Rudsamblog

Ollie shouted Penguin when he wanted us to pay particular attention to something.

I forgot to mention I've no one down to take notes next week, if anyone would like to do them that'd be great. Also, correction to Blog, ANNE should take credit for knowing we have no rolled 'r's in Latin (which gives the impression Romans had slender bottoms!)

Practise Alison's fab warm up at home! Count aloud as you sing up the scale. 1,2,3,4,.... Try doing it clapping on the 3 and stamping on the 5.

There's a list for Falkland, (if half the choir don't turn up for this concert, don't be surprised. They'll have gone to Falkirk which place name heads the song list!)
It will be a RELAXED concert. It's something to aim for between now and xmas. And we'll sing a couple of xmas things like Dormi to 'ground' them.

O QUUM something - forgot to take my copy! Is a NEW piece of posh renaissance counter point
[O quam gloriosum - ed.]

bar 3 through 4 Warm tone
RUNS are stepped NOT slid.
Watch out for repeated patterns - ie you might be singing a similar pattern, or the same notes, as another part has just sung.

PENGUIN!!! Quocum - YES, this SHOULD BE - Q u o c u M NOT Q u o c u n -
PLEASE alter ALL Quocuns to QuocuM
Have a good QW noise and ennunciate other consonants
DON'T sing Qwoah, try singing QWOH
Have a resonant tone - try to sing as one voice and keep the tone bright
Have the same 'O' sounds throughout the piece
Produce a nice tone even if you feel you're singing the wrong notes
EEEs should be a forward mouth sound and should be well supported don't sag!
NO SCOOPING
/moving swiftly from rolled 'r's to tight arse....!/
Bar 1 - Have a cat's bum shape to your mouth for O
IMAGINE the vowel at beginning is preceded by B
Bar 2 - change vowel sound O to AW but KEEP the shape of bum hole

Bottom (/again!) /of 2nd page
TENORS - watch the C sharps and C naturals. Especially the C sharp after the C natural. D's to C sharps are small and tend to go flat.
SOPS - same goes for you for C sharp on last note of page 3

Last Page
3rd bar in middle system - SOPS stagger (breathing, that is!) It has to be continuous phrase
ALTOS - tone down the manliness! /See Claire's Bog! Then Ollie gave us permission to look at the men. I think it was just cos they were singing and we girls got a rest, but a few of us took the permission literally.... ;-) You're all very pretty!)

DET HEV

Think BAH -lellelujah for anticipating the beginning vowel sound
Words
Phrases
Tuning
Balance
DON'T cut notes short
Start with a BIG sound from the BASSES - BUT.....DON'T SHOUT
HOLD BACK for the BIG FF somewhere in middle of piece
TENORS are SPLITTING not basses so we get a good weight on the G

DORMI - B given

Words
Vowels
Balance
ALTOS - slight Ping for Dormi at beginning
SOPS - SWEEP!!!!! for Mater /(that's for the word Mater NOT formata as in make the most of sweeping just cos you're allowed to this once!!!)
/SOPS - Keep a LIGHT sound at the top when you've swooped it

MARGOT

En Passant - staccato
from La Lorraine- legato
SHAPE
Vigne - slight accent on V - make it exciting
BRIGHT tone - as used in Sfogava
Tone needs to be bang on, and bright cos the piece is fast and we've no time to correct a wrong tone
LOOK AT quartets for next week cos we'll be working on them individually - IF ollie sends who's doing what round
We'll be singing Vs 1,3,5,7 and 8

DATES
31st Oct - Party - from 5pm - Children welcome - bonfire on beach and bring food to Rachael's. Fancy dress - it's halloween! - Thanks, Rach, for 'g'hosting the party, especially as Jake's away!
6th Dec - St Giles
9th Dec - Priestfield
12th Dec - St Augustine's PENGUIN! can EVERYONE start pushing this concert NOW! We want a good audience!
16th Dec - xmas party
19th Dec - Crankshaws

