Thursday 17 March 2011

Monday 14 March 2011

WE WARM THE BODY AND THE SOUL

The music of the Icelandic group SOUTH RIVER BAND, the track called A DRAM BEFORE BREAKFAST, gave us a tuneful, rhythmic lead for our clapping and moving round the circle activity. This was both warming and hilarious - amazing how easily a mix-up can develop - but by the third try we got it right, which was hugely satisfying. I'm willing to bet it'll be perfect first time next week.

Owing to a combination of circumstances _ my trusty early morning helper had answered a child minding call and I was delayed having a flat tyre attended to - there was no time to lay out the instruments which meant we had a singing morning.

We warmed up the voices with a short melody for vocalising by Wolfgang Hartmann which will be very effective when sung in canon.

Good to feel the confidence and especially the support from the resolute singing in the bass part in the choruses of I'LL FLY AWAY. Three sections of the group sang a verse each and by the end of the song, feeling the effect of the good harmonies, we definitely 'flew'.

We are still working on ROW ON but moving into a new phase as there's now a real feeling of understanding coming through when we sing the harmonies in the chorus and this, together with the beautiful text in the verses, means I can hear it becoming a firm favourite with our group.
We ended the morning with some joyful singing of JULIAN OF NORWICH, ALWAYS THE SINGING and MANDELA DANCED IN THE SQUARE.

Tuesday 1 March 2011

KEY TRIALS

Finding the optimum pitch for a song sung in unison in our group of mixed voices is quite a challenge and we explored the possibilities fully this morning with JULIAN OF NORWICH  - a lovely song for a spring morning. We sang it low, with resonant basses, we sang it high, our sopranos soaring, we sang it middle, altos smiling, before finally settling on a key where I could see lots of confirming nods as everyone realised this was the best compromise key. It was a good exercise to get the feel of our own and each other's voices and develop sensitivity to pitch.
We continued to work on ROW ON ROW ON, gaining confidence in those harmonies.
After the coffee we played WOLFGANG'S CANON but ran out of time for finishing the whole piece.