Dorset For Singing - Canterbury Tales

Last year we all turned up at Wey Valley School at the designated time, but no coach and after much waiting around we left for Oxford in a fleet of mini-buses, so it was with great relief that this year the ever-reliable Bluebird coach awaited us. All were on-board when the Hintze clan arrived right on time! So, off we went on-time and with a fridge and loo. I’m still unsure of the driver’s name, either Jack, Mike or George. Anyway he was an amiable fella, who got us out of some challenging  situations with skill and imagination.

We had a very good journey, meeting little traffic and reached our dinner date on time. They clearly thought we’d be late as the carvery wasn’t ready, still this gave us plenty of time to enjoy liquid refreshment, which Jenny, Ed and myself had already done on the coach, utilising the adjacent fridge, but not the loo (fortunately, as I was next to it!). An added bonus was the summer specials drinks menu, which suited some extremely well! Eventually we were all served generous meals, of turkey, beef and gammon and some had puddings as well.

Next we were off to the Whitstable Travelodge, via not the Beatles ‘Magical Mystery Tour’, somehow arriving by our destination on a dual carriageway, before crossing it and having to drive a few miles to the next junction before having a more successful attempt!

After a decent night’s sleep (at least for Rosy and I), I walked the route we should have taken to ensure we’d be able to find our way back after the day’s festivities. We left on time for the short drive to what could have been called the ‘Peter Cushing Museum’, Wetherspoons pub in Whitstable, for breakfast. It was full of pictures and memorabilia. Alas their staffing levels were insufficient and some waited 45 minutes for their food, which was very good. We were to return the following day, so they knew what to expect!

Then we headed off to Canterbury for the day. Some went shopping, while others walked along the river, explored the Cathedral, or had a long lunch in ‘Spoons!

3pm was  the time for the re-union with Lemon and her excellent choir, the Lemon Zingers. Lemon, like Ed, is clearly a very talented musician and the two choirs blended seamlessly. There was about 90 minutes of rehearsal, including getting in and out of rows of seats, followed by a break of about 90 minutes, prior to the concert. Alas the pubs were a little far away, so we mostly lounged about, awaiting the ‘big’ event.

The auditorium, a converted church, soon filled and we were off. The atmosphere was fantastic and the audience played their part in what was a wonderful concert. Each choir did a few songs and then joined for a few more. Each choir applauded their counterparts with much exuberance, which added to the occasion. A grand total of £469.50 was raised for the Samaritans. Afterwards we filed through a back entrance to the Cathedral Courtyard and into the ‘Lodge’ for supper. It was akin to a banqueting suite, all sitting around large round tables and were joined by Lemon and some of her choir. We then enjoyed a healthy meal, with quite expensive drinks, before filing back to the coach.

Rosy and I had just ordered a jug of some delicious cocktail, when Ed arrived to inform us that the coach had arrived early and everyone was less keen to join us, rather than us joining them, so I gulped down my share of the Strawberry Daiquiri and Rosy tried to leave with hers, but some unkind door staff said ‘NO’. We thought we could return our glasses to the Whitstable ‘Spoons!

The journey back to the hotel didn’t take long, but having left the dual carriageway at the right place, the driver inexplicably missed the hotel and drove down a country lane! I shouted (from the back) ‘Wrong Way’, but to no avail as he kept going, so I ran down the coach and advised him to turn around, which he duly did and we found the hotel! Of course, everything looks completely different in the dark.

After the previous day’s breakfast experience, we decided to leave earlier and those lucky enough to enjoy a quick breakfast could enjoy some time browsing some interesting shops, in the charming seaside town of Whitstable. Once again the staff were hopelessly unprepared, apart from reserving some tables and some, again, waited 45 minutes for breakfast. So, no time for browsing, as it was now 10am and we were due at Chartwell (Winston Churchill’s home), for lunch at noon! We arrived at about 11.15 and after establishing how we could utilise membership benefits to save us all money, we had time for some shopping an exploration. Rosy and I found some wonderful rope swing in the trees, one was a his and hers kissing swing, so we thought it would be rude not to.

Lunch was excellent and enjoyed in the private ‘Mulberry Room’. Most had bangers and mash, whilst some had a delicious looking pie. We all enjoyed a delicious rhubarb pudding, which was similar to Creme Brulee.

Next we had tickets to explore the house, prior to boarding the bus for the drive home. We were entertained by a comedian (guess who!) and a sing song. We arrive back at about 18.00 hrs, having enjoyed wonderful weather, great fellowship and great organisation / leadership, looking forward to our next trip.