15th Apr - Gallery - TBC
15th May - Wedding in Lanarkshire
29th Aug - St Giles

This marriage:

• Have a look at the "jumpyaroundy" bits (Ollie says that's a musical term)
• page 7 mp
• Note the big pause at the end of the first line on page 7
• Dynamics!
• Phrasing!
• Expressive!
• Enunciate the words!
• Sing it like a hymn
• The rhythm looks tricky, but it's meant as speech ryhthm. We should just do it together as we did the Monteverdi, not trying the exact written ryhthm.
• Last line: Smoothly separate the "o-o"s on the same notes

Lullaby Carol:

• Legato, in tune
• Confident entries in the beginning!
• Slight Crescendo all first page and then a big one in bar 5

Dormi Jesu (will sound easier when sung in church)

Hello, One and All.
I don't know if anyone noticed my magnificent fingernails last night - at the moment they are quite the longest and strongest they've ever been but, oh my word! they make typing difficult; this could take me hours!!
First things first....NB: re absences - ONLY DOUGLAS HAS FILLED IN THE DIARY FOR NEXT WEEK SO EVERYONE ELSE IS EXPECTED AT REHEARSAL UNLESS SUDDEN SERIOUS ILLNESS OR SIMILAR DISASTER PREVENTS IT. If you know you will be unable to make it - and you'd better have a good excuse - let Ollie know NOW.

Jenny led the warm-up and had us exercising our brains as well as our bodies/voices. The threat of Alzheimer's hangs ever lower and darker over Rudsambee....

Dormi Jesu: We mixed up to sing this which put the fear of god into me but proved less difficult than expected. Those who had not sung it before managed very well indeed and it sounded pretty OK for a first
attempt.
2nd time through we thought about dynamics (or were supposed to) and vowel sounds - which should be kept open and blended - and marked difficulties for later, more focussed attention.
Later - in the piano room....
Page 2: Sops wanted to look at bars 9, 10 and 11 - the real problem being the C in bar 10. Keep it sharp - there is a key change underneath so once you have your note hang onto it for dear life and don 't be distracted by other parts. Be aware of the phrase ending on a B, which feels logical and may help.
Bar 20 - basses, think of the the Eflat as a D# if it helps.
Page 5: - 'blandule' - no harsh 'a' sounds, 'blahnduleh'.
Bar 26 - Sops, come in with confidence. Bars 27 and 28 should then be p.
There will be quite a gap after bar 30. Watch and wait for the basses - everyone else comes in on the second beat of the bar.
I don't have many notes for this as mostly we sang it to get the feel of it so if you weren't there have a good look at this section - bars 20-29.
Page 6: Bar 41 - 'cantans' - nasty, terrifying, screechy sound apparently! Bad 'a's again. We want nice vowel sounds here, please... 'cahntahns'
Bar 43 - tenors have a tricky B. Think down to it during the fermata - you will get used to hearing it. You will!
That's it for that one except you must pay attention to the pps when they come. Take note of and think about the dynamics at all times while practising.

Margot: We split into 2 groups to practise this as we will be doing it in quartets eventually. Our challenge was to make it musical. Hmmmm....
In the piano room we found it made a huge difference when we sung the chorus off-by-heart. A much lighter and happier sound. This was proved by the sheer bouncy brilliance of the other group's performance later when they had the first verse and chorus well in their heads and sang it beautifully. Grrr. The best that can be said for us is that Anne and Angus acted indignation quite magnificently when we got to verse 4.
Aside from Angus's disturbing display of camp, I feel that a bit of ham acting would improve this quirky but rather repetitive number beyond belief.
General pronunciation notes: Rachel gave us these last week. This is an olde French song so the usual rules do not apply. 'r's should be rolled, not gutteral. Words with 'ois' in them eg roi, trois are said more like 'rouey' (think debauched old man) and 'trey' - with 'r' nicely rolling, of course. Normal pronunciation for 'fils' (ie 'son') with the 's' on the end but no 'l' - like 'feast' without the 't'.

