Friday, January 27, 2012
Susan's notes, 25 Jan 2012
*Warm-up : *Jenny.
*Entrée de Ballet 2:*
"No, no, no" should be sung as 3 CROTCHETS, not dotted as written.
Crotchets must be separated and chording accurate, "o" as in not, not note.
*Entrée de Ballet 3:*
Remember dynamics - check Kay's notes from last week.
*Abendlied:*
This was mostly about note-bashing and German pronunciation. This is how
I understood Sebastian's comments – your interpretation may differ!
*Bleib bei uns :* blipe by uns – make sure you separate the "p" of blipe
from the "b" of by
*denn es will : *denn as in Ben, will - vill as in Bill. Make sure denn
is separated from es.
*Abend werden: *Abent vaird'n - the vair sound is actually more of a
dipthong – vayer - but subtler. The "e" in den gets swallowed.
*und der Tag : *unt dair targk
*hat sich: *I'm not going to try and describe the subtleties of the ch
sound (please see Sebastian!) but the "i" is as in fish
*geneiget: *gen-eye-get - gen as in hen with g as in get
We then split up – the men to practise Zikr and the women to do battle
with the – er - challenging Bulgarian rhythms of Dilmano Dilbero.
*Dilmano Dilbero *
Us women have finally got to grips with the 8/16, 11/16 and 5/16 time
signatures – the trick seems to be to count in semi-quavers 12 123 123
etc. We had a first go at the tricky second page – then it dawned on us
that the first page ends with bar 12 and the second page starts with bar
61 …. we have quite a bit more work to do once we've found the missing
pages! We need to use quite a brash sound.
*Zikr* (notes from John)
The note-bashing was not too demanding, but the rapid sections need work
on the words and the irregular timing.
Syllables written as a consonant followed by an apostrophe, like b' or
q': sing the consonant followed by an indefinite vowel (schwa), the sort
of noise that you get in the last syllable of button or paddock. And see
the pronunciation guide on the back page, particularly about the sound
of the single letter a.
The glissandi in bars 20, 28, etc., look as if they descend to a G flat,
but they do not have to end on any specific note. They just have to fall
away like a sigh.
Bars 37-40: we have re-allocated the parts so that the tenors sing the
upper Eflat/Bflat and the basses sing the lower fifth. At least, I think
that's how it works. I just groan away on the bottom note and let the
rest of you get on with it.
From bar 83, there are lots of Hu Allaahs which are notated to be
spoken in rhythm rather than sung. We think the lozenge-shaped noteheads
for Hu mean that the sound is to be held for the full length of the
note. Contrast with the Jalle jalaalahu bars, which are more percussive.
The "Twice as fast" marking is at bar 122, so the pace speeds up for the
last two bars of the tenor solo (not when the basses start their Hu
Allaahs at bar 124), and stays that fast until the end of the piece.
(We had a performance afterwards and it's coming on amazingly well –
going to be a show-stopper! Ed.)
Friday, January 20, 2012
Kay's notes, 18 Jan 2012
1) Two dances from Le Bourgeois de Ballet (Lully)
Both will involve guitar and cello accompaniment and a male solo.
2nd Entree de Ballet
Light and bouncy
Choir comes on page 2 half way down. "No, no, no" should be staccato
The other lines are pushy legato if you get what that means,
3rd Entree de Ballet
Main thing to note are the dynamics on page 3 (p64)
Piglar schiaboloa - first time Forte second Piano. Carry on forte,
piano like that til p4 (p65) second bar is forte and all bars forte
from that point onwards. Last bar a bit shouty.
2) Dilmano Dilbero
Women only, Bulgarian
Tricky syncopated rhythmn. We recognised this as must have done the
first few bars for fun once with Ollie.
3) Abendlied-
German piece suggested by Sebastien. Very beautiful piece, lots of
high sop notes (tricky, i found!)
We did the German pronunciation -
b at end of word is p
w is v
d at end of word is t
sich - can't describe it; bit like "sh" but not really; we struggled
with it for a while
Sunday, January 15, 2012
Jenny's rehearsal notes, 11 Jan 2012
and Kay offered to do notes.
UNE PUCE
Sing the first line thinking of a whinge about a flea, to getting really
annoyed with it being in your ear
Rrrrrrrroll the RRRRRRs. Those who can roll rrrrrs do it for those who
can't.
sing - m-way
sing - n-oo-it
sing - me frrrrret-eel-yay-me mor'
sing - foo, as in foot without the t
sing - donn- air
sing - je t-ah ne pris (and sing the t-ah, nasally)
sing - coeur with an 'r' on the end.
Tenors - don't sing oh-ho-ho-ho
- suggestion - practise it la la la, then o, o, o,
copying the la la la effect, and staccato)
LINDEN LEE - New - Looked at
BONJOUR MA MIE - New - Looked at
BRODMAN AREA 47 - New - By Nikos!!!
Wonderful example of how science can be mixed with music.
Something to do with frontal lobe of brain - ask Nikos!
No words to learn! Just sounds.
Greek 'th's - hard, as in 'that' NOT as in 'think' - effect should be
hum sound NOT with 'z' or 'buzz' escaping from the 'th' - sing it MF to
avoid this 'buzz' -
Start very very loud with a crescendo.
First Ah.......sound ends in a soft 'ch' as in 'loch' COUNT
1,2,3,4,'ch' It should be a flat 'ch' not like a cat hiss, more like
the swish of a blade.
Bar 9 - is like blowing into your cold hands
SOPRANOS - A A A is NOT joined. Sing A A A separate A's.
(Nikos, if you want to add or alter, please do! Well done!)
SCENE IV - Lully - Looked at.
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
Re-awakening
year-and-a-half of disuse.
