Just on my way out to tonight's rehearsal of The Kingdom. I put my "I'm blogging this" T-shirt on, and then realised that I haven't blogged about Saturday's concert! Oops!
It went very well. We even got to sit down at one point, to listen to Jonathan's organ solo. And they'd rigged up a camera and monitor so that Jonathan could see Jamie. Poor Maggie still had to sing from a raised pulpit with a canopy, which meant she was very visible and audible but she couldn't actually hear anything else when she was singing! I certainly couldn't tell, though - she sounded great. So did the choir, I thought - the tenors still didn't quite manage to sing their bare fifths in the Tavener (someone kept singing G sharps where there should only have been an E an a B), but apart from that I thought everything was pretty good. And it was a full house, too, which is always great to perform to. Hopefully there'll be even more people to hear the repeat performance in Manchester Cathedral this Friday (starts at 7.45 p.m., tickets available on the door - I think they're £10 each, concessions £6).
I'm sure there must have been some Jamieisms, but I'll look them up later tonight. (I'm particularly looking forward to tonight's rehearsal, because not only do we get to sight-read lots of new Elgar, we also meet the Associate Choir for the first time!) But I do remember the funniest moment, and for once it wasn't from Jamie. We were about to go onstage, and David Evans announced that he had a card to read to us, from a lady (Maggie, it transpired afterwards) who started "To my favourite choir..." to which Bruce said "Is it from the Queen?"
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
Saturday, March 24, 2007
Aggressive Russian Funky Gibbon
From last night's warm-up:
Jamie: Aggressive funky gibbon.
Choir: Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!
Jamie: Aggressive RUSSIAN funky gibbon!
Choir: (with a much darker vowel sound) Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!
As with so many Jamieisms, you probably had to be there!
I'm on my way back to Ashton shortly for today's rehearsal and concert, but thought I'd do a bit of catch-up blogging first. (We rehearsed on Tuesday night instead of Wednesday this week, but I haven't had the time to blog since - I don't think there was anything fascinating to say, though.) My feet are still aching from last night. There were no seats - no-one had mentioned that this would be the case - so most of us stood up for an hour and three quarters without a break, followed by another three quarters of an hour after the break. Plus, the rehearsal finished almost 10 minutes late, so you can imagine that lots of us were not in the best of moods by the time we left. I must say, though, that the fact that we did the Bach last really helped cheer me up, because it sounded AMAZING in that acoustic :-)
The lack of seats isn't the only problem at the church. Poor Jonathan is having to play from a position behind the choir, which means that he can't see Jamie AT ALL, and (as he pointed out), when he's playing at all loudly, he can't hear anything either... so I guess we'll just have to follow him and hope! I don't think he's very happy about the situation, but unfortunately I also can't see a solution. It's just as well he's so brilliant, because if anyone CAN perform under such adverse circumstances, it'll be him. (The organ's not spectacularly great, either - plus, as Jamie said, when listing its limitations, "It's just not a violin!")
The thing that annoyed me the most last night, though, was that there was a man there - I don't know who he was, but possibly the teacher of our solo cellist. Why did he annoy me? Well, she was playing from the back of the church, at the end of the aisle from Jamie. And this man, for no reason that I can understand, repeatedly stood up and walked up and down the aisle, i.e. along the DIRECT LINE OF SIGHT between the cellist and the conductor. Even if she could see past him, it MUST have been a distraction. And the guy was presumably a professional musician, so why on earth couldn't he realise that? It was immediately obvious to all of us. Argh. And then, to make matters worse, he listened, along with the rest of us, to Jamie's explanation of why it's ABSOLUTELY CRUCIAL that no-one moves a muscle on the last page of the Tavener, and that we need to rehearse that aspect as much as the music. And what did he then do? When we got to the last page a minute later, he chose that moment to get up from his seat and wander across the aisle to sit on the other side. ... Maybe he's just a chronic attention-seeker, but I was shaking my head in disbelief at how ignorant he was.
