"Folks, there are people TOUCHING each other!"

This was Jamie's delighted comment during the warmup tonight, when he had us singing Maggie's "Laudamus te" exercise to each other in pairs to see if we were supporting properly. There was indeed a certain amount of groping :p

I hope you'll forgive me for just listing stuff tonight rather than giving long explanations (although I bet there are some people who prefer it this way!). I'm really tired, but I tried to sleep and have too many things whizzing round my head, so this is an effort to offload some of them.

I went to see United last night - great game, made all the more entertaining by my nephew singing the Gary Neville song all the way through despite Gary Neville not actually playing. (It's the only one he knows all the words to.) (My nephew, that is, not Gary...) Dr Liz very kindly wrote a blog post about last night's rehearsal for me to just copy and paste, but sadly I turned out to be useless and didn't read it till tonight, by which time it didn't quite make sense to just paste it. So here is a slightly edited version:

"Sounds better now you're all kissing"

Rehearsal started with Maggie's warm up, as normal. There was quite a lot of stomach holding to feel muscles moving, yet another reason why having a six pack would be great! (but I'd never managed to do enough sit ups to develop it, and then to maintain it).

The first half was spent on the Holst. The quote from the top was Jamie making us pull faces to improve the sound and as normal it worked! Hopefully we can all recreate this for the gig itself. Jamie was on form tonight: "you need more space in your voice or you'll sound like Axl Rose - OK, so that's a blank for most of you." He then did a short Axl Rose impression, classic! (Axl Rose is the lead singer of Guns'n'Roses, for those of you who aren't a child of the 80s like I am!). He was also heard to utter "it's so great when you all get physical together" which raised a few titters.

It was announced in the break that the advert for choral administrator was going to be in the Guardian on Monday and on their website.

Most of the second half we sang the impressive 'God is Gone up'. I like it! And it'll sound great with the organ. It's got ace words, including 'methinks' and 'flakes of glory'. Jamie made us all put our thumbs in our mouths to try and push our molars up (hope everyone had washed their hands recently), and after making us make a certain noise (can't remember what it was) he decided that it was quite scary and "I'd not want to meet all you in a dark choral alley".

Then we sang, rather badly I have to admit, the Vaughan Williams. I think Jamie was rightly disappointed as we've put in a lot of work and none of it was there tonight. But it was the end of the rehearsal, so maybe people were tired, I know I was.

Thanks Liz. (I saw Guns'n'Roses live at Maine Road, back in the day. I loved them (and still do). So here's an mp3 of their most famous song, Sweet Child O' Mine. Air guitars at the ready!)

Anyway, tonight there was another rehearsal, at which we got a lot done. We did work on: O nata lux, Salvator mundi, Mihi autem nimis, Loquebantur variis linguis and Laudibus in sanctis. A few Jamieisms:

"Altos, there was one note I hated."

"Who is it who's not being interesting enough? .... Sopranos!"

"Like a sort of Renaissance rapper..." (this was after demonstrating the Alleluia weird underlay in Loquebantur)

"I might look at you! And if I do, you'll feel better about the world!"

The best physical Jamieism was his Darth Vader impression (when demonstrating how not to do a silent breath!) (apparently the trick to doing a silent one is to look surprised... I must practise that, I'm terrible for breathing noisily). There was also much amusement at the 1st sops repeatedly not coming in because they weren't watching, thus giving him lots of opportunities to insult them - always entertaining!

The 2nd altos, on the other hand, got a "Lovely harmonic!" comment at some point, and the choir as a whole got "I didn't think it was possible to do this that well!" - which was nice :-)

Unusually, there was a Jamieism that was just plain wrong.... "Keep the tiller in the water!" he said. Jamie, take it from one who sails regularly and has all too often ended up with the tiller in the water, it is a BAD THING when this happens, as it means you've capsized :p What you actually want is the RUDDER in the water. The tiller is the bit that guides the rudder, and should very definitely be above the water level! (I'm going sailing for the first time this year on Saturday morning, wind permitting. I'll let you know how wet my tiller gets :p )

Anyway, nearly there. A quiz question for you all: why do I have "SPIKE!" written on page 4 of Loquebantur? A packet of Smarties to the first person to guess. (I will be extremely impressed if anyone does know the answer, so I should probably make it easier by saying that I might just as well have written it on any page of any piece... it's on that one mainly because I've practised that page more than all the rest put together, it being the semi-chorus audition piece.)

And 5 more quick things.

1. I see that the official choir web page currently states "Unfortunately due to technical difficulties the choir schedule is currently unavailable." My unofficial one is fine, however, and has just been updated with the news that the rehearsal on 7th April is at 6.45 after all :-)

2. I just glanced through the newly-issued Hallé Proms leaflet, and was horrified to see that they spelled Princess Leia's name wrong! (I'm such a geek!) You'd think they might have checked. Sheesh. Pleased to see we're apparently doing the Humming Chorus in our gig, although I will be far less pleased if Jamie makes us sing it as written (i.e. only sops and tenors)... I'm sure a few altos could help the tenors out...

3. There was an article in the Guardian today saying that the Hallé have cancelled their USA tour. Remember Mark telling us about his experience at the American Embassy? (see this post if you've forgotten) It turns out to have been for nothing!

4. Those of you who are singing in the Manchester Passion on Good Friday, I now have sheet music and instructions (including when to shout "Crucify him!") I know about Alison and Liz L - if there's anyone else who's signed up, let me know and I'll give you the stuff. (It's not too late to get in touch! Give them a call.)

5. Finally, I know Liz L will appreciate this. I'm being a brother in Joseph next week, and I am delighted to be able to report that "Any dream will do" will NOT be performed at the start \o/