SIX WEEKS ON

Our group started back on the 11th of September in good heart and good voice. We've polished up some harmonies, Alison Burns's arrangement of TEN THOUSAND MILES and THIS ROOM with the short text, May we fill this room with joy and harmony.

We displayed some singing stamina on Tuesday the 2nd October when AMY LORD, Traditional Song graduate of RSAMD, (now The Royal Conservatoire of Scotland) who leads workshops around Scotland as well as various choral groups, spent the day with our group. We learned wonderful songs, AND SAE WILL WE YET, SALLY GARDENS and some traditional rounds. Anne Hunter's team in the Community Centre cafe pushed the boat out for us, providing an excellent lunch which was also an opportunity for informal musical chat.

Tuesday. 23rd October.

HEY UNGUA is an African song, good to sing as call and response but also fun with each person singing a phrase in turn, round the circle. It depends on everyone being alert as well as anticipating their particular part of the song. Following on from each other when there's such a variety of voice qualities and registers is a challenge often resulting in hilarity but everyone has a go so that  the song becomes a confidence builder and after that we were ready to concentrate on the harmony parts for our songs.

The small number of keen instrument players are meeting earlier in the morning and they are enjoying the chance of a longer time to practise separately from the singing group.

THE FINTRY FINISH

Enjoy Music at Fintry

Our final meeting for the year was a grand affair _ scenic trip through Campsie Glen on a bright, sunny morning to arrive in Fintry and join up with the others (18 in all) in the welcoming atmosphere of our member's home.

Because of a road closure in Strathblane and diversions, there was much talk about the various routes we'd taken so that after getting into good voice, the MAP READING SONG, in 4 part harmony, was completely apt. 

1. Do you know where we are, how to get where we're going?

2. Give me the map!  You're holding it upside down.

3. Don't worry I've been here before Don't worry I can show you the way.

4. Take a left at the roundabout carry on through the market square

Second left at the railway bridge, past the church and you're there!

It was impressive how quickly we learned the parts and in particular how we kept together _ a fun song which I'm sure we'll pick up easily when we return to it.

The other new song, also in 4 part harmony, that we tackled this morning, was by way of a thank you for the chance to sing in these lovely surroundings. 

THIS ROOM: May we fill this room with joy and harmony.

By now we'd worked up healthy appetites and the food we'd brought to share was beckoning. We feasted in conviviality, enjoying the opportunity for talk together in contrast to our normal morning where the coffee break is never long enough to allow for any lengthy conversation.

We parted mid-afternoon, having noted several dates:

1. Sunday 20th May:  2:00 - 4:30 Corinna Hewitt's singing workshop in Fintry.

2. Sunday 20th May:  7:30 The Clydesiders in the Sports Centre in Fintry

3. 2nd week in July, a get together, details still to be arranged.

4. ENJOY MUSIC! starts again on Tuesday 11th September 2012.

Here are some photos from our lovely day at Fintry -- Click on the Play Button below then -- allow some time to load the album. Also if you click on each photograph you will see a larger picture

This photo album personalized with Smilebox

CARILLON DE VENDOME - TAKE 2

CARILLON DE VENDOME - SINGERS TOO

Yes, we did put it all together and it will be interesting to see how we can learn from this recording and improve on it next week.

SPRING-A-DING-DING.

After warming up with, among other things,

I NEED A WAITER _WITH SOME WATER -
I NEED A WAITER WITH SOME WATER FOR MY DAUGHTER
I NEED A WAITER WITH SOME WATER
WITH SOME WATER FOR MY DAUGHTER
SO MY DAUGHTER DOESN'T DIE OF THIRST.

the ditty, sung at a cracking pace and in four parts, left us with trembling lips and one or two aching jaws but voices ready for a good sing.

ALEYKUM ASALAAM was written and sung by choir leader Nickomo a couple of days after 9/11 and means "Peace be unto you". We quickly picked up its rich harmonies, settled into the full sound and sang it many times over.

