22 May 2014

Ed stood at the front with his music stand ready to conduct the penultimate practice! And reminded us that Fair In The Square starts at 11.40 on Monday.

Ed will be setting up from 6pm tomorrow, and needs our good selves sat in the front seats from 7.20 and then he coached us in acting confused when requested to sing something for an encore. I will make sure my fiancé shouts 'More!' 

Let The River Run still had issues with Ar-ses and Ass-es (careful now) and needed a brighter sound for the bridge, which moved from an Mmmmm to an Ooooo...

Long And Winding road is going to work really well in church, despite not being Jack's favourite song. We are missing the overlap echo bit, bit Ed said it was too late to thrash that one and so Jack was happy especially because after tomorrow's concert we are putting the long and winding road to bed!

Heaven Is [still] A Place On Earth. Please bring your Ooomph tomorrow. 

So then we sing Sing which I keep faking as its in such a funny key and I mustn't wreck my voice for my solos and sexy duet with Ed after half time. Please be reminded that 'clearer' rhymes with 'hear-ya'. And we did it again. So I sang it like a man!

Now the audience have got used to us and its time to take them in a new direction, and we may hear them singing along as we sing So Happy Together! Which reminds me, I still don't have a sheep, which might have helped Ed not miss out a line ...

Bread maker, I mean Starmaker, has been eliminated from Monday but is still in the line for tomorrow night! More cheese please, a lot more GLEE! Oh yeah baby ....

1st Of May is sounding lovely if you like snakes. We didn't even run it all the way through. Because we needed to slip in some Dreaming! Always the danger of an extra YOU in that one. Ed was pleased, and he even let us miss out Goodbye To Love, and even The King And I.

The medieval version of Midnight Blue was ditched in favour of Mr HinTze delivering a lecture in rhyming couplets and t'was lovely indeed. Punchy please. See you tomorrow at 7.20 raring to go. 

Love you and see you then xxxx 

15 May 2014

The one with the announcement... Yes the one about me and Mike. I think I really would like a whole bunch of Dorset For Singing at the wedding, now you mention it. How much do you charge?

Oxford people to stay behind at the end. 

Portland concert is next week and we will be supporting a lovely duet between Ed and Julie - the prayer!

Performance in the square has the same set but swapping Starmaker for Dreaming, the Blondie one ...

Time for a river-run through ....

Ass-king not arse-king for the taking please for Let The River Run, we need a nice flat northern 'A'. We had to get all the water puns out of system before a second run through. And Jerusa-lum not Jerusa-lem. Just so we are singing from the same hymn book. 

The Long And Windy Road is a real audience pleaser and will make them sigh. After the excitement of the river this ones going to take them places they never knew Dorset's Best Community Choir could take them!

Next they will be in heaven, for it is a place on earth. 

And next with a special guess soloist we sang Sing ...

We may not even always be in tune, but I think we are generally So Happy Together! 

Starmaker next. No one groaned. Much. But choir did put their everything into it and Ed was pleased. And everyone forgave little Jack for being tired from doing SATS and hiding the words at one point. Life is good!

 

It isn't The First Of May anymore, but we relived that heady moment. The Apples. The kiss. Your mum shouting you in for your tea ... 

Then along with YouTube we did our special parts for Midnight Blue. Ooo Yeah. 

Then Julie took a perch next to Ed so we could do some oooo for a song we have not done for a while with choir. Cool Duet choice guys. 

Love you. See you next week ...

8 May 2014

The one where you only stay behind if you haven't sorted out your Oxford issues ....

11.40 is the time for our performance at the fayre in the square venue on bank holiday Monday 26 May. 

We reviewed our running order for All Saints and jumped straight in with Let The River Run! It was rather flat and lacked something. Make sure you get a warm up before our concert because we need to give it our best. We divided to share out the overlaps. Ed wanted to give this another run through to break it down, but stopped when he was happy!

The Long And Winding Road lacked drive. It must not become a long and winding dirge! Ed demoed a few actions but we won't be trying those. So the second run through was about finding more DRIVE, seriously no pun intended!

Heaven Is A Place On Earth was ok. More harmony parts please!

Sing - The Gary Barlow number we remembered very well, with Catherine back for the solo part. We discussed the overlapping sections which worked so well last time we sang this! More people needed for the echoes too! At the second run through we were looking to work that overlap and we were treated to  Jack's upstaging of Ed. Haha. Julie said we should do the ending without music and we cracked it. Yay!

How Happy Together! 

Star Maker sounded good but more lower harmony in chorus would help to really build that up. 

First Of May was ok!

Goodbye To Love gains a Pass too! Yay! 

Comments were invited from choir members after our first run, through but no one was brave enough. 

Ed wanted to take to the piano and run through Midnight Blue, mostly our parts. Needs some YouTube listening, so that's your homework chaps!

We stood for You Raise Me Up, which is very apt and going to be our secret encore so please don't read this if you are coming to the concert. The rest of you, well done Dorset For Singing and have a great week! Cat xxx

1st May 2014

Hello everyone on our late return to summer term... Blogging live from the jolly old school hall ...

Concert in three weeks folks, so we are revisiting a couple of old friends for our Portland concert on Friday 23rd May 7.30 ... Solos welcome! We will be singing at the Fair In The Square on that bank holiday Monday too .... Time to be confirmed to end all confusion. 

After a super fast warm up, we tackled The First Of May ... I will have to tell Mary when I get home. She is 6 on the second and this is a favourite choir song! After doing really well that we dug out Star Maker, we're happy now! Ed said we might not need to practice again ... B Flat please Ed!

Ed wanted to reintroduce Midnight Blue which is mostly a solo by him. Jack added in an In and then took it out again. Priceless. And in the Bee Gees flavoured bridge, Ed added in an In and there were frowns. You have to be here, really! Over to you tube, to reINstall all the INs again ....

So happy together! This song makes me want to work/animate a puppet sheep. You know, just at the end there... Look out for the eyebrow moment of course. There won't be a dry seat in the house! Mind the treacle folks. Over the top annunciation please. 

We decided on You Raise Me Up too, as That church always asks for an encore. We also considered Sing, the Gary Barlow version, not our Karen again! So we could try that next week if Ed reads this blog post. He doesn't read these, does he?

Jack found us Raise me up words that were not quite complete, but we didn't do too badly having a crack at that!

Then jack found a karaoke version of SING, and we waited for it to buffer ... We did a lovely job of that too so we can leave the hall smelling quite sweetly tonight!

Carol nominated Good Bye To Love for our finale, and all stood to make a joyful noise. Superb. Love you, keep singing. Running order next week xxxx