Rudsamblog

Claire warmed us up on our backs. Never seen the basses from such an angle.

Bogoff
Mainly sung to warm our voices up, but we did some work on following Ollie's direction as there is a danger of being too familiar with this piece, and not remembering all the things we have worked on.

O Magnum
Make sure the beginning chords have a full, rounded sound with a slight push on the front of the note to ensure they sound definite.
Crisp 'c's on, for example, saCramentum and Cujus.
When altos have a moving, melodic line, they should make sure the vowel sounds are blended and nice - 'oo' (as in 'who')
Tenors should try and maintain strong tone when thy have a moving line, especially in sections of high range
Page 6 must be louder and more powerful, especially leading up to bar 46. Altos should cresc in bar 44 so their moving part can be heard.
If you move part on page 6, Ollie is happy for you to make your own sensible decision as to when to return to your own part.

Trees of the Field
This is going well.
The women are nicely soft during their accompaniment of 'Christmas' and 'Christian' but men who have the faster melody, should be louder and more definite.
Bars such as 11 and 20 will become bars of 6/8, rather than 9/8. We have already been singing in this way, but be sure to watch Ollie.
When returning to a bar of 6/8, as in bar 6, be sure to watch Ollie.
Before your part's solo section, do think about the note you are going to sing to avoid hesitation.
In bars 16 and 27, basses be sure to sing an f sharp, not natural.

Wassail (VW)
The tone throughout must be well-supported.
Tenors, sing out melody when you have it.
Altos, be sure to count and be in time with each other.
We'll probably take this slowly and do a bit of note-bashing on this next week to make sure we all know what we're doing.

Coventry
We'll be singing this a tone lower than written.
Jenny will sing tenor.
Don't breathe in bars 7 or 8, nor in bar 19, except for vs 3.
Do take a breath in bar 33.
Bar 24 - make the most of this clash.
Trio 1 (beautiful) sing vs1 &3: KAY, JENNY, JOHN
Trio 2 (loud) sing vs 2: ANNE, CHRIS, SEBASTIAN

O Quam
We need to count!

Deck the Hall
Only one HALL.
Page 4 is difficult, but Sops should follow tenors and altos should try and preempt downbeat.

Dormi Jesu
Beautiful
Remember to ding the 'd' of 'Dormi' at the start

Extra rehearsal:
Ollie will be available on Monday 30th Nov and Tues 1st Dec, at the Wexler's for extra rehearsals. More people can go to the Monday session so if you are trying to decide which to go to, you will probably find this one most useful.
On WED 2nd DEC there will be a rehearsal at PRIESTFIELD - many thanks to Anne who will lead this rehearsal.

Tickets:
Sell, sell, sell. Remember to put up posters.

Arno warmed us up with something. Forgot the name of it, but basically it's like star wars music and good for practising changing from minor to major in the same chord and remaining tunefull.

DECK THE HALL - this is written tongue in cheek, so dynamics and instructions are supposed to be exaggerated to the point of sounding silly. If we sound too silly we can pull back. It's a fun piece so have fun with it.

One hall
good 'ck' on deck
women - middle stanza- p.4 - DON'T count it. Listen to men and come in.
Fa la la - top p.5 - make it sound ridiculous and bouncy.
Men - sound coarse on la-ha-ha-ha-ffing
Cut out cadenza and jump to last 3 bars
BUT... leave a long gap before the last three bars
Hee-hee-hee and ha-ha-ha - make sure you put an 'h' on every hee and ha
WATCH EVERY accent, staccato, decresc. and cresc. and when it says....legato dolce - it means smooth and sweet
Feel the swing.

TREES OF THE FIELD

...to something (can't read writing) elm the morning hails - LOOK UP! to watch when to move.
ELM - crescendo through it
Alto - bar 22 - c natural
Dynamics
TIP - keep notes what you've been singing in your head so's you know where to go for next note

SUSSE DIE GLOCKEN

Ollie promises kisses for anyone who doesn't scoop
SOPS - be definite on upbeat into bar 5.
Z - alles (alvays pronounced 'ts')
ENTRIES - make sure ENT LANGS are definite and supported
MEN - DON'T breathe between Entlang and verses.
TENOR - F natural is same as basses somewhere in the last bars
(Sebs says our Deutsche sounds a bit German and Claire says as Sebs Englische sounds a bit English)

SHEPHERD'S CALL

What can I say? You're all being very nice about it and singing it beeeeeooootifully.
As always, make sure solos can be heard, and words of verses if you're accompanying
Hint - I gived the basses some nice rich notes.

For kiddies nativities I think it's fair enough portraying a lovely cosy story. And if the men would like to dress up in tea-towels and sheets like they used to at school nativity plays, then I won't object. But sometimes I wonder about the reality of what it was like.
Obviously the shepherds would have been pretty ugly, tough, fearless rogues. They were used to living rough in the fields and guarding flocks of sheep from wolves, bandits and trespassers (hmm, maybe not the latter!!) They might have been fat, because of the abundant supply of sheep, but you get the general picture. They wouldn't have been easily scared and would have probably, initially, tried to fight a heavenly host before bowing and trembling before it. Obviously I couldn't put a fight scene in the music - and I can hear our blog-ist responding "what larks" - But feel free to be a bit like real shepherds who are defensive and not too pleased about being bombarded with angels... rather than nimby pimby Handel's Messiah type shepherds!

Next week, rehearsal in priestfield.
Sell LOTS of tickets for Augustine's concert
Put up LOTS of flyers. Stick them on folks backs if you're walking behind a crowd
Next week - Claire II is warming up and Rachael is taking notes.

In Dulce

• You should know whether you are singing in choir 1 or 2. Sebastian you are in choir 2. Jen is singing tenor in choir 1, Anne is in choir 2 and Natalie is in choir 1. Others fend for yourself!
• Do check this as it might be different from last year
• In the octet Sebastian is doing the bass line and Douglas is doing the second from bottom.
• No loud breaths!
• Watch tuning esp the A for tenors in bar 15
• In the 2nd verse there is no gap between 'beseech thee' and 'O'
• After the trio and octet make sure you come in

Run T Run

• Remember repeats!
• The only place you scoop is the final chord
• basses watch the split at the end --> Seb sings bottom at bar 53 and then up to second bottom until the end. Angus on top, Arno top or second from top depending on where he is. Does that make any sense at all?
• Keep it very supported
• We need to hear the boys a bit more - make yourself heard even when you are 'hmming'

Deck the Halls

• top of p4 is where it all goes wrong so watch timing
• altos come in at the top of p4 - it might be good to count 1,2,3,4.
• stop before the cadenza - what larks!

Shepherd's Call

• we just note bashed this piece by Jen (woohoo) so there isn't much to say except...woohoo

Veni

• very p at the beginning
• at bar 20 come in very quietly - we all come in on the same note
• bar 77 no scooping

O Magnum

• very supported even when we sing p
• start quietly and move through the bar by opening mouth a little more
• you should know which part you are singing so check if you don't

A-L had a sign up sheet for flyers and posters