23 February 2017

Back in the common room again we were treated with a new warm up, which involves counting to 10. We had no laptop until one expressly arrived and while it was powered up we tried the counting warm-up which is almost impossible and accidentally ends up in the teens. 

And in news, our live video has been watched many times, clocking up 2703 views! 

Then we did 'The Grand Old Duke Of York' you know, the one where we clap and stamp in all the right places. 

Then Jack hit YouTube for a fun Choral warm up with Tony Leach. You simply must try it! 

 

We have a new song to try tonight and a revisit to an old song. Ed flashed the new dates section of the website which is really helpful then threw some extra information at us. All are invited to attend the Easter concert at United Reform Church in Dorchester. 

So we kicked off with It's Getting Better and a bit of copy paste from Jack to fix our ending, then dived into Dropbox again to sing Uptown Girl with lots of energy, and we were asked to do it Alan Car, no A Capella, or as Ed likes to say, Al Fresco. 

And at choir we Can't Help Falling In Love and it shows. We sang that one Al Fresco too, but then the speakers are a bit odd in the common room. Next though we fired them up again to listen to Birdy - Wings and yes it's from a horsey kind of TV advert. Learn the 'single version' for homework please. 

Annie's Song we have tackled before, and Jack popped on a nice YouTube backing track so we could tackle it anew. ''Tis one of those songs in a fabulous key for our male members and of course me, and we will leave it at that key, thank you very much!

Just two more songs before random-oke dictator-oke, You're So Vain first, and the news that full gamut of approved-oke songs can now be found on our own YouTube channel so take a sneak peep if you dare!

We Are The Champions was our final song tonight, before Jack chose You Can't Hurry Love and we all left Freddie and became phil Collins. Quickly followed by a bonus roomful of Tom Jones (Delilah) Uncanny. Man, I love this choir. Keep singing and see you next Thursday, Cat XXX

9 February 2017

The Thursday after DFS Dorch went live ... it was our turn. We were all looking forward to that. 

Please don't come next week, it will be half term and Ed will be in the New Forrest managing fires. Nice. Well done for turning up in the very cold night and mind you do not fall down the hole in the car park that Lesley vacated on her way in. Mike gave me an odd strate for harmonising in the warm-ups, well if ya it it .... naughty me. We Dum-dum-diddleyed for a special quest. 

I got very excited for the live-test because then I would be seen blogging live. I'm ready to flash the blog App and smile with everyone else. That was fun, did you see me? 

Then it was time to rehearse our Live-song and Ed recorded the backing so he would be ready to conduct us as we Can't Help Falling In Love With You, our fans! The harmony parts were a bit quiet and we need to be careful not to hold any of those notes that should be short. Then we gave it another run through, and left that to mature awhile. 

And of course It's Getting Better all the time here at DFS. We sang this one with the piano not the backing track and still tripped up over the key change and the double chorus. Despite this we gave our choir master a lovely warm feeling and we were complemented on our energy. That key change took a hammering. It was getting there. Jack had a good time and we all laughed away the tension preceding our star moment as his marvellous and helpful live edits. 

I think tonight we believed that We Are The Champions, well maybe until the bit with too many words in ... garbled was a word used here. Repetition worked here too. We had a little stand and perform. 

And with less than 5 minutes till broadcast and with the wrong words on the screen we had a rest with Let It Be Me, but nerves or forgetfulness may have caused a bum note. 

And then it was time to possibly get caught on my phone at choir, finishing this actual sentence and waiting for the big moment ... 26 viewers later, we sat back to enjoy some comments, before cracking on with Uptown Girl to use up the rest of that nervous energy. And well done us, we really kept it going. I wonder what we all had for tea?

And the not-very-random-oke but it was very wall-of-sound. Da Do Ron Ron filled the hall before we all skipped off merrily to our cold cars and warm houses to spend a fine half term in song. Love you loads, keep singing xxx

2 February 2017

The one with lots of dates announcing, which we got to after our warm up. 

29 March DFS Dorch concert at the church there. Feel free to join them. 

21 April is the Wool concert, 7.30pm in the village hall. 

28 April at All Saints Portland where they love us loads. 

20 May Preston Village Fete

27 May Fare in the Square 

And don't forget our tour too! Deposits were arriving already 

And the first song was MacArthur Park which I think may have gone better than last week. But as Michael and I were not here we could hardly be the ones to judge. 

Then Ed mentioned our future facebook LIVE which will happen next week. Oh joy. Jenny is going to hide at the back. Then we sang Can't Help Falling In Love, breaking it down a lot before standing to perform, only Mike, less one gallbladder was sitting beside me (blogging away frantically as usual). Whooo. 

And one of tonight's tasks was to work out the ending of It's Getting Better. The key change is a bit of a pickle, and the ending might just have gotten worser. The key change might leave (Vote on our facebook page).

To save our choir master's sanity we quickly moved him to tears by singing whatever we wanted followed by a noble attempt at Uptown Girl and avoided a breakdown by Ed breaking it down a bit for us again. He demonstrated some American twang because we were sounding a bit to choral. 

And for something more gentle again we had Let It Be Me. Ed usually says this number is over-harmonised, but today it was very lovely and worked. We responded appropriately to some small corrections and suddenly the harmony disappeared, then returned again. Such fun. It was rather hard to keep up blogging live tonight. 

Suddenly it was time for We Are The Champions and our hearts and voices swelled with pride. It was no bed of roses. 

With the any-oke box no where to be seen it was up to dictator-ed to pluck something suitable from the air to reward us before hometime. 500 Miles was the way to go ...

And didn't they do well. Keep singing, I love you DFS XXX