"Bells RING. They do not SING. That's what the ANGELS do."

*yawn* Such a long day, and my feet are killing me. It was my band's concert at school this afternoon, which involved standing (and singing) for 2 hours... followed by an almost-3-hour rehearsal tonight. We didn't stand for much of it, but I really felt it when we did! I'm so tired I planned to go to sleep as soon as I got in, but my cats had other plans :-) So I thought I might as well do a quick post while I'm waiting for them to come home.

Not much to say, really. It was the piano rehearsal for the carol concerts, and Jamie seemed pretty stressed, poor thing. So much to do in so little time, though, which is not really anyone's fault - it's so soon after Messiah, and Messiah was so soon after The Bells, and I think everyone will agree that there's no way we could have spared any of the Bells rehearsal time! Still, it might've helped if people had watched more. I think it's that age-old problem of people being unfamiliar with the music, so they bury their heads in their copies. It's amazing how many people have been singing for decades and still don't seem to realise that sight reading in a group doesn't really work if no-one watches the conductor... apart from anything else, the people who don't know it will pick it up much quicker if everyone sings on the beat, because that way all the harmony is clearer.

The Hallé Youth Choir were with us tonight - they're singing some stuff with us and some stuff on their own. They didn't sound quite as good tonight as they usually do, but they do usually sound fabulous on the night, so let's hope that happens again. They did seem to have a particular problem staying in tune - I've noticed this before with the youth choir, but it was worse tonight. (I was alarmed to notice, btw, that a recent search that led someone to this blog was "altos singing flat"! The cheek!)

Jamie was on good form in the warmup, as ever - he had us singing Jingle Bells, very fast, to "zzz", which was quite amusing, but not as much so as Ding Dong Merrily On High to tractor noises...

I told the new altos about tinsel and glitter. Emma asked if tiaras might be appropriate - I told her that in the encores anything goes, so I look forward to seeing what she produces :p

Oh, a couple of notes from the music: I live in hope that this will be the year that the altos sing A Merry Christmas correctly. The first note of bar 47 is a D, not an E flat as everyone always sings. I have never witnessed a performance of this - by ANY choir - in which this is correct. (I mentioned it to one of our previous chorus masters, and his response was "oh, no-one will ever notice that!" - which, while probably true, was hardly conducive to raising standards!)

And students of harmony, please examine bar 25 of A spotless rose. If you wrote that in a harmony exercise, you would get zero marks. HOW many consecutive fifths and octaves are in that bar? Quite a lot! Just goes to show that the rules of harmony can be broken by a composer who knows his stuff :-)

I'll finish with the best news I heard all night - the altos have been given permission to sing the descant of O Come All Ye Faithful on the Sunday and Friday night concerts! I am delighted - it's by far the best descant of all of them, and for some reason it doesn't feel like I'm singing high when I'm blasting out a descant. People sitting in front of me, be warned :-)