HELLO FEBRUARY!
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And after some fun warm-up exercises, we celebrated good friendships learning a new short song called GOOD FRIEND by Jan Harman, the words are just lovely and the tune has a lovely little folky feel. We sang it quite low today as we learnt it, we will gradually lift it up, which will stretch some of the lower voices in the room, but we’ll take it gently. Once we are happy with the tune, this song can be sung in 4 parts and sounds sublime.
Oh the wind, it is a song
That harbours thru the winter
Oh, the sail, it is a door
That bids the song to enter
And let us sail the sea, good friend
And let us sing together
The singer lasts a season long, while the
Song… it lasts for ever
We then moved on to Up on the Roof, we’re getting to the trickiest bit of the song now, once we’ve mastered this bit, it’s pretty much plain-sailing from then on, so please just keep going, be patient, it will come. The sops (REDS) were very thin on the ground tonight, with just the two of them, so well done Sandy and Gayle for powering on!
I’m aware that some of you might feel that you are struggling with this song a bit, perhaps you feel a bit intimidated by the higher notes? have a watch of Tim’s choir singing it here, sing a long with them, be carefree, try and relax a bit… are you finding it hard now, singing it in on your own with no one else watching? Then have a listen to the recording from tonight’s session and have a think whereabouts in the song you were having problems, and ask yourself what is it that you are finding difficult? Feedback to me, or in the group, let’s work our way through this, as it’s such a great up-lifting song to sing, and I’m confident we’ll get there ☺
After our quick break we didn’t exactly take it easy, as we moved on to Let the River Run, as I said last week, we are learning the trickiest bit of the whole song at the moment, and it’s not going to come ‘just like that’, it’s going to take practice and some hard work, but we will get there, and once we have it the rest of the song is basically repeating the same harmonies we have learned, with a funky key change. Listening back to this evening, every now and again it comes together, and when it does, it sounds delicious, trust the process and keep practicing….
We have just one more week of this 6 week block, and in the last five weeks we have learnt several short songs and moved on nicely with these two plus of course learning ‘Under the Moon of Love’, and all of this in the worst part of the year for many of us, long, dark, cold nights, many people missing one or more weeks because of the horrible winter lurgies, and more of you still recovering from the nasty chest (oh and couple of you travelling to warmer, sunnier climates – we’re not jealous at all, but we are missing you!) This always holds back our learning a bit, as every week we have people who have missed the learning from a previous session, so be proud with where we’ve got to. Next week we will revise all the songs we have learnt this block and sing these two songs up to where we’ve got to, then for a bit of fun we’re going to travel back in time, dig out our old folders from the last two and half years and have a sing through some of the songs we have learned previously, if you’re new to the choir, don’t worry, I’ll bring some spare words and you can just join in with the tune, or sit back and watch! Feel free to bring a favourite tipple to share to raise a glass to all our hard work (bring your own glasses!)
I love it when our choir is singing, it makes me feel lighter than hydrogen, it makes me feel alive again, yeah it makes me feel alive ☺ xxx