Rudsamblog

Please bear with me, there was quite a lot of useful technical stuff at the beginning of rehearsal. It needs to be read because there's only two weeks before our first recording and Ollie is really concentrating on getting our blend right, and being tighter.

HOMEWORK
Breathing. Get that diaphragm under control!! Use two hands. Place one on your first tyre...sorry, is there a diaphragm in there?... and one on your reserve fat area...sorry, tummy. Take breaths making sure when you breathe out your diaphragm is pushing your abdomen down. Keep the tummy still and just make sure only the diaphragm is moving. Practise this technique at home AND in pieces of music such as LUX and No8 of the Tormis pieces.
Practise getting a rich vowel sound. Make nice vowel sounds and horrid ones anywhere at any time. so you get used to rich vowel sounds and variants of it and can hear the difference. (Just an idea; if you're cooking it's fun to give each ingredient a different sound - carrots are good because they're shaped like crescendo and diminuendo signs. Chop some root to head and practise the vowel sound pp to ff, then chop some from head to root ff to pp, then make lots of carrot cake!)
It's IMPORTANT that we blend with the vowel sounds because, as Ollie demonstrated in rehearsal, it REALLY sounds bad if even one person is singing an AAAAA instead of AAAAH or vice versa.

PLEASE BE AWARE
That for the recording only, Ollie will beat a certain number of bars. PLEASE write how many on each piece of music so you don't come in too early or too late or have to ask how many bars he's beating EVERY rehearsal.

IMPORTANT THINKING APPLICATION
For the beginning of each piece of music we sang tonight we did a simple exercise where Ollie beat one or two bars, we sang - shhhhhhh - for one bar, then hit the first note with AH. Then we did it again singing - shhhh - then the first word/vowel sound of the piece. Ollie suggested we can practise this at home as well.
This was to show us that we MUST think about the first vowel sound we'll be singing WHILST Ollie is beating, NOT half a second bfore singing it! As demonstrated, it meant we were focused and gave the first note a much better quality.

WARM UP
Ollie turned us into snakes and, apart from making us head butt each other and lie on our backs and poo (as his snake does in self-defence), limbered us up the reptile way.
We also did some mirror work with a partner. THE REASON BEHIND THIS EXERCISE being that we need to WATCH visual instructions, like Ollie's conducting, so we come into a piece of music at the right speed. For instance in En Seule.

DINDIRIN
1) For recording purposes, Ollie will beat FOUR bars. He'll beat THREE bars of THREE beats, then ONE in a bar. Please write this on your copy.
2) We practised coming in at different speeds. And having a nice tone.
3) Come in almost on the 'I' of Dindirin. The note can't be sung on the first consonant of this word.
4) This piece would originally be sung by 4 people. Therefore the BLEND is very important to get right. Needs to be well tuned and well rounded.
5) It's THE nightingale, not A nightagale. (Guilty!!!)
6) D-ah-nya, NOT, D-aa-nya
7) Make sure you get the contrast between the first LEGATO half of verses and the 2nd half of the verses.
8) Put 'T's on the ends of words.
9) NO intrusive 'r's should be sung on Lover/wander/etc. Should sound more like 'ur' as in fur/bur/murky (unless you're from Newcastle!)

HANDING OVER TO ROBIN. THANKS. Jenny

Dark eyed Sailor

- Ollie will give 2 bars of 3 in
- Get the right sound forward vowel sounds and no breathiness
- Hum with half closed lips at the right points
- Make sure that you come off notes at the right time and give rests their full values
- Men watch Ollie for the bit that goes "then half..."
- Make a big difference between "bottom of the sea." and "then half..."

Tormis Set

The cat one
- 2 bars in (4 crotchets)

No.8
- Bar 6 take a crotchet off to breath quietly
- Tenors watch G in bar 7

No. 10
- Men should be a bit quieter

Hide and seek
- went surprisingly well

Anne said

- 1st CD recording March 12th 6.30pm to 10.30. St. Peter's in Newington (bring some food...)
- 2nd on the 16th April also St. Peter's (Possibly 9th April at Cannongate if St. Peter's no good)
- 3rd on Saturday the 14th June
- 15th April Interational students thing in the Playfair library get there as close to 5 pm as possible
- Another possible gig on the 7th November at the Pleasance

PS Sing in the shower