25 April 2024

Welcome to Summer term … bring on the heat wave … relax. We have five fun filled rehearsals before Fayre in the square … 25 May.

ONE DAY LIKE THIS will be sang as a flash mob outside The Range in Weymouth. We all muttered and shuffled our papers as Ed outlined this terms new songs. 

We began with RUN. After a RUN through we really looked at the harmonies. Ed wants lots more harmony this term. We did some listen-and-repeat. We made some huge steps forward. 

We sang along to WALKING ON SUNSHINE, then we were on our own. Well. Ed was still at the front trying to heard cats … or was it juggle ferrets? 

We threw ourselves into ONE DAY LIKE THIS when we were still out of breath. It’s beautiful. We worked on the ending bashing out the very notes. Ed sat at the piano and stamped his foot. We became a propper choir. Stay balanced every one. 

Next, SECRET LOVE. NOW! It was disco version. With over lapping parts and everything … and yes. Harmonies. We did that a capela … well. I say we. I listened. 

Out treat was listening to Annie RIGHT BY YOUR SIDE. I’ll dance round the kitchen to this one later. 

Then backing track time and we had a good try. 

And old friend HALLELUJAH popped up next. This is going be nice to sing with ukuleles. Big ending. Needs lots of ad lib so we had a second go at the ending. 

We had a go at SOMEONE LIKE YOU. It made me giggle. Probably just my mind. 

GOOD EFFORT DFS. Well done. Now go and have a lie down. I know I will … sponsored by Riccola patels! 

21 March 2024

Fresh from FaceBook is the Running order for next week's concerts:

Running order for next week's concerts:

All Night Long 

Pompeii 

Eagle 

Don't Stop 

Never Gonna Give You Up 

Pie Jesu 

*All Star Cabaret*

I Saw Her Standing There 

Young Hearts 

Livin' On a Prayer 

I've Been Waiting for You 

Blame It On the Boogie 

The Skye Boat Song 

Proud Mary

I can’t wait for the he All Star Cabaret! 

Ed slipped behind the piano while choir filled the room with the buzz of chatter. He told us not to come back until the 25th April, after next week! We have our flash mob to look forward to next term. 

Next weeks concert will hopefully be doors open at 7.20pm. Bring your last minute raffle prizes with you and wear your choir polo shirt. 

Then Ed said we had to sing alllll the songs tonight so we had better get cracking, and we didn’t mean Easter eggs. 

After singing very hard we had a treat, a cabaret act from Bob, with Ed at the Piano. We joined with the last chorus too. And how could we top that? 

Keep singing and I’ll see everyone In Dorchester next week too for a special debut. Love you xxx

14 March 2024

Good Evening said Ed, and he got a Whoo. Which was nice. 

Breaking news - a hush settled on the room - we have been invited by a ukulele group on 22 June to perform a flash mob to perform ONE DAY LIKE THIS and we will be given specific parts. How exciting. Please delete after reading so you don’t spoil the fun. Possibly new Bond Street. Time to be confirmed! 

Our running for our Easter order is exactly the same as was on the second of March. 

ALL NIGHT LONG 

 We didn’t crack the ‘play-on’s so we workshopped it. Then sang it again …

POMPEII

 May have a few bum notes so we just checked those. Listen to it at home folks. 

EAGLE

DONT STOP

NEVER GONNA GIVE YOU UP

PIE JESU

 Wasn’t half bad. Watch your tempo tho. Can’t be getting too excited. We sang it a capela. Was that an unintentional harmony in verse 3? Well it sounded pretty good. 

(Breaks for solos and actual pie)

I SAW HER STANDING THERE 

 Nod , chord, and away we go. Hopefully! We had to work on our ending because our beginning was much to perfect to need any work. 

YOING HEARTS

 Two ways to sing ‘oh’

LIVING ON A PRAYER

 Was our little treat. 

IVE BEEN WAITING FOR YOU 

BLAME IT ON THE BOOGIE 

SKYE BOAT SONG 

 Was beautiful …

(More, shouts the audience) 

PROUD MARY 

 We stood to sing 

We warmed up with IVE BEEN WAITING FOR YOU complete with false start, then I popped back in time to add notes under the running order. 

Whoo hooo keep singing, love Cat. Not Susie. The blogging one xxx 

7 March 2024

Ed thanked everyone for attending on Saturday night. There were some interesting acts, including a hairy moment involving a watering can and Ed’s organ. 

Ruth has said the Brain Tumour Charity will be expecting a gift of £700. Our Easter concerts will be in 2 and 2 weeks so please bring goodies and empty baskets next week. 

We warmed up with with DONA NOBIS PACEM  then split up into a the three parts. And at least a few people got it right. 

