New venue

The second gospel rehearsal has been and gone. (I don't know if we can use the term 'rehearsal' as I'm not sure what we're rehearsng for!)

We were all set to invest a second basement, when I had a call from one of our singers saying the Parish had been in touch with her about using one of the church halls for our meeting but first the Parish Priest wanted to speak to the leader of the group to find out what we would be using te hall for. We don't really have a leader - I wave my arms about at the front but it's more of a collective project, so I didn't really think I should answer for the group : and I found the prospect of a Spanish Inquisition a little unwelcoming, especially as it was two regular members of the congregation who had made the request - but maybe that's just me!!
Meanwhile, another singer had managed to secure the reservation of one of the municipal meeting rooms so the question of meeting the priest became academic.

So last night it was 8.30 in the village. A fairly spacious, brightly lit room with low ceilings which meant we could fill it with sound!

There were a few faces from October missing due to professional/family obligations, but there were also a few new faces who hadn't been able to make it to be with us last time. We'd lost our teenagers as they have school on a Friday morning and had found the late night too hard to deal with. Fair enough.
We had lost one 'chap' but gained another so we're even Stevens for the tenors.

We started with a little warm-up session to loosen up during which I tried to get everyone to feel the different stages of breathing (abdomen, chest, clavicle...) so they could become aware of how they produce sound. We did a few 'hallelujahs' to warm up the vocal chords and then I asked the choir to try and reproduce the four gospel sounds of "neutral" voice; "curbing"; "overdrive" and "belting". The tenors started fantasizing about Tina Turner as they tried to belt!!
Then we were into our rehearsal.

We started off with "Come Here Jesus" again as it's nice and soft and not too daunting. It had been well remembered and the new singers picked it up quickly.
We sang it a couple of times because I wanted it to be sung in a more 'imploring' manner. The image of the ringing bells during the final "Amens" worked much better this time.

We decided to plough on with "Jesus On The Mainline" after that. What a challenge!
I gave a copy of the sheet music to Ben so he could help out with the tenors, and also because we may eventually ask him to accompany us on the piano; and another to Mary so she could help out with the altos. Suddenly there were three choir directors in the room so I'm not sure that was a good idea!!
The sopranos sang the solo parts and did quite a good job, although Mary pointed out we were missing some of the accidentals. Suddenly there were flats everywhere, even where there shouldn't have been. That will have to be ironed out soon before bad habits are formed!
There are lots of tricky entry points and we spent over an hour on learning the whole thing. We decided to take the plunge and try to sing the whole thing from beginning to end without stopping! Ha ha! It was tied together with string and we lost a repeat and a Dal Segno somewhere along the way but everyone was smiling at the end so I think we've got a good base to work on next time.

Then we had a quick sing through of "God Great God". It was more to help those of us who know the song to remember it and let the new singers hear it rather than to learn or improve it. Leaving it completely for another month would have wiped it from everyone's memories surely! We didn't spend long because I wanted to get to "Were You There" as Pauline (another protected identity!!) had brought her guitar to accompany us with it. As predicted, the harmonisation is rather tricky in places. I found that I had spent such a long time memorising the tenor part that I fluffed the altos. Our only bass singer agreed he didn't want a part of his own and stuck with the tenors!! (Phew, because I hadn't revised his part!)
Anyway, we kind of pulled it together, and after a final strum of Pauline's guitar we packed up for the night as it was getting late and everyone was exhausted.

Speaking to a couple of people afterwards, I got the impression they had enjoyed themselves and would be back, but they certainly looked a bit stressed during the 'ordeal'!! I expect it was concentration - and I forget they have the added complication of the words. English is not their language and some don't speak a word, so they can't register meaningful sentences, or anticipate what comes next from a linguistic point of view which slows down the learning process for them.

I have to find a solution for the noisy tenors though. They did keep practising their line while other parts were trying to learn theirs and it was off-putting.

All in all, it was a pretty good session where we got a lot of work done. no-one recorded it though, so I hope that memories will be functioning properly by December!
Meanwhile, it's more revision and choosing a new song for me in the intervening period! Fun fun fun.
Gospella

A Little Less Rosy?

Well, it's D minus 2 until our next gospel encounter and things are not really up and running.

For one thing we still don't have a place to meet. The town parish had offered us a room but have never got back in touch, despite pestering by one of our singers, to say whether it is in fact possible on Thursday evenings. As we were waiting for a reply for them we put the town hall on hold - they asked us for a year-planner of dates we would like to use one of the municipal facilities but we were waiting for the parish answer first and now it's probably too late. Not sure how this will be resolved. Maybe we'll find another basement and start a sort of trail from basement to basement. We could finish the year with a quiz on people's underground amenities!!
Question 1 : Who served us cake in their basement?
Question 2 : Whose basement smelled of fuel?
and so forth!
What would an appropriate prize be??

Further complications are my lack of mastery of the songs on the agenda!! I have pretty much got the sopranos covered - but then they have the melody most of the time. I have more difficulty with remembering the alto and tenor parts. I can follow the music (although I admit to cheating with the bass clef and pencilling in the notes as I'm taking too long to decipher with the help of "All Cows Eat Grass" and "Good Boys Deserve Favour Always"!!!)but ideally I would like to be paper free. A lot of it is a question of time - one luxury I have very little of.

I tinkered with the idea of adding the bass line to the harmonisation of "Were You There?" but gave up as it is a superb but tricky line to learn and we only have one bass (one has already abandoned after the first rehearsal)and I'm not sure he's up to holding the fort on his own.

As for "Jesus on the Mainline" - I am almost ready if I follow the music. I am going to have the sopranos sing the solo part and see how that sounds. If that doesn't work then I shall have to look further into a piano accompaniment - what makes me loathe to give Ben the sheet music is that he will realise I'm not respecting the timing at all! I always hated maths and prefer to do things by feel than by counting! Besides which, the original idea was to be a-cappella so we couldn't have too many rest bars of silence. Mind you, the harmonisation would be much easier to find if we had the piano.

I shall keep practising (and praying) beofre Thursday and hope for the best. Of course I'll blog and let you know after the fact.
Keep singing.

Gospella