Anyway, I have no doubt that the concert will be great (assuming Mr Ignorant can keep still, that is!) Jane, the cello soloist, is fabulous (even if she is playing a G sharp instead of a G natural for the last note - I presume it's a deliberate change by Jamie, since she's done that every time and he hasn't commented, but it sounds so wrong!). Maggie, of course, sounds amazing. And I think we sound pretty good ourselves!
Jamie: Aggressive funky gibbon.
Choir: Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!
Jamie: Aggressive RUSSIAN funky gibbon!
Choir: (with a much darker vowel sound) Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!
As with so many Jamieisms, you probably had to be there!
I'm on my way back to Ashton shortly for today's rehearsal and concert, but thought I'd do a bit of catch-up blogging first. (We rehearsed on Tuesday night instead of Wednesday this week, but I haven't had the time to blog since - I don't think there was anything fascinating to say, though.) My feet are still aching from last night. There were no seats - no-one had mentioned that this would be the case - so most of us stood up for an hour and three quarters without a break, followed by another three quarters of an hour after the break. Plus, the rehearsal finished almost 10 minutes late, so you can imagine that lots of us were not in the best of moods by the time we left. I must say, though, that the fact that we did the Bach last really helped cheer me up, because it sounded AMAZING in that acoustic :-)
The lack of seats isn't the only problem at the church. Poor Jonathan is having to play from a position behind the choir, which means that he can't see Jamie AT ALL, and (as he pointed out), when he's playing at all loudly, he can't hear anything either... so I guess we'll just have to follow him and hope! I don't think he's very happy about the situation, but unfortunately I also can't see a solution. It's just as well he's so brilliant, because if anyone CAN perform under such adverse circumstances, it'll be him. (The organ's not spectacularly great, either - plus, as Jamie said, when listing its limitations, "It's just not a violin!")
The thing that annoyed me the most last night, though, was that there was a man there - I don't know who he was, but possibly the teacher of our solo cellist. Why did he annoy me? Well, she was playing from the back of the church, at the end of the aisle from Jamie. And this man, for no reason that I can understand, repeatedly stood up and walked up and down the aisle, i.e. along the DIRECT LINE OF SIGHT between the cellist and the conductor. Even if she could see past him, it MUST have been a distraction. And the guy was presumably a professional musician, so why on earth couldn't he realise that? It was immediately obvious to all of us. Argh. And then, to make matters worse, he listened, along with the rest of us, to Jamie's explanation of why it's ABSOLUTELY CRUCIAL that no-one moves a muscle on the last page of the Tavener, and that we need to rehearse that aspect as much as the music. And what did he then do? When we got to the last page a minute later, he chose that moment to get up from his seat and wander across the aisle to sit on the other side. ... Maybe he's just a chronic attention-seeker, but I was shaking my head in disbelief at how ignorant he was.
Anyway, I have no doubt that the concert will be great (assuming Mr Ignorant can keep still, that is!) Jane, the cello soloist, is fabulous (even if she is playing a G sharp instead of a G natural for the last note - I presume it's a deliberate change by Jamie, since she's done that every time and he hasn't commented, but it sounds so wrong!). Maggie, of course, sounds amazing. And I think we sound pretty good ourselves!
Friday, March 16, 2007
"Why WAIT to do that? When you've got THAT in your arsenal?"
This seemed much funnier at the time, mainly because people started to giggle before Jamie got to the end of the word 'arsenal' :p
Ladies' sectional tonight. The quote above referred to the sopranos finally singing the last line of the Bach to Jamie's satisfaction. They fared rather better than us poor 2nd altos, who he compared to "bombers coming over the South Downs" when we did our humming in the Rachmaninov, and a "pneumatic drill" when we got the tune in the Bach! The cheek! (Mind you, I must admitted I was continually irritated by a few people behind me who seem totally unable to maintain the correct German pronunciation despite COUNTLESS reminders. My cheekbones are still aching due to me trying to compensate for them.) (Yes, I know I shouldn't try to compensate, but it's really hard not to!)