We turned to PIE JESU and after signing it through we had a listen to Sarah B going for it. Only she’s a lot higher than we are. Then we sang again. We practiced singing that super long note. 

Ed reminded us of the harmony part for THE SKYE BOAT SONG before it was our turn, and it was so very lovely that Ed gave us an Oooooo which was nice. The second verse was looked at or rather listened to! 

It took three goes to start I SAW HER STANDING THERE but you know. Practice makes perfect. But Ed had lowered the key last night and it was a little low, so we shifted it back up just a tad. Phew. 

Requests next, ooh what a treat for being good. Stage right chose EAGLE and stage left kept shouting things out because they couldn’t wait for their turn. 

I’VE BEEN WAITING FOR YOU was probably also chosen by both sides of the room and it was good. 

Stage left chose LIVIN ON A PRAYER without any help from us. 

We ended with DON’T STOP! 

Love you DFS, stay awesome and keep singing x 

Concert information

St David's Day Concert, Upwey & Broadwey Memorial Hall, Weymouth DT3 5NG, 6pm, Saturday 2nd March.  

Choir will be performing from 8pm until 8.45pm.  Choir members who are not eating with us can arrive from 7pm.  The running order is:

All Night Long 

Pompeii

Eagle 

Don't Stop

Never Gonna Give You Up

Young Hearts 

Livin' On a Prayer 

I've Been Waiting for You 

Blame It on the Boogie 

Proud Mary 

Gadewch i ni gael parti!

8 February 2024

No puss-cards this week, and someone asked me for one! But thank you choir for buying 27 cards from me! 

With a marathon of songs to get through we dug into some of Septembers new songs, and started with DONA NOBIS PACEM and Ed said there were 14 songs to sing. Oodles. That went well anyway.

ALL OF ME might have been a little rusty.

Next we were Rick again singing NEVER GONNA GIVE YOU UP. I was tired already.. never mind we can all sleep next week. Ed identified an incorrect rhythm so we thrashed that one until it was cured. 

I SAW HER STANDING THERE has that one single short cord and off we go. Don’t forget! 

LIVING ON A PRAYER was alright. So said Ed. 

YOUNG HEARTS RUN FREE had a run through then we had a look at options one or two. I really can’t explain. They are singing the harmonies of the next song as I type this. It’s an action packed practice. 

THE SKYE BOAT SONG has harmony parts pop up from second chorus, DFS! It was proper choir. 

I’VE BEEN WAITING FOR YOU. I love the big banana finish. 

Back to future with DONT STOP yipppeeeeee! (Fleetwood Mac fan). 

Whizzing into BLAME IT ON THE BOOGIE at top speed. Phew. 

We swooped into EAGLE … majestically… and swooped out again. 

Rolling into POMPEII went we. 

Slipped into PROUD MARY. Nice. And Easy …

We missed out a song so that we could sing PIE JESU. 

Super singing … time for some cake or something now? See you after half term. 

1 February 2024

We plunged into a quick warm up before some announcements. Tongues wagged. Not just Lesley’s. Then after we warmed up, we warmed up. If you know, you know. 

I must say thank you for buying Susie postcards. I’ve only 5 left of my original 100! 

See last post for a lot of very useful dates. 47 tickets left for the St David’s day dinner and music. £5 only though if you want to come and be entertained. See the last blog post to order. Also check out the pinned post on the DFS Facebook page. 

Next week bring your autumn 2023 so we can add 8 songs to our repertoire. 

We sang PROUD MARY to begin with. There can be no passengers on this song. We all need to be driving. Ed demonstrated how not to sing it. Good Job Meridy was away. Then we all did it right and proper a Capella, Ed dancing at the front. We ran through it again. 

I see a bird flying from far away, oh it’s an EAGLE. we sang. The beginning needed some work. Don’t forget that big gap before TELL will you? Apparently the official video to this song it gorgeous… 

BLAME IT ON THE BOOGIE comes with the opportunity to add in your Micheal Jackson impressions. I once did some on Wessex fm but that’s a story for another day. Ed threw some shapes. We broke it down a lot and sang a Capella before moving on … Ed wanted to leave it on a high note. Eeeeeee-heeeeee.

To PIE JESUS a proper choir song indeed. We need to make the sound of a choir organ. No sliding notes. Organs never ever slide. 

We sang POMPEII and ALL NIGHT LONG, standing for the latter. Oh yes everyone. Well done. Come back next week won’t you ? Cat xxx

Concert Venue info

From Ed - 

Good morning lovely singers.  Here's the poster relating to our forthcoming concert at Upwey Memorial Hall on Saturday, March 2nd.  If you have any supporters or would like to join in and eat with us, tickets are £12.50.  You can either contact Maureen on (01305) 812723 or bring a named envelope with cash to our next rehearsal.  Tickets are selling fast, so please buy early to avoid disappointment!

