one part wrong for many years. The second ending of the chorus "e-ver mo-ore pro-claim" We've been singing e-ver-mor pro-claim. We have recordings if you want to go over your part. The oohs are not too difficult and the soloists are doing a great job. I would like someone to try singing those solos as a back-up. Let me know if you're interested. For now, we have Amy, Linda, and Sharon.

3. Angels Among Us: We tried it with soloists, and discovered that what I expected would be a challenge is a challenge, and that is getting us all in for the chorus. It's not too hard, but it's different after each verse, so watch me (and Donna will fix it if we/I mess up. Sharon and Robyn were the soloists today. I've got Ellie and Cathy interested too. We'll need back-ups so this is good news.

4. Song for a Winter's Night: It's so pretty! I love this one so much. I love that it's Canadian, and I love that it's wintery but doesn't mention Christmas. We reviewed page 9 to the ending. The part that was the most powerful was in the middle of page 11, where it's only 2 parts, but so beautiful "on this winter's night with you". The tenors and basses nailed their part and the sopranos and altos remembered not to go down too low, and it was perfection. 

5. In the Bleak Midwinter: Impressive. I love the way this song moves in the 4 parts. Very choral. It's quite difficult but you got it! We've now reviewed the two 4-part verses, and the other two verses will be solos. I've got a couple people interested in those solos. Let me know if you'd like to try one. We have recordings of this. Note that the solos are both in the Tenor recording, not in the Soprano recording.  

6. Do you hear what I hear? we ran out of time so I just let you know that it's big, it's going to be our finale, and you should watch the YouTube video of the choir singing it in 2012. We have recordings. There's lots of melody for the Tenors and Basses, which means there's stuff that the sopranos are going to need to pay attention to. 

We talked about: 

The website: make sure you can log in. Carol will have sent an email from the website for you to get in. Let her know if it didn't work. You can send me an email too, for help. There's so much there. Look around and make use of it. Check it every week to see if there's anything new in the announcements section on the  home page. There are links to the YRCC Calendar, this blog, and my YouTube channel too. Sign up for events on the website. Small groups are set up as events. 

Recordings and music are in folders. You'll mostly find something like this first one, where there's a recording of the accompaniment without parts, and then one for each part, played over the accompaniment, and then there's a pdf. You can print one as a "working copy" for you to mark up with more than pencil if you like. Never use anything but pencil on the one that we give you in your binder.  Sometimes, there are good YouTube videos for the parts, so we have links in a word document in the Music Library folder, as you can see in the second one below. 

Music Library Folder for Bleak Midwinter

Music Library Folder for Song for Winter's Night

November 11th rehearsal: We're singing, and we are going to be out. Our room isn't available, but we've been asked to sing for a women's group at St. Elizabeth Seton Church in Newmarket, so that's perfect. We'll have excellent rehearsal singing in front of an audience of kind women. Details will be added to the Calendar as they are determined. Our theme of peace is perfect for a gathering on Remembrance Day. 

Next Week, Tuesday, October 21st

6:30 Mele Kalikimaka

• Angels Among Us
• Do You Hear What I Hear
• For Unto Us a Child is Born
• Let There Be Peace on Earth
• Peace on This Silent Night
• Why We Sing

YRCC 2025 Rehearsal Review October 7th

We made joyful noise with percussion instruments for our small group song African Noel! It's coming along nicely. We added Sharon and Lorraine to the noise, and it was cool! Of course the star of the show was Jenn's Djembe, a big beautiful drum with a big beautiful sound. 

Our warm-up when everone was assembled was done with the song Home by Phillip Phillips. Gentle movement, singing and clapping, and harmonizing were explored. When you're alone in the car or in the kitchen, listening to music, sing along. And, try to sing harmonies when you hear them, and try to make up harmonies when there aren't any. Sing above the melody if you're a soprano, like a descant maybe. Sing below the melody like altos. Play with your voice. 

We also worked on volume with our Wow! and What! rollercoasters. We also had funny wow moments when the Blue Jays scored. 

