Rudsamblog

The first thing I have to report is that Ollie went home after the warm-up and Anne took over. Although he had an important exam the following day Ollie had committed to coming to rehearsal, but when he got several last-minute messages from people explaining why they wouldn't be there, he began to wonder why he should be making the effort to turn up himself in the circumstances. There were only 13 of us, apart from him, so that makes 6 absentees. We do know that some of the 6 did give advance warning and had very good reasons for not being at the rehearsal so please note this isn't targeted at this rehearsal's absentees in particular. There has been patchy attendance almost all of this year with more people absent most weeks than was usual with Frances.

At the AGM Ollie explained very clearly that he really NEEDS to know AT LEAST A COUPLE OF DAYS IN ADVANCE if people are not going to be able to come. It is very difficult to plan what to do if, at the last minute, he finds that key people are going to be missing. Obviously everyone has last-minute emergencies, and in a choir of 20, you might expect a couple of people to be off each week, but in a lot of cases it should be possible to give more notice. Also, if you only text an hour before rehearsal starts, people tend to assume it's just an excuse whether it's perfectly genuine or not. Those who do turn up, often having made considerable efforts to do so, are bound to feel let down by those who don't.

So PLEASE phone, text or email Ollie as soon as you realise you won't be able to come. Remember there's a calendar to put down pre-planned absences. If you have to miss a rehearsal it is up to you to read the notes and do your homework before the next rehearsal.

I know it's sometimes hard, but if you're just feeling a bit tired please try and make the effort to come anyway – personally I usually find that my tiredness disappears after the first 10 minutes and I feel a lot better afterwards! I suspect Ollie is starting to think that some of us aren't really giving rehearsals a high enough priority, so it isn't just about letting him know more in advance, it's also about being committed to Wednesdays for choir apart from illness, holidays or unavoidable work commitments etc. We really don't want to be the sort of choir that has rules about a minimum percentage attendance if you want to sing in a concert (or stay in the choir!) as we really hope that we all look forward to coming on Wednesdays and enjoy our rehearsals.

Finally, Ollie says that if we want to do more challenging pieces like Sleep then we have to be prepared to turn up and work at it, otherwise our repertoire will stay static. So it's up to us.

Now for the rest of the notes:
Thomas did an impromptu warm-up then Anne took over and we started with
The Puddock
This was new to quite a few people. Although some of us had sung it by heart in competition, we didn't want to show the others up so we managed to pretend we had forgotten quite a lot of it very convincingly! (Quote – Anne: " John knows what he's doing ..". John (plaintively) "But I've lost my note". OK, you had to be there.)

Errata: Altos bar 15 on p2 – the first note ("quoth") is E like the sops, not D.
Bar 32 – "and" should be "an'" (no d on the end). In fact there isn't a "d" on the end of any "and" so don't say it. If you see what I mean.

It's in 6/8. The tune is fine, but the underparts are tricky. Write into your copy whatever will help you come in on the correct beat of the bar.
And come off at the right time too! The accompaniment is just puddock … puddock … puddock etc and not all of the puddocks are the same length.
You can see what is going to happen if we don't all get it right.

Watch the dynamics. The accompaniment should be percussive but quieter to allow the story to be sung out. Women – dodgy bit in bars 22-23. Men – top of p3 is tricky – tenors check notes.

Son ar Chistr
We ran through it once to introduce it to Natalie and "just to keep it in our minds" for the rest of us – er hem.

Hide and Seek
I've not got many notes because I was concentrating too hard and forgot!
We took it quite slowly to get the rhythms back on track as we've started to get a bit sloppy. Sebastian will not be clicking during a performance so we must each learn to click internally (?!) and feel the syncopation. Look out for the bits where you get the melody – the word "Melody" is written in but rather small. If you haven't got the melody ease off a bit. We went as far as F.

Tourdion
Here is the Master Plan. (I'd bet anything the Norwegians won't sing it the same way and confusion will reign!)
There are two halves to the song – A and B. (A is the LHS of the page, B is the RHS).

Phase 1: A A B A - Tenors and Basses only

Phase 2: A A B A - Altos join Tenors and Basses

Phase 3: A A B B - Sops join Altos, Tenors and Basses

Phase 4: B B A A - Altos and Basses stay on their own part
BUT Sops and Tenors swap their parts,
i.e. Sops sing the Tenor line, Tenors sing the Sop line

Phase 5: A A - Tutti, singing our normal parts

Once you're more familiar with it and know which bit of tune goes with which words, it may help just to jot down a word crib instead of the As and Bs: as I'm a sop, mine reads:
Quand je bois du vin clairet x 2
Chantons et buvons x 2
En mangeant x 2 (tenor)
Buvons bien x 2 (tenor)
Quand je bois du vin clairet x 2
(I think – don't have the music with me!)

Tenors, basses (and sops when you swap) – note the words for A are different second time round.

NOTICES:
I hope you'll get proper notes form the committee meeting as I couldn't keep up with Anne!

Special points to note:

Czech concert – we MUST do a lot of publicity in order to get an audience for them – flyers, posters, emails etc (note to myself – must email the emailing list BEFORE we go on holiday in June).

Committee has agreed:

• £200 towards new uniform
• £200 towards food for Czech visit
• up to £40 towards food for Norwegians on 27th May.

Jenny is in charge of sorting out a date for a trip to Michael Buck's (near Ayr) for madrigals, one Saturday in July or August.

Please bring your music if you're coming to meet the Norwegians on Sunday 27th - including Toll, Brurmarsj, Salley Gardens, Varvindar Friska, Tourdion, anything by Burns, Irish Blessing ... if you've got copies. Please could you arrange for someone to make some spare copies if needed as I won't be there next Wednesday?

Susan