Rudsamblog

Jenny did the warm-up. I think you had to be there really, but we did mmm aaa ooo nnnng etc and breathed in as if we were sucking through a straw, after which we could sing the alphabet with better breath control (or so I'm told).

AVE MARIS STELLA
Sang it once through - not bad but a bit of a rabble in the middle.
Think smooth phrases, dynamics, no vibrato.
Shape the first vowel as you breath in before you start singing.
Emphasis on the ta of tatis, chay of coela.

Quote of the evening: Rit means "look at Ollie"!

Sops - watch you don't swoop in the Claritatis line (after first apparuit)

Watch Ollie to avoid t-t-t at end of phrase (I think this was apparuit again).

FLOW MY TEARS
Keep p for "chorus", (i.e. repeated "Flow flow my tears, Fall from your springs")
Crescendo through There (of "There let me live...") to bring out some lovely clashes.

DUM SPIRO SPERO
Not as easy as it looks - you need to be absolutely sure which notes you're singing so check. Jolly!

AURORA RUTILAT
Watch timing. Where were the fortes?
"loosees" not "loochees"

The whistle-stop tour ended with ...

BONNY AT MORN with Peter1 on flute.
We'll draw a veil over the preliminaries. I obviously have because I can't remember what they were but that's what it said in my notes.
It was really lovely with little bird twitters but couldn't we have some baas and moos as well?
We need to keep the volume down so that everyone can hear the flute.
Remember phrasing in the chorus particularly -
"Canny at neet bonny at morn"
"Tha's ower lang in thy bed bonny at morn"

Ollie pointed out we were singing in Aeolian mode - the scale you get if you play all the white notes from A to A. He then sang Kyrie Eleison with the notes in the same order as another illustration - I think.

AVE MARIS STELLA revisited.
To see if we remembered what we'd been doing - all parts must be moving together.

SLEEP
We separated M/F to note-bash the final bars. When we got back together it sounded amazingly good for the first time all the way through and I think we were all pretty pleased with ourselves!
COUNT! There's no shame in writing in 1..2..etc so do it where necessary. There's a tricky page turn so make sure you know where the words come.

Keep phrases smooth - attend to end of phrases.
Watch for end of phrase at bar 43 (pause marked...)
Bar 40 - take a BIG breath or you won't make it - write this in. Basses must come in in time - wherever it was they were a bit late.

But generally, for the first time through - fantastic!

N.B. one of the choir choices for this year is Vårvindar Friska - if you have a copy please add it to your folder.

BUSINESS STUFF:
Czech visit. St Georges turns out not to have an entertainment licence so would be too expensive. Anne and Ollie looking at alternative venues - Canongate Kirk, St Marks, Reid Hall?

Rachael has been asked if some of us would be willing to sing at a "Songs of Praise" service (without the cameras) at St Marks on Sunday 4th March at 5pm. She's already emailed us about it. Please drop her an email if you'd like to do it.

Social dates and what would we like to do - forms were going round. Ask Jenny if you didn't put down your preferences.

Sorry this is rather late - I knew there was something I was suppose to be doing over the weekend!

Visur
The second verse should be anguished
You should breathe through the vowels so that your note is ready to go before the note...if you see what I mean.
'Augun' has a kind of 'oy' sound at the start. Might be best to ask Anne to give you a demo of this. We did discuss it for a while and got progressively more confused!

Sleep
Anne said that the ladies were excellent. Don't know what Ollie said to the gentlemen but probably something similar.
We must flip the pages quickly
Bar 46 - ladies HAVE TO BE ON TIME otherwise it sounds like collapsing.
More pp at the beginning
round sound with the vowels. Also think abou the word 'lead'. It should be heavy - I actually have no idea what I meant by this note?!
Keep sleep in the last bars p throughout. DON"T DO A BIG 'P'- if you see what I mean. I reckon people will probably know what the piece is about by then.

If ye
No leaky phonage - this still makes me smile slightly!
We should pronounce vowels like Sebastian does so ask him for a demo.
This piece should have a certain tone. If should be 'eef'. It is a piece of early music so there should be no slurring (support the note), no vibrato esp from the warbling sopranos (you have been warned!) and more thinking about how the individual voice fits in with the rest of
the part. It should sound like four voices rather than lots.
According to Ollie we are, and I quote, "dipping our toes into polyphony" which seems like a beauty treatment or a very dangerous flirtation with a highly toxic chemical.

