Getting the sound right out in front: a month of rehearsals September 2013

We’re getting back into the swing of things after the summer break. We’ve already performed at two gigs this month, we’ve a few more coming up and we’re getting ready for the North Wales Competition early November. That means some hard work at rehearsals. But we don’t mind that.  It’s good to know we are continuously building on what we know, improving old skills and learning new ones.

Jeff continues to emphasize getting good vowel sounds. We’ve practised not moving our chins, not changing the shape of our mouths and doing all of the work with our tongue and palette. We’ve been shown how to project the sound forward instead of it staying in our nose and throat. That, of course is also helped if we breathe correctly. However, we must not, no we must not indeed, breathe in the wrong places or take great gasping breaths at the beginning of a phrase. Good, controlled breathing is highly desirable.

We’re working quite quickly on a new song, Ave Verum. This can be quite dramatic and also quite solemn. It’s actually harder to get that drama into it before we’ve learned it.  We have to learn it quickly because we are going to perform it at the North Wales competition. We need to present one song in another language and this of course is in Latin.

“It’s easy to learn,” says Jeff. “Apart from the tenor part.”

Ah. In fact in many places there are parts for tenor 1s – sung by the ladies - and tenor 2s – presented by the men.

We continue as well perfecting Here, There and Everywhere, polishing Let’s Do It and keeping the rest of our repertoire in good condition. And we remember not to look at the floor, but to tell the story and to keep our eyes bright. Hard work, this singing. But we enjoy it and we’re convinced it’s good for us.                             

Mouths and Eyes: a Month of Rehearsals June 2013

“You’ve got to imagine you can put a pencil in the gap,” says Jeff. “Everybody’s mouth should be exactly the same shape.”  It’s one of our next steps. The diction, the musical sound and the phrasing are coming along nicely.  Now we’re sharpening vowel sounds and getting some brightness. We need good clear “ohs” and “ahs” with tight round lips and yawned-open mouths. Out with the “eees” and “eeuhahs”. The former happens sometimes if you try to smile with your mouth and sing at the same time, the latter when you don’t hit and hold the note. The smile must be in the eyes and in the sound as you sing at the top of your mouth. Advanced stuff, this.   

I’m reminded as a former language teacher of trying to get learners of German to pronounce the “o” properly. This could be a matter of imagining a Hula Hoop or Polo Mint in the gap the lips make. The “ű” was just as challenging – like whistling without pushing the air.

We continue sharpening up our repertoire and polishing the newer songs. Now that we are getting more gigs we need some newer material. It’s quite a balance – enough performances to make it matter but not too many that we can’t have the rest of our lives nor have time enough to rehearse.

One solution perhaps was our performance at the Eye Hospital in Manchester. We performed, in our black with a touch of purple, to the small select audience of the evening’s footfall. It was a dress rehearsal as well for our forthcoming performances, including the one now completed at Dunham Massey. Though the audience was small it was appreciative.     

By the way, we could do with a few more male tenors and bases. Any willing chaps reading this?   Get in touch if you’re interested!       

A Month in Rehearsal: April 2013

Now that it’s getting slightly milder the door and the windows are open more often. On a good night, and most of them are, there are about forty of us in the room so it gets a little warm. Outside the birds compete or attempt to join in - I’ not sure which.  I often wonder what the residents of the Ordsall estate who live near to the Everyone Centre  make of this sound they hear every Tuesday evening. We hope they enjoy it and have their windows open too.  

Jeff is pushing us hard. But good. We’re ready for that. We seem to learn new songs more quickly now. We really can’t survive without working at least little between Tuesday night sessions. We’ve mastered The Long and Winding Road quite rapidly and brought it out in the recent performance at the Victoria Baths. Okay, it’s not the hardest song we’ve ever learnt but it isn’t the easiest either.

It isn’t just the singing, though. That’s almost the easy bit - we have some good voices, experienced singers and enthusiastic newcomers. We also work regularly on diction, phrasing, vowel sounds, facial expressions and presence. Every rehearsal starts anyway with the all-important breathing and voice warm up.

It pays off, this attention to detail. Our diction has been praised by judges at the Buxton Fringe and the MACC. I now notice some quite prestigious singers putting the last consonant of one word on the opening vowel of the next and it makes me cringe – then smirk. We know as well that when we brighten our eyes the singing sounds and feels better.

It is quite hard, however, when you try to remember everything at once: the words, where notes go up or down unexpectedly, to watch Jeff, to tell the story and to brighten your eyes. Jeff pulls a face and you think. Oh no, he means me. Thankfully in the break you find out that everyone had had that thought.

Ah, the breaks. News, tea and chat. And of course, Kerry’s cakes which get better and better when they were excellent to start with.

All the fun aside, rehearsals have been serious business with several new songs coming into our repertoire, some older ones being polished up and several recordings being made. Hard work. We wouldn’t be without it, though.