Moving on to something more lighthearted which is a 'must' for this time of year, we relished Johnny Mercer's witty (often forced) rhymes for SPRING SPRING SPRING, from Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. Its easy swing pace allows us to enjoy the words, but finding spaces to take a breath is the problem here.
After singing the three verses through twice, I can imagine this is one we'll be humming over the dishes till next week.

Finally, we sang Carl Orff's arrangement of the French song, CARILLON DE VENDOME, then learned the instrumental parts. This went well but by the time we were playing confidently, many singers had left, so we'll need to begin with this one next week to get the full effect.

SONG, DANCE AND CHIMES.

Healthy numbers this morning as well as confidence in our parts, meant that our ALLELUYA was one of the best I've heard from the group. The glad sound was a good and fond welcome back for a member who's recovering from illness.

JULIAN OF NORWICH literally moved forward today when our circle dancing member led us in a delightful dance while we sang.
Later, raising the pitch a minor third, we practised a chiming ostinato on glockenspiels and xylophones which accompanied the tune on the flute and next week the aim is to put the song, dance and instrumental together in a single piece.
Now that's something to look forward to!

A SONG FOR THE DAFFODILS

Loud are the bells of Norwich
And the people come and go
Here by the tower of Julian
I tell them what I know.


Ring out bells of Norwich and let the winter come and go.
All shall be well again, I know.


Love like a yellow daffodil
Is coming through the snow,
Love like a yellow daffodil
Is Lord of all I know.

On this beautiful sunny morning we revived Sydney Carter's song from 1981, JULIAN OF NORWICH, learning the alto and bass parts.
It's remarkable how that phrase, All shall be well again, I know, the words of the medieval mystic, a woman, though called Julian of Norwich after the cathedral beneath which she lived in a cell, has kept resonating through the ages, in good times and bad and it is a wonderful, feel good sing as we look towards the spring after a gloomy winter.
Coming back from the coffee, and in response to our Welsh member who had bemoaned our failure to mark Saint David's day last week, we relaxed for a few minutes to listen to the beautiful lullaby Suo Gan played by harpist Catrin Finch and sung by soprano Caryl Ebenezer.

NUMBERS MAKE THE DIFFERENCE

Spring was in the air, bringing out all our members save two who are unwell and we were also joined this morning by three visitors who we hope will return. As a result, the six men gave a fine bass line to our African chant BANUWA. 

Inspired by this, and enjoying the full harmony sound, we easily swept the visitors along with us in the four part ALLELUYA and followed on from that with ROW ON.

We started this week on a new song, THE MOON MAN, by Corinna Hewitt the young Scottish singer and harpist. She's made a lovely melody and harmonic arrangement for the poem by Mildrew Plew Merriman and although it may take some weeks for us to get comfortable with the unusual harmonies as it switches from major to minor keys, I feel sure it suits our group and we'll sing it well.

We ended the morning singing and playing COME MY CHILDREN DEAR and look forward to more mornings with such a healthy turnout making a joyful sound.

AN IMPROVISING FOR VALENTINE'S DAY

Continuing our focus on improvising, we took the rhyme

Roses are red
Violets are blue
Sugar is sweet
And so are you.

for a 'peg' to hang our melodies on.
As the singing progressed round the circle, it was good to hear how everyone added a melody for each line in turn, in response to the previous singer and I can see that this kind of improvising is worth pursuing, allowing us to let the voices flow freely.

HOW CAN I KEEP FROM SINGING? now has an alto part in the chorus, which will be heard to full effect next week when today's absentees return.
We ended the morning, after limbering up on some scales, with COME MY CHILDREN DEAR on the instruments. (See our blog for January 2011) --- CLICK HERE

DISCOVERING OUR INNER SELVES

Something never in short supply in our group is empathy, so that when a member told us of the challenge she's facing to sing improvised dialogue in a community production of a spoof opera, we thrust ourselves into having a go, just to understand what it would feel like.
Beginning with a completely spontaneous, sung, remark from me, the dialogue was continued round the group, each person in turn responding to the one before with a new phrase. To our utter surprise, not only was the singing good, but the improvised 'script' was hilarious and not one person failed to sing when their turn came along. 
I think the exercise was a fine encouragement for our opera star member and it was a revelation, too, how some who regularly have difficulty with holding a melody line, were able to sing out loud and clear, improvising words and music on the spot. Wonderful what we can do when we just 'let go' and allow our deeper selves to direct us.
Perhaps this is something worth exploring further.