We did a bit of Syvati tonight, and a bit of Rachmaninov, and a bit of Bach. And at some point (I think during the Tavener, when he was trying to explain how the E and the F are closer together than a normal semitone), Jamie wanted to know how many of us were string players. It transpired that almost everyone present could play an orchestral instrument (although the brass section was rather under-represented, with only Abi), and Jamie got quite excited at the idea of us forming an orchestra at our weekend course in the summer!
What else was there? Oh, also during the Tavener: "Look at the hieroglyphics above it! ... I know it's not hieroglyphics. I know. That would be little pictures of animals and things." During the Rachmaninov, while explaining how to pronounce the Russian 'd': "Not like Brett Lee - like Shane Warne." (If I'd had Wikipedia to refer to during the rehearsal, that comment would have made a lot more sense!) And finally, during the Bach (probably while explaining how to pronounce 'schöpfer'): "Could you just look at my lips? Just briefly? ... I don't want you staring at them!"
Not much else to say about tonight, other than that (as usual with a sectional) we got lots done and had fun doing it, despite a LOT of people being missing. So, to finish, let's see... I'm sure you've been wondering what our top search terms have been lately, since I haven't mentioned them in ages. Well, there is still a trickle of people looking for the Honda choir advert, but the number one search (that leads to this blog) for ages has been for the Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink Song. Although, in the last couple of weeks there have been a surprising number of people looking for Fall on your knees and hear the angel voices (no, I have no idea why), and also an increasing number in search of the lovely Jeremy Holland-Smith (and I can't say I blame them!)
I'll finish with two funny things I discovered yesterday: some musical jokes (some old, some new), and a 5 minute video clip of Eddie Izzard being amusing about physics and cats. Enjoy!
Ladies' sectional tonight. The quote above referred to the sopranos finally singing the last line of the Bach to Jamie's satisfaction. They fared rather better than us poor 2nd altos, who he compared to "bombers coming over the South Downs" when we did our humming in the Rachmaninov, and a "pneumatic drill" when we got the tune in the Bach! The cheek! (Mind you, I must admitted I was continually irritated by a few people behind me who seem totally unable to maintain the correct German pronunciation despite COUNTLESS reminders. My cheekbones are still aching due to me trying to compensate for them.) (Yes, I know I shouldn't try to compensate, but it's really hard not to!)
We did a bit of Syvati tonight, and a bit of Rachmaninov, and a bit of Bach. And at some point (I think during the Tavener, when he was trying to explain how the E and the F are closer together than a normal semitone), Jamie wanted to know how many of us were string players. It transpired that almost everyone present could play an orchestral instrument (although the brass section was rather under-represented, with only Abi), and Jamie got quite excited at the idea of us forming an orchestra at our weekend course in the summer!
What else was there? Oh, also during the Tavener: "Look at the hieroglyphics above it! ... I know it's not hieroglyphics. I know. That would be little pictures of animals and things." During the Rachmaninov, while explaining how to pronounce the Russian 'd': "Not like Brett Lee - like Shane Warne." (If I'd had Wikipedia to refer to during the rehearsal, that comment would have made a lot more sense!) And finally, during the Bach (probably while explaining how to pronounce 'schöpfer'): "Could you just look at my lips? Just briefly? ... I don't want you staring at them!"
Not much else to say about tonight, other than that (as usual with a sectional) we got lots done and had fun doing it, despite a LOT of people being missing. So, to finish, let's see... I'm sure you've been wondering what our top search terms have been lately, since I haven't mentioned them in ages. Well, there is still a trickle of people looking for the Honda choir advert, but the number one search (that leads to this blog) for ages has been for the Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink Song. Although, in the last couple of weeks there have been a surprising number of people looking for Fall on your knees and hear the angel voices (no, I have no idea why), and also an increasing number in search of the lovely Jeremy Holland-Smith (and I can't say I blame them!)
