Happy Birthday to Melodie and Happy St. Patrick's Day!
The best things about birthdays and St. Patrick's Days are the singing and dancing. It's so much fun singing Happy Birthday with a choir! Wooohoooo! When I don't have choir on St. Patrick's Day, I go to a bar with my Irish friend Kelli, and a bunch of us drink green beer or Guinness sing and dance to live music. What fun it is to sing and dance with friends! This is a big part of our theme this season, "Here's to Song".
We thought Here's To Song sounds kind of Irish, and it was written by Allister Mac Gillivray from Nova Scotia. He also wrote Song for the Mira (another one of ours). East Coast folk music, Maritime/Celtic, is heavily influenced by Irish and Scottish traditional music. We Rise Again's composer, Leon Dubinsky was also from Nova Scotia. Everyone is Irish on St. Paddy's Day in Canada, and we saw a good amount of green in the choir, and I think that's a very good Canadian custom.
Our small groups today were excellent! Both groups learned their songs quickly and collaborated to make their own arrangements. I love when we make songs our own. When you own something, you cherish it. Song Sung Blue is ready, and Circle Game will take only a short time to be done.
1. Here's To Song: We worked on Sections B, C, and D, with reviewing parts in section C. That's the big fancy part. We talked about making the first chorus soft and wistful. There is some melancholy in this song at the beginning especially. The candle is dying, and "our time together has ended". But, look at the words in C. "The hour has come for sweet adieus...but first unite in hand and heart... for every end leads to a start." Then, we get loud. Then, the third verse is about leaving again, "farewell and thank you", soft and wistful again, but in the end, we're happy to count our blessings: friends and singing songs together. We agreed that we would pronounce adieu with 'you' in it: ah-dyoo.
2. We Rise Again: SO GOOD! Especially the big ending. I love this song. Ever since I heard protesters in the US singing it, I feel more and more appreciative of this glorius Canadian song. Both soloists are awesome. Melinda and Nadine sang together and it was beautiful.
3. I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing: Wow! We sang it really well after our first attempt. Some of us have sung this many times before, but as usual, the new folks were surprisingly good at following along. This song is in two parts, both written in the treble clef. So, we're going to have the Sopranos and Tenors on top, and the Altos and Basses on the bottom. There's a lot of back-and-forth echoing and overlapping melodies that require one group to hold a note for a long time while the other group sings the melody. Please observe all rests, and by paying attention to the rests, you'll see how long you need to hold your long notes. You sometimes only get time for a really short breath. Check out this picture so you can tell how short your rest is. If there's no rest, there's no "period of silence".
4. Song for Canada: This is a wonderful song, and I love the flute at the end!!! Another excellent big ending. I'm not sure about the logistics of having the French singers on Verse 2 standing at the front. The ahs are so much better since we've worked on them, so maybe we don't need to be separated? We'll try it with them in their usual spots too. We looked at the ahs at the end, on page 13 again. We made some decisions on the notes on page 13, so you don't have to worry about "picking a note". So, here's what we've got, remembering that the top two lines are the flute solo and the unison line. We're all in the choir bracket on page 13. First Sopranos are on the top of the top line of the choir bracket. Second Sopranos are on the bottom of that line, right under the firsts. Altos are on their line in the choir bracket and we chose your notes: for the first ah, stay on Eb, then, take the bottom notes: Db, Db, F, Eb. Tenors are taking all the top notes of the bass clef, except the Ab-middle note-in bar 115. and Basses take the very bottom notes.
5. Hallelujah: New format for this year: Tenors and Basses sing the first solo. Watch out for the timing, so you are all together. You've probably all sung this as a solo, so it didn't matter, but now it does. Look especially at "for music". Also, blend your voices; avoid pushing your voice. You can be softer because you're not fighting the whole rest of the choir, and you're not singing a solo. Then, only a few others join the Tenors and Basses at the pick-up to bar 7: Sharon and Lauren sing Alto, Robyn, Cathy, and Ellie sing Soprano. And this small group continues through the first chorus. Brilliant. This way the song stays softer at the beginning, so it has lots of room to build up. This group needs to listen to eachother to blend, also watch me in case I ask you to sing louder or softer. All Sopranos and Altos sing the second verse solo.
6. One Voice: We had two minutes, so we sang this, and it's excellent. I love the big ending so much! And, it was lovely to hear Melodie sing a solo on her birthday.
We talked about:
1. The upcoming room changes. There are two Tuesdays coming up when we can't have our room in the Admin. Building. Check the website for the next few weeks before you come to choir. I'll also post on Facebook and on this blog.
2. We talked about needing a few volunteers.
-The PR position on the Executive is still vacant. We would love to have more people come to our concert; the last one has disappointing attendance. Kim is asking her daughter to look into all the possibilities for advertising, sending our poster out electronically, and maybe coordinating the posting of physical copies. Our old notes still have the Month Ahead paper and the Era Banner which are out of print, that's how long ago we needed to advertise. Please consider joining the Executive to coordinate our PR activities. This would include coordinating, but not necessarily doing, the poster, program, and tickets, and communicating with seniors homes.
-Stage Manager for the concert: We are looking for a mature/older child or spouse who can come to the run-through rehearsal the week before the concert and come early to the concert to help us with moving the microphones around and helping to guide our movements off-stage and on-stage.
-Bake Sale Helpers at the concert: We need 2 or three people to help put out and manage the baking for the bake sale, and then box up the leftovers and help clean up. Someone to help Harry with ticket sales would be nice too. These folks could all work together with Lorraine who is coordinating the coffee and tea. I think Debbie is helping with that too. If you're not in a small group, coming early to help them would be nice.
Next week: Tuesday, March 24th
Small groups:
6:30 Circle Game
7:00 My Life Flows On (How can I keep from singing?)
- Here's To Song
- Grand Night for Singing
- Why We Sing
- Teach The World
- Canon of Joy
- Canadiana Sing-along?
No comments:
Post a Comment