Semi-chorus panic

This is what resulted when Chris announced, right after the warmup, that those who'd put their names down to do the semi-chorus auditions after the rehearsal tonight should instead go immediately. We weren't told the reason for this change, but when we got down there everyone was in a panic, mainly because we'd all specifically chosen the after-the-rehearsal slot so we'd be properly warmed up! Oh well.

There were no men, oddly enough. I presume they all bit the bullet and did it earlier. But there were maybe 10-15 ladies waiting to put themselves through torture... Amusingly, the room Jamie was in was almost impossible to get into - it had a cupboard and a piano blocking the door, and we had to squeeze through a gap to get in! This meant, when it was my turn, that I was totally out of breath when I went in - I'd walked very quickly down the corridor, because I knew time was tight, and squeezing through a too-small gap didn't help! The audition itself was OK other than my lack of breath - some people were a bit taken aback to have to sing both the Tallis and the sight-reading with no accompaniment, but I'm pretty sure Jamie had said that was the plan. Anyway, we'll see.

Got back to the rehearsal to find David note-bashing the Byrd funky motet, which sounded pretty good by the time we finished. It was one of those occasions, though, when he said something that could be interpreted as being slightly rude (I forget what) and after that people were sniggering at every other instruction :p The only thing I wrote down was "Laude doesn't mean 'loud', by the way!"

(Oh, and two new pieces were given out tonight, although we didn't sing either of them - Byrd's "Christe qui lux es et dies" and Finzi's "God is gone up". I've done the Finzi once before - a long time ago - and I love it. I haven't yet got a recording of the Byrd - it's not on iTunes - but will post it if I get one. But I already had the Finzi on CD.)

God is gone up (Finzi) (6.1 MB)

Anyway, Jamie managed to make it to the second half of the rehearsal. And it turned out to be quite different! Apologies to those who were there, but I need to describe what happened for those who missed it (e.g. Dr Liz, who had to go to work at half time, and Liz L, who has fractured her coccyx, poor thing). First, Jamie asked for 4 volunteers. They stood in a line at the front and held their right hand up (as if taking a pledge of allegiance). The choir then chanted "1, 2, 3, 4", and after a few times, the four volunteers were instructed to raise and lower their hands at will, and the choir had to just chant the beats indicated. (The aim was to look ahead and not get faster, see.) After a few goes at this (and several new lots of volunteers) the next lot of volunteers had to hold both hands up, indicating quavers... and the chant became "1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and" ... and, later, "... and ... and ... and ... and" (when all 4 volunteers happened to have only their left hand up). A few goes later, there were 8 volunteers, 4 for each side of the choir, so there were two lots of chanting going on at the same time. I'm sure there were probably people muttering "I'd rather just sing" (there usually are!) but there weren't any near me - everyone seemed to be having a great time!

We went on to sing the Tallis "Loquebantur" (the semi-chorus audition piece). Unsurprisingly, with half the choir having spent a good bit of time practising it, it sounded really good (a clever plan, that!). We did a bit of work on breath management (one of these days I'll get better at that, but I'm nowhere near there yet) and this produced the only Jamieism I wrote down tonight: "Folks, you should feel desperate a lot more often!" By the end, though, he was so delighted he just made gibbering noises. Nice to make people happy :-)

The only other thing we sang was the Vaughan Williams, and even then it was only the last section. Before we did this, we spent a while practising singing notes in the scale of D major, using the Kodaly hand signals. Now, every class had a lesson each week on this when I was at school, with a guy called Peter Hatfield who was a Kodaly expert. (It was called "aural" on the timetable, but it was mainly Kodaly stuff.) I don't think we appreciated at the time how useful it was, but I'm pretty sure that's how I learned to sight-sing. So it reminded me that I'd promised to do a post explaining how I do it... and I will, eventually, but the short version is "like that!"

Anyway, World of Warcraft beckons. But one final thing - some more info about the Good Friday passion play in Manchester, that Sheena Barbara alerted us to a while ago. Looks fun!