30 April 2015

The one with the two part hum warm-up...

In which I got completely lost and the men made a lovely thrum. I managed to stay with it the second time, and the third. 

The running order for our next concert is now live on the website and words will be available next week for those unable to print their own. Ed spelled out the running order very very slowly.

Running Order for All Saints Church, Easton, Portland 7.30pm 8th May
Part 1
1. On the Street Where You Live
2. Chiquitita
3. Get Around
4. Don't Sleep in the Subway
5. Lean on Me
6. Breaking Up is Hard to Do
7. Reach Out
8. Downtown
9. Waterloo Part

2 - Ed and guest singers
10. With a Little Help from My Friends
11. (Encore) Let's Go to San Francisco

On the street where you live first up, both in the order of things and to be sung tonight. Ed forgot the interlude of oooohs and Aaaaaaghs but most of us kept going! 

Chicken tikka next, which was coming along nicely. Don't forget the meaningful gap before the patch.

Get around, gets around fast doesn't it? Tiny little timing issue. See blog two weeks back. Ed introduced counting and clapping and wept, 'give me the rhythm,' till finally they got it. But would they keep it?

Subway next, extra fried chicken. Oh yeah. No one remembers to sing the sweet little response part for two lines of the last two chorus so we worked on that and then fixed a lyric. 

Ed attempted to complement our tone but no one was listening so we instead recived a lecture on behaviour. Then the complement of the year - we sound like one voice!

Lean on me was begun a Capella and when the piano joined in we were still in tune! Whoooohoo! That key change is still scary though! And we are having some nice gaps, Elaine already had a record of these in her folder.

This arrow is to remind everyone that there a key change coming up that no one wants to do ⬆️. 

Breaking up is hard to do, but that key change was excellent! 

Waterloo next! Missing out a song to slip this one in tonight (reach out). And Ed said marvellous. Even though there was a quick-bit that tripped a few people up. 

Time for reach out, HUH WHAT? Hah! This one needs some homework because the words don't seem to fit on the lines they are supposed to. Please. Keep singing, that's not why I love you! Cat xxxx

Dorchester Choir 29/4/15

The technology failed us this week, so we shared words, the one week I didn"t have my folder as I left in a hurry! typical! But it turned out to be a good exercise in remembering and I think we surprised ourselves.

The warm up was really fun, Ed was waving his arms like an air traffic controller, sending us up, down and all over the place. It sounded very harmonious and raised a few giggles.

Ed spoke about the concert on Friday the 8th May at All Saints Church Portland, its at 7-30 and will be a lovely one to ease us in. Iit's a very relaxed evening, and we will have the Weymouth choir to hold us up, not literally of course, we can go to the pub afterwards.

The choir mostly wear the uniform t shirt, as long as we get the colour right we can wear any top,with black bottoms. The colours are purple, orange, powder blue, sunshine yellow, lime green, and I think there is bright pink, if you look on the website at the choir logo, these are the colours. 

Now for some songs, we started with Don't Sleep in The Subway. Ed complimented us on not being a 'warbley' choir, and believe me this is a real compliment. According to Ed, we sound like a young choir, I for one will be taking extra care with hair and make up on Friday week!

Round Round Get Around was next up, we are really giving this one some wellie now.

A little Help from My Friends , Reach Out, and to finish, Breaking Up is Hard to Do. I think The King and I was in there somewhere, must pay more attention, too busy having fun, but after all is said and done, that is why we love DORSET FOR SINGING !                                                                                    

         See you next time, Carole M x                         

23 April 2013

Back in the dining room again ...when Jack played the new 'spooning-dinner ladies' advert before we started, and everyone tried to decide if that woman was me or not ...

Fulvia blew bubbles. That's all I'm going to say about the shenanigans on the front row during warm ups! They involved huge, great big, dirty, long notes and some of the biggest, loudest breaths we have ever seen. Oh yes. Ed likes big breaths ...

Announcements. Lots of concerts as follows:-

Fri 8th May All Saints Portland 7.30pm
Sat 16th May Canterbury 7pm
Mon 25th May Fayre in the Square timings tbc (daytime)
Sat 30th May St Andrews Preston 12.30pm
31st May Race for Life Kingston Maurward 10-45am - 12.15pm 
Sat 27th June 'Out Loud' 2pm outside Sausage Factory!
(We get the sausage factory but Ed gets the stage at debenhams ......)
Sat 11th July Rose Garden St. Edmund's timings tbc (daytime)

And here is a Sweet link which you can use to nominate an Unsung Hero for an upcoming BBC music event. which would be our Ed of course!

And finally squeezing a bit of singing, starting with Lemon Otter. But it went up went up where it never used to and left even Ed behind at one point! Comma comma down goes up! After breaking down breaking up a bit, it sounded lovely. 

Time to Get Around which was better that the last time in the dining room. Syncopated was the word. So was timing. 

Can we Sleep in the subway?, asked Ed tenderly, and we dived into to the song of the same name. It's was almost too easy, but we forgot to put a delay on the so. Ed hammered out a harmony which was really a nice echo. 

Lean on me I'm your blogger. Nice. Finding the right version was fun. Needs a bit of a nip and tuck, as we last performed it in the olden days (2009) ... Jack doodle numbers on the overhead projection. They looked like  the way the Wii-fit tries to appraise my attempts at yoga. 

Reach out darling, and make friends at DFS. HUH. Jenny got two in while everyone else remembered where it was supposed to go. Ed will go over the timing again soon. until then, go nominate Mr Unsung and have fun ... Love You XXXXX

DFS Dorchester 22/04/2015

After the long Easter Break it was lovely to see everyone again, and also to arrive, and leave, in daylight.

Jenny was on door duty for the first session of this term, but we need willing volunteers to take a turn on the door now and then, you need to be there by six twenty-five-ish if you feel you would like to help out.

We started off with our warm up, Ed reminded us that as we don't have time for a very lengthy one, it is a good idea to warm up as we go about our daily routine, whether that be at work, shopping, electioneering, whatever. Dorchester will take no notice, apparently they are accustomed to this kind of behaviour. Thats probably because they have a town crier, and an arts centre.

Notices - We are going to be joining our big brothers and sisters in the Weymouth choir for their upcoming gigs, and we will be showcasing all that we have been learning some time in june in the church. Thank goodness for the great acoustics.

We then set to work on a few songs. Lean on Me is a great song for building confidence, and Ed gave us some
nice easy harmonies, it sounded really good.

We did Reach Out, harmonies again, and of course that grunt, nobody did it in the wrong place this time, but it's much more fun when they do. We all love singing this one, memories of our misspent youth!

We ended the rehearsal with The Beatles song, A Little Help from My Friends. The words of this song don't really fit us, as we are on the whole, a, shall we say, somewhat mature, albeit gorgeous bunch. Our highs are probably a nice cup of tea and a cream cake, or a cheeky glass of something, with our shoes off! But hey, this probably applies to Paul and Ringo too nowadays. By the way, who was YOUR Beatle? 

See you next week, don't forget to sing your way around Tesco, Waitrose, Poundland, you know you want to.

Carole M x