Bonny at Morn
Da das - react to the tune
The tune should shape the melody more and it did sound much better when we did this. Do swells and aim for certain notes e.g 'meadows'
Each verse has the melody twice - the first time the melody should be p, the second time it should be strong. This is the same for the underneath parts.
Sopranos place the top notes before you sing them. We have the tendency to go a bit flat methinks.

We then talked a wee bit about Cranshaws concert in May and a trip to Czech Republic.

Sederunt: Alison (chair), Christina, Elaine, John, Peter 2, Douglas, Peter 1, Sebastian, Robin, Chris, Ollie, Jenny, Mirren, Susan, Natalie, Anne, Claire, Rachael, Anna-Lauren
Apologies: Kay, Tom.

*
1. Music preferences

Ollie's draft list is quite draft – pieces can be taken out or put in
More Sheena's music please – in particular Holy Thursday
other contemporary
keep the variety
keep one or two jazzy pieces in the repertoire - PTH happy to arrange something if anyone has a favourite (preferably one that hasn't been done by choirs before!).
Ashokan Farewell
more early music
less lullabies
contemporary music
Others around the world – Asia? But a lot not appropriate for choirs
More in the style of the original – particularly Eastern European
Jewish folk songs? – John & Susan have a book

2. Venues and concerts booked/planned and potential for 2007 including the Czech choir visit

Thurs 9th April 6 pm Portrait Gallery

St Giles at 6.00 –some other time as well as Christmas? Nothing free until summer so we couldn't do Spring as we had hoped. 4 possibilities:
15th, 22 July or 19th, 26th August (latter during festival) - decided
19th preferred. [19th Aug now confirmed]

25th – 28th May visit from Norwegian choir for a social only.

Friday 6th July (probably 7.30) joint concert with Czech choir St Georges West, Shandwick Place.

Sat 6th October Juniper Green 300th year celebration – we offered to sing afternoon or evening. Will pay us £200 fee, venue as yet undecided.

Christmas 07
Fri 7th Dec Glasgow Cathedral concert with 700 audience definitely booked

Rosslyn – if we want to do it again it would have to be 8th December as there is a show thereafter. [8th Dec confirmed]

St Giles could be Sun 16th [now confirmed].

Priestfield – usually earlier in December. General agreement to do it again this year but review annually.

Other possibilities
Cranshaws have indicated they'd like us back in the summer – Anne to find out when people are available.

Poetry library too small for full group.

Don't forget the Swallow Theatre in Whithorn – autumn?

Piping Hot return visit to Edinburgh?

It's early days yet – we may well get other invitations as we go along

3. Return trip to Czech Republic in 2008?
The Czechs have offered to put us 20 up for 4 nights in return for us accommodating 40 of them for 2 nights. Probably spring, summer or autumn. Anne will sound out possible dates & costs.
Grant? – Possible but not from the same body as before as they didn't support foreign travel. Anne will investigate.

Earlier suggestion of Stavanger 2008 – heard nothing more so now discounted in favour of Susice trip.

4. Dress [as requested by committee!].
This doesn't necessarily mean we need to change the shirt colours, but a discussion on whether we look good on stage or could improve in any way

No time to discuss this fully now. Susan suggested that people email her with suggestions – Mirren to devise a questionnaire to try to summarise people's views.

5. Music -implications of buying/copying music
We need to buy legal copies of music, particularly for living composers, so this to be taken into account when budgeting.

Congratulations to Claire on her engagement!

PTH 14.01.07

Well, I was going to send out a reminder about the non-compulsory extra
rehearsal on saturday night, but it seems Jenny already did it in her notes.
Ta, Jenny!

So instead i'd like to say thank you so much everyone for making the first
rehearsal really, really enjoyable. It wasn't half as scary as I thought it was
going to be! Also, thanks for all your suggestions and if anyone thinks of any
more then by all means let me know.

See you all next week,
Ollie

...as far as I can remember. I didn't think to do them until halfway
through...

Thanks again to Alison for chairing the meeting, and Peter for taking notes so I don't need to expand on details here. BUT if you have any comments to make about the current form of dress for concerts please pass them on to Susan and Mirren. I suggested Mirren did one of her question research thingummies to hand round. It would be helpful to know if, and why, you aren't happy with the concert dress at present. Whether you've heard audience comments. Whether you have constructivecriticism and ideas rather than - ... not wearing thaaaat...pink doesn't suit my complexion...and who suggested we could wear anything at all? Take those tutus off NOW, you cheeky tenors!) .