I'll finish with two funny things I discovered yesterday: some musical jokes (some old, some new), and a 5 minute video clip of Eddie Izzard being amusing about physics and cats. Enjoy!
Thursday, March 15, 2007
"It's like the backing vocals from some unfortunate 70s pop hit."
This referred to some noise we produced last night, possibly during the warmup, although I forget exactly what! (I feel a bit guilty that I was at choir last night, given that I was off work ill both yesterday and today. But I felt better by teatime yesterday, and planned to go to work today... until the headaches came back late last night. Better again now, though, so I do plan to go to the ladies' sectional.)
Jamie went on to try to think of an example of a song to illustrate his point, but couldn't. He considered Abba, but dismissed them on the grounds that "they were GOOD!" Judy, who knows that I'm a bit of an authority on cheesy backing vocals, was encouraging me to make some suggestions, but by that point he'd mentioned Abba, and my mind was busily running through all their songs (for yes, I do have them all written out with all the harmony parts - my band sings them!) Most Abba songs don't actually have separate backing vocals, they just have harmony added above and below the tune (e.g. in "Dancing Queen" or "Mamma Mia"). There are a few with 'proper' backing vocals, but I didn't think of them till the moment had passed - e.g. "The Name of the Game" has the "doo doo, doo doo" bit in the middle, and "Voulez Vous" has the "ah ha" bits in the chorus.
And non-Abba 70s pop hits that have distinct backing vocals that aren't just harmonisations of the tune? I was hoping you'd ask :p The following list is by no means exhaustive, but all these songs were top 3 hits in the 70s, and not only do they have 'proper' backing vocals, I have them written out. (I have 5 lever arch files full of backing vocals and guitar chords for songs - my band has a very large repertoire!) Only trouble is... I don't remember singing anything like any of them last night. Can anyone shed any light on what it was that did prompt the 70s comment?
Elvis Presley - The Wonder of You
George Harrison - My Sweet Lord
Elton John - Rocket Man
Donny Osmond - Puppy Love
Osmonds - Crazy Horses
Carpenters - Yesterday once more
Slade - Merry Xmas Everybody
Rubettes - Sugar Baby Love (the backing vocals for this song are primarily "bop showaddy, bop showaddywaddy" - surely the best generic backing vocals in existence!)
Three Degrees - When will I see you again
Mud - Lonely this Christmas
Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel - Make me smile (come up and see me)
Bay City Rollers - Bye bye baby
Darts - Come back my love
John Travolta & Olivia Newton John - Summer Nights
Donna Summer & Barbra Streisand - No more tears (enough is enough)
---
Anyway, if you weren't there, you may be wondering what exactly we DID sing last night, other than cheesily impersonating a forgotten 70s band... Well, we did quite a bit of work on both Svyati and Komm, Jesu, Komm, with the promise of work on Rachmaninov and Elgar in sectionals and in next week's rehearsal. In the Bach, we worked on the start instead of the end for a change, with quite a bit of time being spent on the first two bars... this led up to the most amusing moment of the night (IMHO):
"Right. Bars 1 to 3. WITHOUT STOPPING."
... You probably had to be there :p
Going out now. More later.
Jamie went on to try to think of an example of a song to illustrate his point, but couldn't. He considered Abba, but dismissed them on the grounds that "they were GOOD!" Judy, who knows that I'm a bit of an authority on cheesy backing vocals, was encouraging me to make some suggestions, but by that point he'd mentioned Abba, and my mind was busily running through all their songs (for yes, I do have them all written out with all the harmony parts - my band sings them!) Most Abba songs don't actually have separate backing vocals, they just have harmony added above and below the tune (e.g. in "Dancing Queen" or "Mamma Mia"). There are a few with 'proper' backing vocals, but I didn't think of them till the moment had passed - e.g. "The Name of the Game" has the "doo doo, doo doo" bit in the middle, and "Voulez Vous" has the "ah ha" bits in the chorus.
