Rudsamblog

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.