25 January 2024

Choir members scurried to dig out their copies of PIE JESU today, as it was new on the menu today. We even had Peter on the sound desk. And nine weeks until our Easter concert. Ed also said tickets for March 2nd March are selling really really well so grab some pronto for friends and family. There’s def a vegetarian option for those that want. 

In other news, Ed talked about the time Susie the Dorchester Cat came to choir, and Ed got a cuddle with her before putting her out. She’s a little fond of hiding in big organs. I plugged the postcards Susie is selling to raise money for Feral Cat Care. Clever Susie. 

Poor Jenny has ruptured her Achilles tendon and came to be entertained by our singing. I can’t spell that. First she had to listen to us warm up. We had fun making loud sounds and chords together and were encouraged to look up the work of Jacob Collier. 

PIE JESU time next. A rusty run through and we worked on it a Capella including all the harmony parts and how to sing the long slow bits at the end. 9 weeks to perfect this guys! We hit the backing track. 

Pages fluttered to EAGLE and Ed ran through the harmonies and reminded us that some notes were not held on. Very nice, said Ed. 

Butchness ready for POMPEII as we ran through with the backing track and then worked on the lovely overlapping bits. Nice. 

We BLAME IT ON THE BOOGIE with high energy! Ok? Ed remembered the instrumental bit this time. Yay. I’m feeling tired already. Phew. Or oooooooo-hooooo as it were. 

WE ALL FALL IN LOVE SOMETIMES just got a quick run through with Ed at the piano. 

And there was time to let the music play on ALL NIGHT LONG and PROUD MARY. 

Wow. Well done DFS who wants a Susie postcard? Xxx

18 January 2024

Yesterday Ed had a Birthday and so did Bob, the big eight oh! We sang of course, for both boys, and warmed up. 

6pm on 2nd March we will be singing at upwey memorial hall. Jenny had a notice too, we should listen in to radio Solent tomorrow at 8pm to catch The Haze, Jacks band. 

Our Easter concert is in approximately 10 weeks time at the centenary club. Fayre in the square is also confirmed, on Saturday 25 May 11am.

We began our singing with EAGLE, and after that Ed demonstrated the three possible parts. And off we went again. And Ed said jolly JOLLY well done! 

And still heavy on the guitars we sang BLAME IT THE BOOGIE. I seem to remember some dodgy actions from the discos of my youth … we had a good look at the harmonies here too. Moonlight doesn’t go up. So perhaps me and Carol needed to sort ourselves out. Oops. Then we sang it again. 

We ran through WE ALL FALL IN LOVE SOMETIMES with Ed at the piano. I don’t think he needs us to sing this. But we tried. Anyway Bob said we did well. 

After a discussion about ‘pane versus ‘tane we sang PROUD MARY.  Whooooo. Syncopation is key here. And don’t forget to do a long jooooooooob. 

POMPEII is in a man key. Nice. We even tried some overlapping with this one. Ed says we can have a lot of fun with this. 

We just had time to squeeze in ALL NIGHT LONG. 

Wow super well done. Keep singing xxx 

11 January 2024

Happy New Year DFS! Well done for raising over 1100 pounds last term. 

For potential concert is at upwey memorial hall on the 1st March. Pencil in only for now. 

Fayre in the square on Sat 25 May, with a morning slot for us. 

Easter concert dates will be in April. 

We rolled up with six new songs to sing an a few lovely new faces joining us. We warmed up. It was a good warm up, the start of a good year we hope. 

We tussled our way to our first song, ALL NIGHT LONG. Ed explained the first typo of the evening and we were off. After a run through we split up to sing the overlapping ‘play on’ parts. 

The little known Abba song EAGLE was next up. We sang along with Abba or just listened. Don’t sing A Neagle, will you? An (air gap) Eagle is what we require! We sang it through with a backing track, after Ed told us he sang this song as a little boy. We even tried a little harmony.

Ed told a story about choosing PROUD MARY for the new term. Apparently he and Jenny thought of it at the same time. We went off with the backing track. Whoooo. We won’t be doing the dance. 

Our choir master slipped behind the piano forte to play WE ALL FALL IN LOVE SOMETIMES which is an Elton John song (Cold Play covered it, did you know?) and most of us had a good listen. 

Then we listened to POMPEII and just a few people sang along too. A few more joined in when we hit the backing track. Eheu! 

Time to go oooooooooooo-hoooooooo and BLAME IT ON THE BOOGIE. Jenny also chose this song for choir too. 

For a finale we sang PROUD MARY again, standing to perform. Well done DFS a grand start to 2024. Now go home and practice! And keep smiling xxx