And non-Abba 70s pop hits that have distinct backing vocals that aren't just harmonisations of the tune? I was hoping you'd ask :p The following list is by no means exhaustive, but all these songs were top 3 hits in the 70s, and not only do they have 'proper' backing vocals, I have them written out. (I have 5 lever arch files full of backing vocals and guitar chords for songs - my band has a very large repertoire!) Only trouble is... I don't remember singing anything like any of them last night. Can anyone shed any light on what it was that did prompt the 70s comment?
Elvis Presley - The Wonder of You
George Harrison - My Sweet Lord
Elton John - Rocket Man
Donny Osmond - Puppy Love
Osmonds - Crazy Horses
Carpenters - Yesterday once more
Slade - Merry Xmas Everybody
Rubettes - Sugar Baby Love (the backing vocals for this song are primarily "bop showaddy, bop showaddywaddy" - surely the best generic backing vocals in existence!)
Three Degrees - When will I see you again
Mud - Lonely this Christmas
Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel - Make me smile (come up and see me)
Bay City Rollers - Bye bye baby
Darts - Come back my love
John Travolta & Olivia Newton John - Summer Nights
Donna Summer & Barbra Streisand - No more tears (enough is enough)
---
Anyway, if you weren't there, you may be wondering what exactly we DID sing last night, other than cheesily impersonating a forgotten 70s band... Well, we did quite a bit of work on both Svyati and Komm, Jesu, Komm, with the promise of work on Rachmaninov and Elgar in sectionals and in next week's rehearsal. In the Bach, we worked on the start instead of the end for a change, with quite a bit of time being spent on the first two bars... this led up to the most amusing moment of the night (IMHO):
"Right. Bars 1 to 3. WITHOUT STOPPING."
... You probably had to be there :p
Going out now. More later.
Sunday, March 11, 2007
"No, no, no - you need some sort of ecstasy, surely?"
Sorry, etc., etc.! (After the next three weeks I will have much more free time and promise to update more often!)
I missed choir last week (i.e. 11 days ago) because I'd been up working for most of the previous night, so by the time I'd been to work as well, I couldn't stay awake any longer. I was almost as tired this week, but I was determined not to miss another rehearsal, and I'm so glad I made it, because it put me in the best mood I've been in for ages. I sat next to Soprano Claire, and we had a whale of a time - we were just buzzing at the end!
I'd got there early for the alto vocal coaching, in which we sang bits of The Music Makers, including singing the last page to each other with our fingers in our ears (a REALLY weird sensation - try it!). Then, in the main rehearsal, we moved onto Bach, with (again) most of the time being spent on the chorale at the end. That produced all this week's Jamieisms: the one in the title, plus "An eternal frisbee right next to God" (I can't remember what that meant!) and "Ladies, can I check your underlay?" (which made us all giggle, which (probably quite rightly) seemed to really irritate Jamie, but it's because we were in a good mood!)
We then sight-read Syvati, which is very lovely although goes on a bit too long. Can't wait to do it with the solo cello. (And the basses sounded magnificent.) And we finished by sight-reading, with very few stops, the whole of the Poulenc Gloria, which we're performing in May. This gave the lovely Jonathan (our pianist for the night) something to do at last. (I see he's updated his website, by the way, but be warned - bits of it crashed my computer!) I've never sung this before, and I really like it - I've just bought the CD (mp3s below). I made loads of mistakes, so Jamie should be very happy. (In my defence, the score is very hard to read, which always seems to be the case with French music for some reason - does anyone know why that is?)
I bought a CD of The Kingdom along with the Poulenc, by the way, and I listened to that yesterday. I've never heard the piece before, and I can't say it grabs me. Mind you, it doesn't help that the choir on the recording is a bit flat in places and I can't make out most of their words. Maybe the piece will inspire me more when we do it properly!
Anyway, two rehearsals for everyone this week, although not all at the same time. I must go and do some work. But first....