We will have to making a booking for the ENJOY MUSIC! crowd for that show when it's staged.

After that, we sang ALWAYS THE SINGING with harmony in the chorus and HOW CAN I KEEP FROM SINGING? 
Finally, getting off the 'singing' topic, we revised the harmonies for ROW ON and managed to sing it rather well, with a lovely, full sound which left just enough time for us to do some scales on the instruments, adding rhythm and percussion, at the end of the morning.

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL AT ENJOY MUSIC

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ENJOY MUSIC AT CHRISTMAS

CLICK HERE TO SEE ANOTHER VERSION OF THE PHOTOGRAPHS FROM OUR CHRISTMAS LUNCH


To hear all our singing click on the Smilebox below. Please allow time to load -- depends how good your broadband connection is. If you view it on Full Screen then press ESC to come out of the full screen

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WE BOOGIE INTO CHRISTMAS.

We learned THE CEREMONY BOOGIE, a short song by Helen Yeomans, last week and sang it for the special birthday of one of our members. Coming back to it today, we soon settled into the boogie rhythm and by the end of the morning the three part harmony was sounding good. Since our lead in the tenor group was missing today we left that part for next week.

Donald Swan's and Arthur Scholey's setting of BABOUSHKA was our new song this morning. The six verses tell the story beautifully and the contrasting high and low melodies for Baboushka and The Kings respectively will allow us to show off especially the high voices in our group that haven't had a chance to shine lately.

We set ourselves quite a task today, getting our tongues round the Catalan words of the Orff- Keetman arrangement of
CATALAN CHRISTMAS DANCE. There is a singable English translation but the Catalan is much more interesting _ and who would ever sing 'Fum, fum, fum' in English?

A vinticinc de desembre
Fum, fum, fum!
Ha nascut un minyonet
ros i blanquet, ros i blanquet,
fill de la Verge Maria,
n’es nat en una establia
Fum, fum, fum!

We'll build this up gradually to what will be an exciting piece for Christmas.

LOVE, A TEAR AND FOOLS IN A BARROW.

Getting the beat -- Click to enlarge

AMORE and UNA LACRIMA _ these Italian words give the opportunity to concentrate on forming good vowel sounds and we took full advantage this morning, warming up our voices until we were singing out with gusto as we moved up the scale.

We continued with the round:
Hungry hunters sing a song
And bring along a banging gong.

The ng sounds of this allow us to feel the resonance in our voices and as we are singing it well now, it also results in beautiful harmonies.

Following the coffee, it was all hands to the beaters. After adding the missing instrument, the whip and learning the concluding section of the piece, we played, right through, FIVE FOOLS IN A BARROW, understanding for the first time I think, how exciting this piece is.
It will be wonderful now to come back to it in the coming weeks and begin to enjoy it in a deeper way.

ON A GREY MORNING WE SHOW FAITH IN THE BLUE SKIES.

When I discovered the round I WILL RISE by Alison Burns, it reminded me of a saying often used by a construction foreman Jakob had working for him who, at the end of a day when unforeseen rain made the concrete pour impossible, somebody severed a water main, _ in fact everything that could go wrong went wrong on the same day _ would say:
"Well there's a whole new day tomorrow, untouched!"
The song while not easy to pick up, has a real feeling of optimism, that we can start afresh tomorrow, which makes it enjoyable to sing. We will work on it in the coming weeks and look forward to doing it as a round.

I will rise into blue sky, I will rise_______
I will rise into blue sky, I will rise_______
You'll find me in silver, you'll find me in gold,
I will rise into blue sky, I will rise_______

(When we arrived this morning, the rain was lashing down from grey clouds, but as we were leaving, the sun shone out of______blue sky!)

In good voice after that, we concentrated on ALWAYS THE SINGING to learn the 4 part harmonies for the last section of the chorus and this should be very effective. We may in time even manage the harmonies for the whole of the chorus!

