Rudsamblog

Hello Y'all. There was too much Gaelic pronunciation malarkey for one of such remarkably little brain to cope with so forgive me if I've missed any of it. I hope you were all concentrating. And if you weren't there then I'm very sorry for you because it wasn't easy and I'm not going to make it any better.

Small group Boney people: Ollie has e-mailed us now so I don't need to remind you about extra rehearsals but do let him know that you would like to meet on TUESDAY. Thank you!!

We welcomed a visit from Peter who was home from China having left Mirren behind. I hope she didn't mind. He had to listen to:

The Gaelic pieces.

First we read through Air a' Ghille and were given some corrections as to pronunciation - more of that later.

We did the same with Mo Ghille Dubh and then sang it so here's the details:

• Women will sing verses 1 and 4. Men will take verses 2 and 5. There will be no verse 3. Everyone will sing the refrain.
• For the men's verses the basses will sing the bottom line, Robin and Douglas the top and Chris the middle. In the refrain Chris will join the other tenors.
• The sopranos are split much as usual, I think, Kay, AnnaLauren and Helen on top and others middle but I may be wrong. According to my notes Kay is singing the top line all by herself. I think weariness and confusion had set in by then - never to leave.

So, the words - oh! those words.

Verse 1, I think we are to give 'thruaigh' (hrooahy) a clear two syllables with the stress on the second using a snap of the Scottish variety ie break the crotchet into a semi-quaver followed by a dotted quaver. If this is wrong please would someone who knows better pass on appropriate correction. Thanks.
Last word line 4: should be pronounced leeohnurch, not 'nuch'.
(note the added 'r').

Verse 2, first line last word make the ch of chay-luh very Germanic.
Line two second word which now reads choo-ruch should sound more like to-or-ruch but don't forget your Gaelic 't's.
Line four second word is pronounced airkish not akish.

Verse 4, was a bugger to get right, frankly. Not so hard once sorted (she says and proceeds to get the following completely wrong...). Line one 'grar' is the most important word therefore we need to play with the rhythm to give it it's correct emphasis. So 'huck me' is sung on the first beat of the bar dotted quaver, semi-quaver, 'grar' on the following dotted quaver and 'nach' on the semi-quaver. The word coeurchull (note change in pronunciation) has the stress on the first syllable so 'coeur..' takes a crotchet value, '..chull' is sung on the dotted quaver and the first word of line two on the semi-q. The next job in line two is to make 'ulch' more important than 'un' so swap the note values around semi-q, dotted q.
Line three make sure that the 'jee..' of 'jeean' is sounded.
Line four 'nee-onin' should be more like 'nyonin' - it is a short word.
The important word here is 'surl' so sing it more like 'surwell' on the second dotted q/semi-q of the penultimate bar. And be sure to get the 'ch' good and strong on the word 'chorsa'.
Aaaagh!! Did any of that make sense?

Verse 5 - this being a boys' verse I have no notes to speak of except that line three 'share gun' should read 'share sgun'.

The Refrain - no, not finished yet -
Bottom lines note that the 'har-ee' end of line two is not dotted.
Come in quickly and clearly with the first word of line three, 'shay' - dinnae hing aboot.
The word 'cuinyuhuch'.... hmmmm. Well, it's pretty near impossible.
The first syllable is sort of tight and then the 2 ch sounds need to be strong. Yes, there is another 'ch' in there and an 'r'- it should read: 'cuinyuchurch'. So go on - give it a try.

Air a' Ghille...
Verses 1,3 and 5 only. That is no verse 2 and no verse 4 whether that makes a nonsense of the song or not. Ollie doesn't care. And neither, quite frankly, do I.
We will start with a refrain sung by the women only. The women will sing this quietly and legato. Verse 1 will be louder and faster. Watch Ollie.

Some pronunciation corrections (of course):
Verse 1 second line, because there is an 'n' in front of it the 'g' of 'geelyan' is hardly there. Sing it more as if there is a 'y', we want no hard 'g's.
In the last line 'un orshlu' should sound more like 'unoo'orshla'.
Verse 5 'beown' means mountains and is the important word, not 'nam' - which I think means 'the'.
Line three 'Chaneecheen' should be 'Chraneecheen'.

Refrain: The first word of the third line is pronounced 'v(r)on', with a 'v'. Apparently there were some strange sounds going on.
Last line 'mo rooroch' should sound 'mo chrooroch'.

For all Gaelic songs remember Gaelic 't's and that a 'ch' on the end of a word should be heard - more phlegm says Ollie. I'm sure we can oblige. (Does anyone have a spittoon they could lend?)

Lastly - really - we sang Fhir a' Bhata. Verse 2 will be soprano melody only as usual - I thought it was all a little unfamiliar as I piped along.
Don't forget that we changed the 'le' bar 6 into a crotchet and that it should be sung lightly - it is not very important and shouldn't be allowed to get above itself.
Verse 1 second line, first word 'yeeurch'. Not sure what was wrong with it but that's how it should be.
Verse 2, sopranos, the last word 'hoorsich' make sure it's good and Germanic on the 'ch'.
That's all folks except that the small group as was that sang Cauld Blaws the Wind last year will do so again so please, if you are not singing the Carver in which case you will already be there, turn up for a rehearsal next week at 7.20. Thank you.