Saturday, March 10, 2012
Kirsty's notes, 7 March 2012
Warm-up: Ollie took this, in Heather's absence. I arrived at the tail end of this and was ritually humiliated with a 'late' song sung by the others.
- Io tacerò by Gesualdo, a contemporary of Monteverdi. Sung in Italian
- Some of the notes proved initially challenging, particularly for some female parts but with repetition, this was vastly improved.
- Rhythms are a bit tricky; advice is to just keep going!
- Bar 28 onwards: 2nd Altos – breathing was 'tragic' and 'shocking' despite getting the notes but finally managed both.
- All - Clear, very focused sound, no scooping.
- Bar 28 - Prepare mentally; 'mmm – maa'. Go straight to 'maa', start it exactly like that. Nice rich forte chord
- Comment from Ollie – 'Reminds me of Clannad and the 'maaa' in that. (Robin the Hoodie Man). I was completely lost and innocently asked, 'Was I in that one?'. Merriment all round. A recording of Clannad in action was kindly supplied by Chris later, for my edification.
- Tenors: Bar 32 - difficult jump and note sequence. Practice made perfect.
- Re. pronunciation, Claire kept us right with 'ch'io' which should be pronounced 'kio' with a k (and not 'chio' with a ch sound)
- Prior to a last sing through the learnt section, Ollie told us to stand up; as most of us had never sat down, we did our best.
- Following this, Ollie commented: 'Good, not bad. That wasn't bad at all. Do you feel comfortable with the very least, er, the very last note?'
- Invan dunque or 'The Haven'. Men were asked to choose and chose the former. I did inquire as to whether any points emerged from this, of which I should take note but was advised, as I understand has happened in the past, that 'you had to be there'. I am led to wonder whether a Mason's meeting took place. I am currently learning 'The Mason's Apron' in my lower intermediate fiddle class. So I envisaged a circle of men wearing Aprons.
- Mateusz – Warsaw Village Band have recorded this. Is song originally African? Described on web: 'This song, Mateusz (Polish for "Matthew") from their album Wykorzenienie ("Uprooting"), is a quirky love song of questionable morals'.
- Started p. Women made a brave stab at the words last week (5 verses plus chorus)Bar 13 and listened to the recording. Were suitably impressed.
- Rhythmically challenging. Lots of syncopation. Think of it as being in 4/4 but each beat is 1 2 3, 1 2 3, 1 2 3, 1 2 3, with a swing
- Beginning – feel where the downbeat is: 1 2 3 – 2 3, 1 2 3 – 2 3
- Bar 1 – do not hold 'moj'; should be short, move on swiftly; keep going a bit more
- Bar 4 – altos to pay attention to shift down to an A at 'za piecem wka-ci-ku', NOT in second half of previous bar
- Bar 12 – note rhythm; slightly different from Bar 14 (Vs 2 and 3) and again, Bar 16 cf Bar 18 (Vs 4 and 5)
- Bar 18 – more tricky rhythms! Think of last beat as an upbeat and feel down beat of next bar.
- V2 – Bar 13 - pronounce la of bydla as 'wa' (1st time) in ; but Bar 15 wa of bydwa as 'va' (2nd time)
- Ok to shout out higher notes. Don't worry about singing beautifully (as if)
- Lully Entree de ballet 2 & 3
- - Suggestion to sing by heart at next concert, as words are really easy.
- - Be very precise with 'No, no, no'; Don't sing 'No', sing 'no' (as in 'not'). Sing these words in a well supported, very focused manner.
- - Be energetic. Overdo the 'schs' of 'schiabbola', because it's nonsense. 'The thing's stupid' (Ollie). At the end, exclaim it; it should be dramatic.
- Women tried singing Mateusz again and seemed to be getting the hang of it, including the triplets, accompanied this time by drum. If difficult, advised simply to ignore the drum!
Men/women split.
Men/women back together. As we re-entered the room, comment from Rachel 'smells of boy'. This was accurate. Comment that Mateusz is definitely a women's song. New people still being auditioned. One Tenor didn't come up to scratch; Claire commented that he must have been 'really bad'; 'tone deaf', added Kay at which point Robin protested 'you've gone too far!'. Indeed.
# posted by rudsambass @ 5:58 pm 