Some Poulenc Gloria mp3s:
Poulenc Gloria: Gloria
Poulenc Gloria: Laudamus te
Poulenc Gloria: Domine Deus
Poulenc Gloria: Domine fili unigenite
Poulenc Gloria: Domine Deus, Agnus Dei
Poulenc Gloria: Qui sedes ad dexteram Patris
And, finally, some random links I've accumulated...
You may have heard about this alarm clock, which wakes you up with soothing messages from Stephen Fry. Sadly all the messages are addressed to "sir", but I believe there is a "madam" version coming soon.
I'm sure you were all dying to know how to do harsh death metal vocals. Now you can!
Here's a recent BBC article about why boys don't join choirs.
I recently discovered A Singer's Life - a blog which has a huge amount of interesting stuff on it. I've added it to the sidebar, along with Choralation. Most interesting recent post on the latter was this one about how conductors are largely superfluous. Food for thought!
Oh, and if you're reading this on Sunday, don't forget our Question Time opera is on BBC2 tonight at 10pm :-)
I missed choir last week (i.e. 11 days ago) because I'd been up working for most of the previous night, so by the time I'd been to work as well, I couldn't stay awake any longer. I was almost as tired this week, but I was determined not to miss another rehearsal, and I'm so glad I made it, because it put me in the best mood I've been in for ages. I sat next to Soprano Claire, and we had a whale of a time - we were just buzzing at the end!
I'd got there early for the alto vocal coaching, in which we sang bits of The Music Makers, including singing the last page to each other with our fingers in our ears (a REALLY weird sensation - try it!). Then, in the main rehearsal, we moved onto Bach, with (again) most of the time being spent on the chorale at the end. That produced all this week's Jamieisms: the one in the title, plus "An eternal frisbee right next to God" (I can't remember what that meant!) and "Ladies, can I check your underlay?" (which made us all giggle, which (probably quite rightly) seemed to really irritate Jamie, but it's because we were in a good mood!)
We then sight-read Syvati, which is very lovely although goes on a bit too long. Can't wait to do it with the solo cello. (And the basses sounded magnificent.) And we finished by sight-reading, with very few stops, the whole of the Poulenc Gloria, which we're performing in May. This gave the lovely Jonathan (our pianist for the night) something to do at last. (I see he's updated his website, by the way, but be warned - bits of it crashed my computer!) I've never sung this before, and I really like it - I've just bought the CD (mp3s below). I made loads of mistakes, so Jamie should be very happy. (In my defence, the score is very hard to read, which always seems to be the case with French music for some reason - does anyone know why that is?)
I bought a CD of The Kingdom along with the Poulenc, by the way, and I listened to that yesterday. I've never heard the piece before, and I can't say it grabs me. Mind you, it doesn't help that the choir on the recording is a bit flat in places and I can't make out most of their words. Maybe the piece will inspire me more when we do it properly!
Anyway, two rehearsals for everyone this week, although not all at the same time. I must go and do some work. But first....
Some Poulenc Gloria mp3s:
Poulenc Gloria: Gloria
Poulenc Gloria: Laudamus te
Poulenc Gloria: Domine Deus
Poulenc Gloria: Domine fili unigenite
Poulenc Gloria: Domine Deus, Agnus Dei
Poulenc Gloria: Qui sedes ad dexteram Patris
And, finally, some random links I've accumulated...
You may have heard about this alarm clock, which wakes you up with soothing messages from Stephen Fry. Sadly all the messages are addressed to "sir", but I believe there is a "madam" version coming soon.
I'm sure you were all dying to know how to do harsh death metal vocals. Now you can!
Here's a recent BBC article about why boys don't join choirs.
I recently discovered A Singer's Life - a blog which has a huge amount of interesting stuff on it. I've added it to the sidebar, along with Choralation. Most interesting recent post on the latter was this one about how conductors are largely superfluous. Food for thought!
Oh, and if you're reading this on Sunday, don't forget our Question Time opera is on BBC2 tonight at 10pm :-)
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