30 November 2017

We entered the dining room serenaded by the backing track of So Happy Together. All backing tracks were present and correct, in perfect key and correct tempo, and the running order is finalised. And that was our first song, straight in without a warm-up. 

The dress code for choir could be ‘summery’ with Bermuda shorts and bikinis but we decided to go Christmassy after all. Festive jumpers very welcome, as is sticking tinsel anywhere you like it. Remember the concert starts at 7.30pm sharp. There will be no bar, but feel free to bring you own.

And as we scurry to order our folders, we start the second song Make You Feel My Love. 

Don’t forget your harmonies when you Walk Right Back. We sang it with great aplomb, and slipped into our sea legs for Song Of The Sea. Coming together beautifully. 

And Christmas Medley was upon us again. Shall I bring Ben the singing rat or Elf on a shelf? So the interval is and then we will be Keeping The Dream Alive and remembering the right time to go up and down. More highs everyone. Across The Universe we sang to see if like DFS Dorchester we would keep it in. Let one go at the end of you please, improvisation. Adele, When We Were Young, well we are good at this one! Lovely, lovely. Did anyone notice this little number was more up tempo? 

And down tempo, we Bring Him Home ... our next song will bring them near, O Holy Night. Then our concert will end and we will sing our encore Fairy Tale Of New York. Drunk men to start, then everyone, and the audience to sing too. We will make them. In housekeeping, Ed reminded us not to talk to each other between songs, and to arrive at school early if you want to run through your solo. Ed said there would be some surprises, and I asked if we could eat them. Possibly because I’ll be nil by mouth from midnight on concert day. Then we had some time for revisits, vote by mumble, so we did that, until we were Song Perfeft. 

We meet again on the 11th January all full of sprouts and raring to go after crunching through the frost up to the hall. Yes we will be back in the Hall. Everyone cheered. See you next week ALSO IN THE HALL for the concert. I love you, keep singing. XXX

23 November 2017

And greetings from the dining room where Ed was only armed with a screen and a music stand, and a huge catalogue of fresh backing tracks to boot. 

Dress code for the concerts is a little festive. Think tinsel. Bring your own food and drink and money for the usual fab raffle too. 

With out a sniff of a warm up, we started with Walk Right Back but not before wishing Mike and Cat a very happy 3rd Year Wedding Anniversary. Wait, that’s me. I’m still honoured that DFS came were there that day to sing and break bread with us. Ed suggested you might like to watch the wedding video ...

https://youtu.be/_gOIeTTaFVU

And quickly on to Make You Feel My Love and followed on with So Happy Together with barely any time for me to paste a link from YouTube ... and decided to swap this together the number one song, and pressed on with song number 4, Song Of The Sea. Did you remember your timing? 

And thus marks the end of part one, and the start of part with the Exciting New Christmas Medley which you may recognise from last year. It was the toy piano version. Mind the gap in Mary’s Boy Child. 

And we sang Keeping The Dream Alive without a backing track. Next. Across The Universe. Kangaroo Diva. That’s me. Ed wanted to take it from the top again. So we did. 

When We Were Young will get a new backing track with some drums. Bring Him Home brought us to O Holy Night and Faiytake Of New York that sounded much better with drunk men. I’m excited already. 

Singing Do Wah Diddy Diddy without a backing track was an experiment to say the least. There might have been issues with timing ...

I love you. Keep singing. The Cat xxx

9 November 2017

We were in the hall again, with a mysterious note and a cheerful glee type crowd, pleased that we would be having a concert in this hall because the rest of our practices will take place in the dining room. 

And so to warm up, but Ed hit the keys too hard according to Jack so we had to do it gently. Dum dum didly dum ... 

We also used Across The Universe as a warm up. It won’t spear in our Christmas concert after all. A concert looms on Friday 8 June, our 10th one at All Saints church on Portland. We have been asked to take part in a ‘big singing day’ in Brewery Square in Dorchester. Much more pressing is our concert on the 7th

December here at the school at 7.30pm. 

In breaking news, Ed’s wife has booked him to do a party in Osmington Village Hall on New Year’s Eve. And then it was time for a jolly good sing. 

