We began with warm up movements to the Allegro from Bach's Concerto for Oboe d'amore in A major, _ wonderful music for a fresh, sunny morning.
This seemed to encourage good, deep breathing as the long phrases of ONE BY ONE EVERYONE COMES TO REMEMBER sounded controlled and almost effortless, giving the song a lovely lilt as we continued on to sing it as a 4 part round.
ASALAAM, by Nickomo Clarke.
This new song, short, only four phrases, two words, has melody lines for four voices.
The words, 'Aleykum asalaam' in Arabic mean 'Peace be unto you.'
Starting with the basses, we learned one voice at a time until we were able to blend all four melodies in harmony,_ a first for this group and what a good sound it was. Spontaneous applause broke out!!!! That was a good point to stop for the coffee and chat.
A good practice on the instruments followed as we moved on to some different patterns preparing for a new Orff piece next week.
We ended our session this morning with the five verses of BEAUTIFUL AFRICA.