The harmony parts in ROW ON, with our smaller numbers today, while secure, were not well balanced, but this will be a good sound when we are back to our full attendance.

Note for those sent an audio file from your webmaster -- it will only open with iTunes or quicktime not windows media -- Download the file then right click the highlighted file with your mouse and take the option OPEN WITH and choose either iTunes or quick time player to hear the song "I Will Rise"

YEAR FIVE AND FLYING

Yes, amazingly this is our fifth year of ENJOY MUSIC! with no sign of flagging. We approach our warm ups with gusto and after a few weeks discovering our 'support' in those stomach muscles, we are feeling the power in the voices. It's great to feel all that extra breath and enjoy singing the longer phrases.

Our other focus these days is on keeping a flat tongue while singing, which is no easy matter if you've never given it a single thought. But allowing the sound a clear way out by keeping the tongue flat makes a big difference to the tone and we're working on that.

Coming back to I'LL FLY AWAY this morning, we took some time to remember the parts but our nineteen good voices made a rich sound and that blend sounded even better when we moved on to ROW ON, the beautiful fishermen's song in Ali Burns's arrangement with very close harmonies.

On the instruments, we played a slow downward scale supported by rhythm on the drum and maracas in three beat time.
The piece, called DECORATING THE THIRD, starts off very simply and moves on with decorations to each note of the scale. Certainly something to work at next time.

I'm not able to come next next week so our next meeting is on Tuesday 4th October.

- Posted using BlogPress from Carol's iPhone

ENJOY MUSIC STARTS NEXT WEEK

Are you missing ENJOY MUSIC? I hope so because I am and I'm looking forward to getting together with everyone again for our new session which starts this coming Tuesday 6th September.
So it's time to rack those brains and see how many of our songs are still in there since last May and even do a few ma mae me maw moos while you're rattling some dishes in the sink or giving the grass the (hopefully) last cut.

Very best wishes,
Moira.

A NEW CARL ORFF PIECE - FIVE FOOLS IN A BARROW.

When I introduced this piece to the group two weeks ago the response was very sceptical. The text is an old rhyme and as such is not particularly inspiring, but in Orff's setting for voices, barred instruments and percussion it comes alive in a fun, exciting and delightful way.
In spite of having lost half of our number to golf, holidays, bird watching, invigilating and family commitments, our thirteen voices picked up the harmonies in no time and proceeded to transfer the melodies on to the instruments with impressive dexterity, allowing us to feel the potential of this music.
I was immediately sorry this was our closing day of the session and hope we're able to pick up in September where we left off today.

MUSIC GROUP PRESENTS MILNGAVIE C.E. WITH A FRAMED PHOTO OF THEIR SWANS

Moira, Michael, janitor of the C.E. Centre and Carol - Click to Enlarge

 The Enjoy Music group have presented this beautiful framed photograph taken by one of the members of the group, Carol Fell, at the beginning of February this year - just when the ice was melting after the long cold winter. The photograph is to be hung in the foyer of the Centre.

Below are a few photographs of the birds on the pond that we watch ---- We are now into May and the Swans have started to build their nest. You can see it in the distance if you click on the photo above to enlarge.

FORAY TO FINTRY

Once again Moira had invited us for a summer meeting at her farm in Fintry. The rain which had lashed down as we drove, soon cleared to let us enjoy the lovely views from her windows in every direction and the wonderful quality of light in the room with the vaulted roof where we sing _ exhilarating to hear the difference in sound from the low ceilinged room we sing in normally. Even the keyboard gave a much fuller sound!
After singing through some old favourites we learned EL MEU AVI, a habanera from Catalonia. The habanera rhythm is fun to sing and it's interesting to take the text apart, guessing the word meanings using clues from everyone's various knowledge of French, Latin and Spanish.
After that we were entertained by tunes on the mouth organ and beautiful songs with guitar, both much enjoyed.
Lunch was a high point _ good food, wine and unhurried talk. The hen pheasant strutting past outside looked envious!
We're back in the C.E. Centre next week, 17th May, for our final meeting of the year.