Walk Right Back kicked us off nicely, it lacked a little harmony so we looked under our chairs and it. 

Moving swiftly on we got ready to make corrections to O Holy Night immediately deleting the last two lines and doing a copy-and-paste job with some other parts of the chorus. We were over singing it at the beginning a bit and must remember not to ‘go high’ during the first round of the chorus. We had another go, this time with a gentle start, building in some drama. 

And so we had a listen to how Keeping The Dream Alive was doing, well not really, Ed listened and we sang. Our diction could do with some sharpening, so we ran a bit through without the piano, and we delivered energy too enabling us to swiftly select The Song Of Sea, but here we found an issue of timing or syncopation for those who might have swallowed a wikki or something. 

I’m other breaking news, we may be singing on the harbour side to serenade MV Freedom on radio solent. Watch this space. 

Dictation may follow if Life’s About To Get Good if the three parts aren’t evenly represented. And it’s got to be good because it will be a capela. Anyway, it was nice when it got going.  

And for Bring Him Home we had a very special large-print edition so we all whipped off our readers. Careful now. And Ed said we just get better and better, but if you weren’t here tonight ....

In other breaking news, there hasn’t been a trip meeting but there will be an opportunity to hang on next week to discuss tour matters. Then we voted for a final song and Run won. And we stood to perform. Oh yes.

Well done DFS you worked hard and sang your seasonal-socks off. Fabulous. But that’s not why I love you. Keep singing. Cat xxx

2 November 2017

On a busy campus in the common room did DFS meet after the half term holiday. We had a big chat about that, instead of notices, like where to meet in future and even using our concert hall hire fee to go straight in the charity bucket. Should we stay or should we go now? 

‘‘Tis only 5 more rehearsals until our lovely Christmas concerts, and we will wait and see if DFS Dorchester will do a stand-alone concert or will benefit from the support of us lot, like last year. It is said they have recently grown somewhat which is nice. 

In the middle of the warm up jack was employed to search the internets for instructions on how to pitch transpose on Ed’s organ of choice, as it lacked a straightforward button. We love it when we have working internets, and we could be Keeping The Dream Alive in the right key. The last ‘note’ was fabulous. 

The snakes came out for a rendition of Make You Feel My Love. Some people ... well ok, most people, had forgotten how to fit in some of the words so we rehearsed that and added some ‘aaaaarghs’, and went a bit jazz. Very nice. 

Then we were jealous because before singing So Happy Together our choir master showed us the lovely booklet he had created for DFS Dorch, with a posh logo and everything but then we had to let them off because they don’t have internets or screens like how we ‘always’ do. We all worked very hard on some very lovely Baaaaaaaaahs. All layered and long lasting. 

And a nice Carol next, O Holy Night, when Ed started by explaining which ending we will be using. The posh ending we hope. Ed found himself a bit confused, and explained a harmony that wouldn’t actually work as there wasn’t a bit that went up where he thought it did. He blamed the fact that the common room makes him lose so much weight in sweat that he was all delerious but just like the meaning of the song, we instantly forgave him and bravely sang onwards with a new harmony part. This song made the men sound powerful when they sang ‘fall on your knees’. Happy Christmas. 

Walk Right Back was our next song, and easy peasey and followed by Life’s About To Get Good. Who had done their half term homework? Mike had it as an ear worm, and consequently, so did I! I also had an ear worm caused by mine and Ed’s new baby, but that’s a whole ‘nother story. When we got to the three part harmony, did you remember which part was yours? I didn’t. 

S.O.S apeared on the screen, fresh off the internets, and we sang it loud and proud. It’s a pity that the common rooms adsorbs so much, because we sang our socks off. And not because it’s too hot up there! Staying with ABBA we sang Money Money Money one we haven’t tasted in a long time. 

And finally on extra time, Bring Him Home, all nice and gentle like a kind of cool down in the stuffy room. 

Well done DFS, and everyone else who helped get it together on last-minute-room-changes-dot-com. Keep singing, I love ya! The Cat xxx