Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

2 reasons for the long mmmm: 1. As I'd hoped, we are all allowed to sing the Humming Chorus! Yay! (It's written for just sops and tenors... Jamie did say to the altos that we should choose for ourselves where to drop the octave. I believe some of the 1sts stuck it out for quite a while, but all the 2nds I could hear (including me, definitely) sang the tenor part throughout. Not all the basses got the hang of the fact that it would sound wrong if they dropped the octave, so it had to be falsetto in places, but I'm sure they will.) (By the way, for those who were wondering where this chorus comes in the story, see the synopsis here.) 2. Dean Cain. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. (I've been watching DVDs of Lois and Clark.)

Sorry for not writing till now. I've had emails asking me if everything's OK - it is, I've just been really busy. To be fair, a lot of the last 2 days has consisted of intense World of Warcraft sessions, but that still counts as busy! I meant to write a bit when I got home on Wednesday night, but I was tired and not in the mood. I got really annoyed during the rehearsal. It was one of those rehearsals when everyone loved all the music we were singing, but far too many people were thinking "it's OK, I know this, I don't need to concentrate as hard as if it was new", and not paying very much attention to what Jamie was asking for. Time and time again, he spent several minutes rehearsing a particular point, and then we'd sing it again in context and the majority of people near me would sing it exactly the same as they did before, paying no attention to the work that had just been done, which they hadn't taken in because they were too busy whispering to their friends or writing notes to each other. So poor Jamie's time was largely wasted, as was that of those of us who were trying to listen (because none of these things work unless everyone does them). And it'll be one of those concerts that's absolutely fine, and the audience will love it because the music is lovely and we'll be perfectly competent. But it won't be GREAT, and it could be. This is what annoys me.

I really am insufferably smug, aren't I? Sorry about that. Of course, in an ideal world, everyone in the choir would read this and think "you know what? she's right!" and do something about it, and the concert WOULD be great as a result. But sadly I think most of the people who need to pay attention don't read this blog :-(

Oh, before I forget: two schedule things. Most importantly, there is NO REHEARSAL next week (7th June) due to venue problems. The next week's rehearsal will go on till 9.30 to compensate. And (I'm not sure if this has been announced) that week in July with 3 rehearsals... there aren't really 3. The Tuesday one (4th July) is a ladies' section, and the Thursday one (6th) is a gents' sectional.

I've just remembered three other things that really annoyed me during the rehearsal, but before I do I'd better tell you what we did, which was quite a lot: Brahms Req (well, the end of the movement), Bridal Chorus, Humming Chorus, Jesu Joy, Mozart Req bits, Verdi Sanctus and Zadok. And, interestingly, they handed Lord Thou Hast Been Our Refuge and the Holst Nunc Dimittis out again, so I presume we're doing them in the concert. (It would be sensible if we'd been given back the same copies we had, with our own markings in, but sadly this was not the case.) I presume the semi-chorus will be the same... be interesting to see though! (See, I'm getting bitter again just thinking about it!)

Zadok annoyed me because lots of it is staccato, with definite gaps between the notes (actual quaver rests in many cases), yet there were a couple of people near me who made no effort to make their notes short, and sang lots of the staccato sections legato. I can understand (possibly) someone doing that ONCE, but the fact that these people obviously weren't listening to anyone around them was infuriating.

The Bridal Chorus made me mad because of the German. I cannot believe that the vast majority of the choir don't know how to pronounce German. We sing in German quite regularly, and the pronunciation rules are VERY LOGICAL and have NO EXCEPTIONS, unlike English. So when there are people who've been in the choir for years - in particular, ladies who sang Mahler in German only 2 weeks ago - who STILL don't seem to know, for example, that you pronounce "z" as "ts".... AAAAARRRRRRRGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH. (That's pronounced "AAAAARRRRRRRGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH", by the way.)

And the dynamics! Come on, people! We're practically a professional choir - why is our standard dynamic mf? Why can people never follow the instruction "pp" until they've been TOLD it's too loud? You see "pp", you should be SINGING REALLY QUIETLY! Just about everything we sang on Wednesday came out mf all the way through. I despair, I really do.

Anyway, must stop ranting, I'm sure you don't want to hear it. I think I did write some Jamieisms down (although not many), but my music is downstairs and I'm not, so I'll try and remember to write more tomorrow. In any case I want to tell you about the Pleiades, because it occurred to me the other day that I never have :-)