See Anne's email for dates of forthcoming concerts

SO..NEW PIECE (for everyone) SLEEP (Pick up a copy next week if you weren't at rehearsal)

We split into groups for first 15 mins, Anne taking the women and Ollie the men. We rehearsed up to ...'bed'.

WOMEN ALTOS

* be strong on the E Natural, it's supposed to clash in a lovely way.
* watch that awkward jump ALTOS from E Natural to B Flat, SOPRANOS F to D top of p.2
* Otherwise it was basically note bashing.

MEN Don't know what you got up to in the other room

EVERYONE Phrasing - Bar 1 - 4; 4 - 7; 7 - 13.
YES REALLY it is a LOOOOOONG phrase!!
Mark phrasing in.

Hard Consonant on D for Dune (not tsune; chune; tune)

Mouth chamber style - ie open the back of the mouth and sing like a bull frog!....

....especially to get a rich sound in bar 17

....it will help with the long phrase bar 7 - 13.

This is all I managed to write down for this by the time i realised it was a serious rehearsal...ahem...!!

VISUR VATNESENDA ROSA

Begin by making the shape of the vowel you're going to sing with your mouth as you take your first breath.

SHAPE - Aim for FOWTHRA and THITT rather than STEINE and MITT

Breathe through the 'O' in bar 21

Make a different sound in 2nd page - The chords are major
Smile - it makes the tone or something brighter

Bar 17 is about her missing him most. It's FORTE depicts ANGUISH and moves to DESPAIR as she's tired of crying.

BASSES are splitting on the last note - John on bottom D (and Thomas?)
Sebastian on A
Peter II on D 8ve
(to strengthen/support bottom D)

Well done Ollie, we seemed to get a lot done for a first rehearsal and I probably haven't covered half of what you directed...!

Other Notes

IF (and this is not compulsory) you feel like you want to note bash, need to do a bit more work, feel a bit lost with a piece of music, haven't seen a piece of music on the draft list before and feel a need to look at it, or even if you think it would be fun to have an extra rehearsal, there will be a few SATURDAY evening (8pm) informal get-togethers at Chris' flat. THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NO PRESSURE ON ANYONE to attend. He's starting to have the extra note bashing sessions now because the last ones were always a bit near the concert when folks got a bit panicky!! And also it's easier for Ollie when school work isn't so demanding at the beginning of term.

AMEN, Jenny

After a truly excellent Christmas and New Year, the first few days back at
work filled me with Seasonal Affective Disorder (or it could be just
withdrawal symptoms). But then we got together for our first rehearsal of
the year, and everything looks good again. Welcome back to Wednesday
evenings, everybody, and welcome, Ollie, to the virtual podium. Here is
Rudsamblog cleared out and ready to start again. Watch this space!

Hi all

Just a quick email.

1. I am sending off the end of project report to the lottery grant
office and wonder whether anyone has either a hard copy or an electronic
copy of any/all of the Highland tour programmes and/or posters so I can
include some, particularly if we acknowledged Awards for All.

2. Last night Alison mentioned the possibility of a summer Cranshaws
concert which we all thought a good idea. May or June would be good and
would fit in with other planned concerts. Could you let me know next
Wednesday if you can't make any Saturdays in May or June [I know the
Wexlers are away from 18 June]. The sooner we can agree a date [s] the
sooner we can discuss dates with Cranshaws.

3. I have contacted St Giles and Rosslyn and they have now confirmed the
dates we discussed last night, that is 19 August -St Giles at 6, 8 Dec
evening - Rosslyn, 16 Dec - St Giles at 6. Other dates for 2007 as
mentioned last night. For Kay and Thomas's benefit, they are:

19 April 1800 hours, Portrait Gallery

6 July 1930 hrs probably, St George's West, Shandwick Place, joint
concert with Czech choir

6 October afternoon or evening, to be confirmed, Juniper Green 300
[Juniper Green first mentioned in records 300 years ago]

7 December ,evening, Glasgow Cathedral, Cancer research concert with 700
in audience and in front of royalty.

Right, now back to finding out about cheap flights to Prague for 2008!
Oh, the life of the retired is all go!

Cheers
Anne

--
Anne Grindley