"Let my people ... HAVE A go AT SIGHT READING!"

We finally did Go Down Moses! \o/ I was delighted. Particularly because I had a vocal coaching session during part of tonight's rehearsal, so I was sure he'd choose that moment to go Way Down in Egypt Land. But as it turned out I just missed a bit of The Music Makers, which occupied the first half of the rehearsal. (And it was only the first half of the piece, so I didn't even miss doing the end bit that I missed due to football.)

Go Down Moses started the second half. Unfortunately it wasn't very good. And I think it would be fair to say that most of the rest of the choir don't like it as much as I do. But I was rather irritated that a good many people obviously hadn't so much as glanced at it since the time we sight-read through it about 6 weeks ago, despite the fact that it was clearly very different from the Child of our Time version, and somewhat more difficult. Now I didn't seriously expect that everyone would have taken it home and practised it, but it was fairly apparent that many people hadn't even bothered to mark which line they should be singing. Bit rubbish IMHO. And it didn't give a very good impression to the 4 soloists (from the RNCM), who turned up to run through all the spirituals just when we were showing that we can't do Go Down Moses very well. However, it did get better, and I'm sure it'll be fine on the night.

(Brief hilarity when we got to the end of GDM for about the fifth time and Jamie went straight into By and By. Which, to be fair, he had said ages ago was the plan. But the noises that emerged when the choir tried to go from F minor to A major without warning were... well, kind of like the other bits of Child of our Time, IYSWIM :-)

One bit of good news concerning the BFBABTEIGW, though. Most people are still getting it wrong, but Gill, bless her, who was sitting next to me, got it right tonight, which made it much easier for me to do the same. (Usually I can stick to the correct line even if everyone around me is singing it wrong, but with this particular note I can't for some reason.) Ditto for Nobody Knows. So there's hope! (The thing is, Gill does actually know when she gets something wrong, and can correct it. There are some people who are seemingly oblivious, so it's very hard to get them to change something.)