1. Let there be Peace: We did it! The whole thing. We learned parts on page 6, starting at the bottom of 5, and the ending! We're singing it as written. The one thing we're leaving out is the top note in the Tenor line at "begin". Second sopranos and tenors move on the word begin (3 syllables: be-gi-in). Please push that extra syllable, drop down strong on "in". Altos, you move like that in the ending too. Lots of drama there please. Something to note if you weren't there: At the top of page 6, there's a breath mark before "in peace" and you'll notice that the timing there is special: "in peace" is quick. At F on page 5, start soft, quiet, and gradually get louder. We'll work on the dynamics, but just remember to watch me and I'll let you know when to be soft and when to get louder. With so much drama here, it's important to watch and move together. 

2. For Unto Us: Wow! We started at the beginning but our focus was the soprano melisma. The big bunch of 16th notes on the word "born" at the bottom of the first page, which is followed by the bass melisma at the top of page 2. Something that helped was Donna playing the first of each set of 4 notes, so we had a good landing place. Michele pointed out to me afterwards that since there are pairs of these sets of 4, the same starting note twice, it's easy to count 7 of these pairs to keep track of them. We spent extra time on the last one that ends on the second page. Don't hold that last note more than one count. There's a rest before the altos come in. When the basses come in they get their 7 sets of 16th note things. Linda shared with me that she learned to think of them as ho-hos, like laughing ha-ha-ha-ha, but ho-ho-ho-ho, just not like Santa please, but light and bouncy. That might help us sound less like mosquitos and bees. We sang all the way to "prince of peace" on page 4. Remember that Peace is our theme. Whenever we sing "prince of peace", it's big. We should feel awe and gratitude for that gift of peace personified among us, for us, which is what we need to celebrate and remember at Christmas (not Santa, again). 

Soprano Melisma

3. Somewhere in My Memory: Yay! Lots of you remember this very well. We just sang it through once so that we can see how much or how little we need to re-learn/learn. Not much! This is so pretty and not very difficult. The tricky parts are the key changes at 38 and 46, and the ooh-la-la section at 30. There are recordings for parts on the website, in the Music Library. 

4. In the Bleak Midwinter: We started on the second page, page 4, where we all sing in 4 parts. Again, I was pleased to hear that a number of people remembered their parts from past years. For those of you who had never seen it: BRAVO! It's not easy, but you all did really really well. Look at where your part moves when the other parts don't, and emphasize those notes, lean in to them. The first page and third page are 2 solos. They're written as soprano and tenor, but we've had them both as soprano and both as tenor in the past. Let me know if you'd like to try one of those solos. We have recordings of all 4 parts in our music library. 

5. O Holy Night: We learned parts on page 9 where the verse is sung by the choir in 3 parts. This is a special moment. Up to now, soloists sang the verses, building up to the chorus, with one voice, two voices, three voices. Now we're all singing and the words are important. Here is where we get our message of peace. The message we're pushing is peace. It's a timely message. And at 101, we're spelling out what I think Christians should be hearing from the Prince of Peace. The 3 soloists come back at 110 to remind us that we've received the message with joy and gratitude and we need to sing it out. The holy name that I have in mind when I sing "praise his holy name" is Prince of Peace. 

What we talked about:

Angels Among Us: I'm looking for two soloists. These are big solos. Remember Song for a Winter's Night, when the choir didn't come in until page 9. It's like that, only we come in for the chorus in between. So, the first verse, all the way to the bottom of page 4 is one voice. It makes sense when you look at the words. We all come in on "Oh, " at bar 17 singing the chorus that is marked at bar 18 with a segno. Another soloists starts at bar 28. "When life held troubled times..." and sings until the top of page 9 "single ray of hope". We all come in on "Oo" and sing the chorus/at the segno on page 5 again. At the top of page 6, we continue at the Coda, with tenors and basses leading us to the last section and ending. Donna has recorded parts. Soloists, just ignore where she says there's a little duet. It's all you. I recommend listening to this video by Demi Lovato. I'm not crazy about her voice or style but it's sincere and clear. 

We talked about Home. I chose the song Home because I like it, I like the oohs and ahhs especially but also the drums, and I like the message. Know you're not alone, and people make a place a home. This time of year, in our town (In our town in October, friends and family...) people are celebrating the Jewish New Year and Sukkot, the Chinese Moon Festival/Mid-Autumn Festival, Thanksgiving coming up this weekend, and Diwali is coming up on Oct. 20. Lots of people going home, gathering for special meals and other traditions. 

