HA-LLE-LUU-JAAAAAAAAAaaaaaa...
Apr. 20th, 2005 11:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ciroccojMy throat really, really hurts.
::ahem::
Choir tonight was gruelling. James Wright, who composed half of what we're singing these days (Pie Jesu, Canadian Landscape Trilogy, and a piece he just wrote, dedicated to our choir) was there so we could learn straight from the source. Wonderful, but exhausting. We were almost dead even before we got to the Freedom Song Trilogy.
Then we got to the trilogy, which is exhausting to sing at any time, never mind 1.5 hours into a rehearsal. And there we were, singing. And Margaret, our powerhouse descant, was not there, so the rest of us had to brace and sing for all we were worth.
And you know what? At the end of a two hour rehearsal, at the end of an 8 minute piece, holding a high A on fortissimo for five bars HURTS.
Go find a piano. Hit a high A. Now scream that out, as loud as you can, full-bodied tone without sounding squeaky, for 12 seconds.
Now do it again. Some of the choir got the tempo wrong at the end.
And again. One of the second sopranos flubbed that last entry.
And again. Let's do the crescendo a little more subtly.
Um, no. Go back to how we did it before.
Can you still talk?
Yeah, I didn't think so.
::happy, squeaky sigh:: I love choir :) :) :)
::ahem::
Choir tonight was gruelling. James Wright, who composed half of what we're singing these days (Pie Jesu, Canadian Landscape Trilogy, and a piece he just wrote, dedicated to our choir) was there so we could learn straight from the source. Wonderful, but exhausting. We were almost dead even before we got to the Freedom Song Trilogy.
Then we got to the trilogy, which is exhausting to sing at any time, never mind 1.5 hours into a rehearsal. And there we were, singing. And Margaret, our powerhouse descant, was not there, so the rest of us had to brace and sing for all we were worth.
And you know what? At the end of a two hour rehearsal, at the end of an 8 minute piece, holding a high A on fortissimo for five bars HURTS.
Go find a piano. Hit a high A. Now scream that out, as loud as you can, full-bodied tone without sounding squeaky, for 12 seconds.
Now do it again. Some of the choir got the tempo wrong at the end.
And again. One of the second sopranos flubbed that last entry.
And again. Let's do the crescendo a little more subtly.
Um, no. Go back to how we did it before.
Can you still talk?
Yeah, I didn't think so.
::happy, squeaky sigh:: I love choir :) :) :)
