Tuning up

Thursday 7th December saw another gospel rehearsal in the village. We had a bit fewer than 20 people this time. Depending on people's engagements they can't always come on the chosen date but this was the only available Thursday for me. As it was, I ran in straight from an 8-hour teaching day with lunchtime meetings, and two student council meetings in the evening followed by the compulsory hour-long drive before rushing in breathless to the rehearsal! I said a quiet prayer in my car before I gathered together my music stand and papers for enough energy to get people going as well as enough voice despite my laryngitis.

We started up with some gentle stretching and breathing exercises and then warmed up with a harmonisation exercise which went quite well although the sopranos tended to be a bit flat. We did a bit of voice work to try and get some power vocally. Not everybody managed to do this : some were a bit reluctant to make a noise on their own. I realise it's hard for people to suddenly change the way they use thier voice but I think the more opportunities they are given to take notice of how they breathe and use their vocal chords the easier it will be for them to develop a sound they are comfortable with.

First stop was a rehearsal of a gospel piece "I'm gonna wait on the Lord" which I direct in the main village choir. Most of the group belong to the main choir and know it so it was a good way to get them to feel like a cohesive group. More importantly we'll be singing it at a choir competition on 17th December and I won't have an opportunity to rehearse them beforehand. Now I expect our gospel singers to pull along the other chorists.
We launched into "God Great God" which was a challenge but ended up sounding OK. We had pitched it too high previously. Ben had been convinced we started on an E but in fact it was a C as I discovered when watching the home video soeone had made of the summer concert with 'Gospel Aujourd'hui' . This explains why everyone had been looking particularly strangled by the end of the song after the keychanges! This time, however, it was very hard for the sopranos to get any power while singing so low. I told the altos we were counting on them for volume! The tenors managed OK.

We went quickly through "Come Here Jesus" which is fairly simple and which the group seems to have pretty much mastered. I tried to get them to sound a bit more prayerful as it was rather childish-sounding with a rythm which was too 'square' and regular.

Then we spent some time on "Were You There". The harmonisations are a bit challenging and the altos had some difficulty remembering their part, particularly when thrown by the other voices. The end result was, however, rather good. We sang through the whole thing with several verses and it sounded OK. I'm quite proud of them.

Then we attacked "Jesus On the Mainline" again. The structure is hard to remember and the singers are riveted to their wordsheets as they find the text quite difficult. Two poor altos had missed the previous rehearsal and had no idea what we were singing but they stoically managed to catch up by the end - well done to them. Proof that persistence is everything! We went through the harmonisations again and the tricky bits where people come in at different times. The sopranos were very flat (how ironic Mary still had to point out the flats we'd missed!!) and the song ended up a good tone lower than it had started every time.
I had to ask Ben to stop rehearsing the tenors while we were trying to learn the alto part as it was a bit off-putting, and then Mary pointed out it wasn't possible for him to rely on the sheet music to bring in the tenors as I had changed the rythm in certain places to allow for the lack of instrumentation. The only solution is to "follow my leader"!!! I hope they get rid of the wordsheets soon so that will happen!

Our grand finale was a final run-through of the whole song which sounded quite good bar one or two tricky corners we turned with two wheels in the air!
The music/the singers/my prayer had managed to give me the energy I needed to carry the group along and I felt quite awake when we finished singing at 11 o'clock!

Mary asked whether we were going to sing something at the big choir concert planned in February in the village!!! Every year the village choir invites a couple of other choirs from different towns to join us for a concert and she thought it would be good to 'advertise' our existence by singing something. I looked at the singers who had the same expression on their faces that a hare has when caught in headlights!!
I think we will probably sing one or two of the pieces we've learned but probably not "Jesus On the Mainline" as we only have one sceduled rehearsal before February's concert and it's going to take a few more than that to get our lines uncrossed!! Ideally we'd sing something soft and something a bit more up-beat for variety. If the choir agrees to do it I think I shall choose the songs myself, as democracy doesn't generally work as everyone will have a different opinion! The next meeting is supposed to be after Christmas so I hope we don't forget everything we've done up to now.

Until then "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth, peace, goodwill t'ward men".
Merry Christmas.

Gospella