Lullaby Carol: A bit of sight-reading. (Some people will have sung this before as it was a small group song a few years ago. Please look to see if you have a copy already).
Things to remember:
This is a lullaby!
Tuning is very important.
Counting is very important - the bars are irregular.
It should be legato - watch your breathing.
Think about expression straight away when sight-reading/looking at new pieces. Read the dynamics as well as the notes.
Page 2: Bar 5, tenors and sopranos have 'mm', basses and altos 'oo'. We need to hear both so be aware of the balance. Bar 6 we start singing words - the same words so the same vowels ie 'loolay'. Bar 10 we are all singing words together for the first time - 'mother' should be 'mahther'. Listen and blend.
Bar 9 - tenors, we need to hear you.
Page 3: Get the 'd' on 'child' all together - watch.There will be a long rest after this then think about balancing the melody. The Sop 2s have it first, then the Sop 1s then we are all together bar 19. Anyone singing the chords underneath must listen to the melody.

Rudsambee: Balancers and Blenders Extraordinaire.

Concert - 10th October. Bit fuzzy on the details but I'm sure most people know what's what. 7.30pm, I think - about 1 hour's duration, Falkland Parish church??? Anne knows. Elaine knows. Even Christopher knows, I believe. Ask one of them!!

Lovely warm-up from Douglas - we worked our shoulders, swam a bit and sang a river song about quenching Aussie deserts (nothing could be further from my current view - Portobello beach on its most soggiest of soggy days).

During the rehearsal we concentrated on the two pieces from the previous week MARGOT and DORMI JESU. These pieces are basically now learnt so if you weren't at rehearsal on Wednesday, or the previous week, PLEASE MAKE SURE YOU ARE FAMILIAR with the pieces before Wednesday. There are pdf copies of the music, and mp3 recordings at:

http://cid-2ddf56b8fdf7c0b5.skydrive.live.com/embedrowdetail.aspx/Music/Autumn%2009

MARGOT

Being in Old French, the pronunciation is slightly different from what you would expect of modern French.

R's - Make sure to roll all 'r's

'Oi' - If you see these letters together, pronounce two syllables eg
Mois is more mu-way than mwar

Appele - Do not pronounce the middle 'e' of this word

Fleurit - Ollie will check the pronunciation of this word

Verses - be careful of tuning, try and create a bright tone, slightly staccato. Lively and bouncy - make sure you are well-supported so that you hit the note directly and accurately

We will be singing this piece in quartets, and will begin to rehearse in quartets asap. If you are doing a verse (and Ollie will send a list round soon), make sure you are familiar with the words (and notes).

DORMI JESU

Dynamics - please take care to observe all dynamics as this will make the piece beautiful.

Bar 2 - Altos crescendo through note

End of bar 5 - it might be helpful to write in your next note - i.e., the first one of the next page

Bar 28 - Bass tune G sharp carefully

Bar 30 - make this cresc gradual until the page turn

Bar 31 - forward vowel sound on 'mis'. Try and get a rich vibration in your nose, as though humming

Bar 39
- this is a tricky jump for the Sops but try and think up a 4th
- bass, watch the timing here, make sure you give minims full value

Bar 46 and 47 - Sops, try and remember your previous F sharp

Jesu - this should be sung 'Yezu' rather than 'Yesue' and more 'Yairzu' than 'Yayzu'

Dul cem - pronounced 'dul chem'

Blan(dule) - the 'a' vowel sound should be rounded (blaa)

Bar 48 - Veni - same vowel sound as in Jesu (so 'vair-ni' like 'yair-zu')

NOTICES:
CONCERT..........10th Oct - SEE ANNE'S EMAIL
SUBS....ARE NOW LATE! NAMIN' & SHAMIN' POLICY WILL COMMENCE NEXT WEEK

IF YOU HAVE MISSED A REHEARSAL........PLEASE CATCH UP ON THE WORK DONE ON MARGOT AND DORMI JESU.