When we sing Shine Hanukkah, African Noel, and Mele Kalikimaka, we will be reminded of In Our Town in December, and our diverse neighbours. Peace in every house and peace in the community, and radiating out into the world.

Next Week: Tuesday, October 14th

6:30 Small Group: Mele Kalikimaka

• 12 Songs of Christmas
• Angels Among Us
• Do You Hear What I Hear?
• In the Bleak Midwinter
• O Holy Night

YRCC 2025 Rehearsal Review September 30th

Wow! That was fun!

We started with a bang, and a boom-boom-boom. African Noel, the small group that met at 6:30 is going to be excellent. We're doing it differently this time (obviously) and it's going to have a roots/folk feel: call and response, and a cappella, with only percussion accompaniment. I am happy to report that we have a beautiful djembe to use! Jenn has lent me hers to use next week, as she's going to be away, but she'll be able to play it when we rehearse closer to the concert date. I've never played such a beautiful drum. And, I'd like to see a few more instruments used, so please come and join us next week if you'd like to play one of mine or have one of your own. 

When we were all assembled, including a few more new people trying us out, we did a brief warm-up with some stress-buster stretches and rhythm exercises. 

1. Shine Hanukkah: we did the whole song! It's fun and pretty easy. Watch for dynamics (loud and soft) and timing (there's a slow section). At the beginning, the tenors and basses sing verse 1 alone, the melody (so that's the first line, not theirs). Verse 2 is everone, as written (SAB). 

2. For Unto Us: You're going to love it, really. So far, we've just done the parts where we're all singing together, "and his name shall be called... prince of peace". We did all of them, page 3, 5, 7, and 9. If you've been absent, or if you feel a little nervous about this song, please do a little homework and sing with a YouTube recording of your part. So, we were told that you can go to settings on YouTube and slow down the speed of the recording (or speed it up, not). I tried it and it works! I took a picture of my screen, and you can see I've got my cursor on the settings symbol below the recording, not YouTube's main settings. You choose Playback Speed and you can go half as fast (.5) or slower (.75). It's a little distorted, but pretty cool! Remember to reset it to "normal" or you'll hear another video slow and its trippy. 

3. Angels Among Us: I re-imagined this to be an easier piece, and was inspired by the way we tackled Song for a Winter's Night last year. So, we're having 2 soloists do the bulk of the work, and we're eliminating the oohs. The choir comes in to sing the chorus twice and then the coda (the bridge and ending). We did all that. Now, please consider being a soloist. You can listen to a recording (not the original one, it's weird)  Try this: a solo version by Demi Lovato. One soloist will sing the whole first verse, then we all sing the chorus. Then another soloist will sing the second verse and we all come in at the chorus again, and go to the coda to the end. Easy-peasy. 

4. O Holy Night: Another one with soloists. Our arrangement is magnificent, outstanding, inspiring. We stood up and sang it all the way through. Lots of us have sung it before. Watch out for a few things. We do have oohs and ahhs in this and different timing from what you're used to. The soloists we tried out were Amy on the first solo at 30, Amy and Linda on the second one at 43, and Amy and Linda and Sharon at 52 and again at 110. We have all parts recorded. Find them here. (you have to log in to the website). 

5. Various Themes on Fa-la-la: We made it to the ending! It's so much fun, I love it. We have recordings! Again, you'll need to log in to the website, and the link is here. 

We talked about:

Orange Shirt Day. A number of us had our orange shirts on. It's good to wear the shirt, but then please also do some learning, some reading, listen to music, visit an art gallery, support indigenous artists. Let's work at being better neighbours and allies. 

I remembered the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashanah, and wished everyone a Happy New Year, but forgot that now it's the most important Jewish holiday, Yom Kippur. I wish you a meaningful and easy fast and Shanah tovah. 

Next week: Tuesday, October 7th

6:30 African Noel with percussion

• Angels Among Us (if soloists are ready-if not, then In the Bleak Midwinter)
• For Unto Us A Child is Born
• Let There Be Peace on Earth
• O Holy Night
• Somewhere In My Memory