Rudsamblog

On Hilissuvi:
We tried using our brains and pay attention to what we were singing, and apparently it worked because Ollie said it sounded nice. There was also a tone of hopefulness that we would continue to do so. So the thing to remember for this piece is: Switch On.

We mainly worked starting from bar 14 (the heavy 'Ja seda suve' entry).
Things to note:
Dynamics:
Achieve f in bar 14 by creating a rich, full, heavy, sound, rather than just shouting. Ollie likes to refer to this as the vocal 'Ogre' sound.
Do the dim. in bar 15, but don't become weak or breathy.

Blend:
Top BASSES need to be stronger in bar 14.

SOPRANOS: Keep the F# sharp
BASSES: tune the 5ths well, 1st basses don't let the G go flat.
TENORS: not too breathy (bars 15 & 16).

Misc.: bar 9: TENORS and SOPRANOS: try not to scoop the F.

Debussy: Dieu! qu'il la fait bon regarder
Nice piece! We notebashed the rest of the piece and went over pronunciation.
Not much to say, except:

Ollie will give us a F# at the beginning. He'll beat a 3/4 bar before the bar where we come in, so it's 1, 2, 3, 1 and then we're in on 2.

Green fir forest (the chinese piece)
Had a go at this.

Page 1
middle system:
SOPRANOS 2 sing Soprano solo
SOPRANOS 1 sing the top choral soprano line

then switch around for

bottom system:
SOPRANOS 1 sing Soprano solo
SOPRANOS 2 sing the top choral soprano line

P. 2 SOPRANOS make sure you go right up to the D in the first couple of bars.

Cloudburst:
2nd page, after Sebastian's solo (once he remembers to sing it :-),
TENORS (and BASSES) follow Ollie who leads us into our bar where we start with 'Picos ...'.

From bar 28 TUTTI make sure everything's connected for the next few bars

During the end of John's speaking bits on page 5 and page 6 Ollie beats 1, 2, 3, 4, and our 'Hay que ...' entry is on the 4.

Bar 37 until the end of that page: sing LEGATO, shape the lines.

Next week we will skip ahead to page 10. HAVE A LOOK IN ADVANCE.

On page 11, the small notes mean repeat the phrase (we'll go over this).
In bar 12 a (15-note!) chord starts to build up, for which Ollie, like a football coach choosing players' positions, picked voices as follows:

So, in bar 75, taking the format Note: Singer and going from high to low, we have

SOPRANOS 1:
B: Helen
G#: Anna-Lauren
F#: Kay1

SOPRANOS 2:
E: Claire
D: Susan
C: Alison
B: Elaine

ALTOS:
A: Rachael and Kay2
G#: Anne

TENORS:
D: Chris
C: Douglas & Oliver2
B: Robin

BASSES:
usual split 1st and 2nds.

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Anouncements:

Saturday rehearsal Feb. 21st at Priestfield. The pianist who's playing Cloudburst with us will be there, so we want to have reached a certain level by then. That's why we're skipping ahead to page 10 for next week.
Arrive 10 o'clock for coffee if you want it. Rehearsal starts 10.30 on the dot. We will have a 1/2 to 3/4 hour break for lunch. Please bring your own food. Aim to finish about 4.30pm.

Committee meeting taking place today.

Everyone's happy for our main christmas concert (Dec. 12) to take place at Augustine United church, on George IV bridge. Anne will finalise the booking and take care of all the Performing Rights Society stuff. Thanks Anne!

There is a clip of pages 7 and 8 of Cloudburst on Chris' webspace, which can be accessed via: http://tinyurl.com/aphlbx
He told me he'll soon put up another clip with an extract of where we will start singing from next week.

Next week, we have Anna-Lauren on warmup and Susan on notes.