15 May 2025

A fun delay tonight when we realised someone had ended their Pilates session by popping the bag containing our til and lyrics sheets into a car to Preston. We chatted about our weeks while we waited for its return. 

Here’s our running order for a week on Sunday - 25th May 11.20. Outside brewers quay, definitely not Brewery square! 

DONT SLEEP IN THE SUBWAY

We stood to sing, satisfied we had done our very best this evening! 

SIT DOWN 

Beautiful said Ed. Can you tell this in reverse order. 

ALL ABOUT YOU 

Mind the overlaps! 

WHEN YOU WALK IN THE ROOM

We had begun a game of ‘count the repeats in the ending’ during the last song. Much hilarious was had in the room. Eight times. 

BLACK VELVET

3 times 2 If you pleases at the end. We sang again from the second chorus without helping guides. 

ALONE 

We sang along with the vocal guide. It starts light with relaxed phrasing, slips into some agitation and then goes for it. Bob offered to sing the ‘Bodyforn’ solo. 

HELP 

Sang after happy birthday and with the guide vocal. There’s a funny little note at the end there. Slightly discordant and slightly sweet. We sang the beginning again trying not sound sluggish. 

(Pretend end of concert)

BUILD ME UP BUTTERCUP 

That little key change is still a little tricky. We practiced that. 

Then choir sang Happy Birthday to Cat and Audrey. Yippeeee. 

And the plan for tonight was to tackle them in reverse order, so we did. Perhaps next week we will sing them in the right order, but the week after you can sing what you like in the bath or something because it’s half term. 

Such fun. See you next week, for dress rehearsal. Concert perfect x 

8 May 2025

We had to new songs to meet tonight, HELP and ALONE so we jumped into a warm up quick. We sang scales to Aaaah and AMEN. 

With all our folders open at ALONE Ed fired up the App and the noise machine. There are a few pauses to be aware of, something called and obit and a bit from the old Bodyform advert. 

We all made like divas without the backing vocals and we were all happy. 

The ukelele guys want to perform HELP with us so we sang that one, but in a higher key because ukelele. There seemed to be rather too many words and it was rather high. The smurfs on the backing track were testament to that. 

We tackled the backing track in detail too and it started to sound really, very, amazing! 

DON’T SLEEP IN THE SUBWAY was sung next, once through before Ed found the light switch, told us to mind the gap, give him a big fat nothing, and sing a lovely 7-note oooh. 

SIT DOWN requires some serious parts-singing. Don’t forgot to hold on to those notes. We sang it with the backing then without. Just Ed clapping. 

He didn’t pretend to get things wrong, like last week. 

Next ALL ABOUT YOU sounded quite lovely. Everyone was happy. 

My favourite next WHEN YOU WALK IN THE ROOM. We can all be divas in this one too. 

Some BLACK VELVET was squeezed in before BUILD ME UP BUTTERCUP whooooo! 

Awesome DFS. Proper good. See you next week. 

1 May 2025

Good Evening and welcome to a summery summer choir practice… 

We warmed up, gently at first, promised Ed. We la-la-la etc. but then we had to do some shouting. That is how loud we can be. Nice. All are vocal folds are aligned. 

We started with DON’T SLEEP IN THE SUBWAY, then after had a listen to the backing track to see where all the extra OOOOOs need to go. Some of them are very complex. Any questions? 

SIT DOWN, said Ed, but we already were. So we sang along with the backing vocals, transposed like pinky and perky. We also sang a capela and broke down the overlaps in the bridge. Super. 

ALL ABOUT YOU of course. You are the choir, after all. Ed said we were magical. 

WHEN YOU WALK IN THE ROOM. Love this one. A lot. We contemplated free falling in the ending. 

BLACK VELVET also has random ooooooohs and aaaaaahs. We will need to check out the melody and harmonies next time, but we touched on the chorus. 

BUILD ME UP BITTERCUP was our finale. 

Super, smashing, brilliant. Go home satisfied, and see you next week x