Rudsamblog

Czech song:
We learnt the 2nd part of the Czech song (la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la), but this was primarily a Cloudburst rehearsal (see below)

Cloudbu(r)st:
We tried to get back on track with Cloudburst.
The first of two focus sections of the rehearsal concerned pages 7 and 8, starting with the 'rai, rai, ces ces .....' chords (bar 43).
These should really be p to begin with. Keep in mind though that although dynamics are p, each entry should have a clear little emphasis in the attack. As Whitacre puts it:

"Bars 43-46 should be soft bell tones, gradually expanding and growing in intensity"

I imagine these like the sound of bells, briefly loud when first hit and softly ringing thereafter, as if hit with a felt-capped mallet to soften the timbre of the sound and take away any harshness, but with some residual crispness (aided by what should be a crisp rolling 'r' for 'rai ... ', 'tro ...' and 'ra ...' - c.f. AnnaLauren's pronunciation.) Ok, ok, so I'm over the top in how I describe things (see frequency geekiness below).

--- aside ---
A nice thing to notice is the words that this music carries. The relevant lines are:
"We must sing till the song puts forth
roots [raíces]
trunk [tronco]
branches [ramas]
birds [pajaros]
stars [astros]
[...]"

It struck me as really nice how the imagery here going from the foundation of the tree reaching up towards the sky is reflected in the buildup of each chord individually (namely from the bottom up: the basses always start and e.g. in bar 45 the lower voices supply the branches after which the Altos I and the Sops deposit the birds), as well as in the fact that each successive chord reaches further harmonically speaking ('up' in the case of the first interval amongst the basses) and correspondingly higher up along and eventually above the tree.
--- aside ---

Everybody watch the tuning on these chords. Maybe listen to the recording, and pause it just before your note to check you've got it right, or if you have a piano / keyboard play the preceding notes on there. Idea is to get it nice and spot, be certain based on the note before you so we can get clear and well timed attacks.

The duration of the fermatas at the end of each bar (bars 43-45) have been left somewhat undefined while we focus on the tuning to begin with, hence some uncertainty in timings for starting each next bar remain for now. We'll sort this out later.

Dynamics: a nice crescendo starting from p in bar 43 and coming to mf in bar 47.

Prepare the page turn going from page 7 to page 8. Make sure you know without having to turn the page exactly what note is your next (write it in!).

You'll see the very last thing on page 7 is a breath mark. What follows on page 8 is phrased as follows:
Bar 53 and 3/4 of bar 54 ("sangre, la marea") is one phrase, followed by
Final 1/4 of bar 54, bar 55 and 3/4 of bar 56 ("la tierra y el cuerpo") is another phrase.

Bar 53: lower parts f, nice and strong, upper parts be aware of this (beware?)

Bar 57: in case there was any doubt, it's "volver", not "volvar".

Pronunciation (generally): some friendly recommendations from our chica northern-Mejicana :-)

* ROLL ('FLIP'?) YOUR 'R's !
This includes, but is not limited to:
"raí" which should never sound like the english "wry"
"tronco"
"ramas"
"astros"
"desenterrar"
"perdida"
"reco*rdar"
"tierra"
"relampagos"

All it requires is a momentary vibration of the tip of the tongue, without even much breath behind it (more like a flash of cat purring than like a machine gun).

* v should sound like a mix of 40% English v, 60% English b
"volver" ~> "bolber", "lluvia" ~> "yubia"

* d is soft, like a Gaelic d

* ñ (as in "soñar") sounds like, how to put it, ny in the Russian nyet

* Vowel sounds: the a generally sounds much brighter and 'open' than the posh English 'ah' sound

That's the best I can describe, best just to listen to AnnaLauren.

The second focus section of the Cloudburst rehearsal was the Cloudburst itself + its run up, i.e. bars 65 - 79, on pages 10 - 13.

By the end we were going through all of this by heart, though still somewhat hesitantly.

Bars 65 - 79 should be BY HEART. Aim to know what you need to do during these bars by heart asap.

Bar 65: enter really softly pp - let's put a smile on Ollie's face.

Remember: we start raising our arms as soon as everyone's finished singing their ascending scale - just listen and keep track of when the Soprano I's finish their ascending scale, it's simply the end of a bar.

MEMORIZE: start raising arms (fists clenched) on the first beat of bar 68.

Obviously the thunderclap on the first beat of bar 70 must be synchronised or else it'll be Cloudbust (what we need is a Cloudboom). I am unsure of whether fermata or not at the end of bar 69, will ask Ollie next rehearsal.

Also, firm attack with emphasis on 'mah', the first beat of bar 70. This means being sure of your tuning, so you can concentrate on the attack.

Bars 70 - 79 Finger snapping, thigh slapping and clapping:
This starts hesitantly right after the thunderclap, and increases over the next few bars, building up to a fury by the end of bar 75 that is sustained through bar 77, with everyone reverting to snapping that quickly loses intensity in bar 78 and disappears entirely by the end of bar 79.

--- Question for Ollie ---
as just described we've been reverting to snapping in bar 78 and letting it die out completely by the end of bar 79, while Whitacre's instructions are to only revert to snapping at the beginning of bar 79 (marked by ( 5 ) ), and then to "gradually fade until the end [of the piece, surely?]." Especially since he also says: "In the last bar [of the piece] the choir should hold [their hummed note] and then die out, leaving only the rain (soft snaps only) and the thunder as the rain cloud disappears into the distance".
--- Question for Ollie ---

In any case, what we want is dynamics in the snapping / slapping / clapping - crescendo through bars 70 - 75, and decrescendo later. We're taking a crescendo not to mean that the individual snaps / slaps / claps get much louder but, as I was trying to understand in geekily precise terms during the rehearsal, that the average frequency (and thereby temporal density - ha, suffer!) of sound events increases. Or as Kay so succinctly put it: just snap / slap / clap /faster!

In other words, the first hesitant snaps right after 'mah' first beat of bar 70 can actually be reasonably loud (John got the impression from the performance he attended that soft snaps won't be heard at all, though this depends on acoustics), but they should be intermittent - the first few drops of rain are not smaller than those that come later, there're just less of them.

--- me trying to get the last word ---
You see, technically I still prefer the term higher frequency because 'faster' is ambiguous - it could be taken to mean that individual snaps / slaps / claps should be done faster (i.e. move your fingers / hands at greater speed, leading to greater impact velocity and hence louder sound) rather than any change to the timings of the actions.
--- me trying to get the last word ---


Bar 81: TENORS II, ALTOS II, SOPRANOS II: you don't have a fermata, the numbers I do. So don't wait for them, just sing on. There is a fermata before the breath at the end of the bar, but that's for everyone and is in Ollie's hands so look at him.
Same in bars 82 (BASSES too this time only), 83, 84.

Some final words scribbled down at various points during the rehearsal:

• Don't look at copies
• Be uncomfortable (now, so you'll be comfortable later)
• Just remember what matters for you (entries, snaps, crackles and pops)

NOTICES
From before, I have written down Extra Rehearsal scheduled for May 30th, 13:00-15:00 by some kind of consensus.

Reservations for concert (June 6th): the Reid hall is plenty big so there shouldn't be any problem for people to get tickets at the door. However, to protect against the eventuality of unexpected mass popularity, we can tell people that if they want to be sure to get a seat, they can reserve by emailing Anne (I assume at contact@rudsambee.org.uk rather than her personal address anne@ravelrig01.demon.co.uk; - correct me if I'm wrong please Anne).

Something about travel reimbursements. Just bring a receipt / ticket with price to show Anne on Wednesday so she can reimburse you if she hasn't already.