Grateful thanks to Ed, Jenny and Jack.

Regards,

Tim

30 april 2009

Term 3 week 2
Cake – no cake was mentioned this week

We did lots of lovely warm ups this week, enabling us to really belt out a couple of new songs, and an old one, Abba’s SOS. It was nice to try a new warm up too.

We tackled SOS first, ed said it went a bit flat at the first concert, not enough emotion, so if we try to think along the lines of being jilted, love rats, and divorce papers along with a few pleas for reconciliation we should be able to get some emotion in there. But no eyebrows please, frowning just makes us look like the Muppets. Well, it does Ed anyway.

One of our new songs it a fantastic eighties number, keeping the dream alive, I expect its one that is very dear to Blog Reader, and it has lovely choir potential as there are many parts to be sung. We will probably need an Uber-Naughty Corner as well as the regular one, and some spare men would be nice to cover all those high and low parts.

Finally there’s news of our new fund raising ‘fun’, calendar (choir folders optional of course), and photos emailed to Ed please. Either that or we just sing Jerusalem very proudly - like a proper choir, with nice big mouths and cheekbones as usual! And as far as other fund raising goes, we will need some raffle prizes for our next concert, instead of a retiring collection to see if we can better our other two performances, so if you are or know of a friendly business willing to donate please let Ed or Michael know, and sorry for not putting that in last week.

Thanks for reading, Cat xxx

23 april 2009

Term three
Week 1 – Ay-way to a good start!
Weight loss – Edward has been eating birthday cake. Source – Edwards mother. Enough said there, I think …

Another term, and another couple of new songs, a few new faces and some very old ones, and choir is in full swing! Or sing …

We had some admin to do this week, voting off songs from our first two concerts so that we can have a mix of old and new songs, and a barbeque, at our summer concert. It is provisionally booked for the 11th of July, to accommodate the naughty corner, as usual. We managed to vote off some songs really easily, and then Shine was removed, much to Michael’s chagrin.

The numbers of solos in our other concerts will be missing, as we perform more choir material together, but there may be things like first verses sung by soloists for example.

Our new songs this week seemed to fit very well with us, and in the original keys too! Which should please the large number of blokes we have in the choir. The naughty corner got stuck straight into the harmony part for ‘something in side so strong’ and were a bit miffed that Ed didn’t notice. He was too busy trying to sing with his eyebrows I think. We must all try to sing aggressively but without frowning, eyes brows and cheek bones up, think ‘I’m surprised I’m angry’, and that should do it!

For choir homework we should listen to the ‘you tube’ video of this song, and learn some of the South African pronunciations, so that we won’t make it sound too British. I have just looked at the ‘pipes of peace’ video again, and we could chose whether to be British or German I think …moustaches optional.

Welcome back, from Cat, the phantom blogger.

26 march 2009

term 2, Week 10 – el concerto!
Weight loss – No comment. Seriously. See my solicitor and don’t mention it on the blog.

Weymouth’s community choir does exactly what is says on the tin. The choir gives its members the opportunity to perform, and if any want to, to stand up there and sing alone. And last night again we brought good people of Weymouth and further afield together for an evening of song, and as more than one person said to me afterwards, there was something for everyone.

When I joined Dorset for Singing I had no idea it would take me to centre stage for a couple of solos, but what a great opportunity that is, all ears upon you, bright lights and your own pianist, nerves and wobbly notes, and all! J is too young to join choir yet but performed with backing vocals from Ed, and I am glad he did it despite his nerves and hope he joins us when he can.

Choir was a bit thinned out due to illness, some gave apologies and some turned up anyway with croaky voices and gungy sinuses, myself included! More then one of us had been steaming our lungs before coming. Ed advised the addition of a lemon to the water, but all I had were some bananas. Apparently, Maria Callas used to eat tomatoes before singing, so I will try that for the summer concert and BBQ. A tomato at a BBQ sounds ok, doesn’t it?

Of course we also worked together to raise money for the starlight foundation, and they always send some real stories for Michael to share with us, and despite having a smaller audience than last December we still raised over £600. Go Dorset for Singing!

So there’s my review of the concert, and if you are reading this in the Echo under the name Ed Hintze then it means I’ve been copied and pasted! Never mind, I’m always edited as well, this being a family blog. And that’s all for now because I will drop you a line after Sundays performance too. And buy you an Easter egg too, if you like.

19 march 2009

term 2, Week 9 – come on, move your feet, everybody, to the right, click to the left!
Weight loss – 11.5lb

We ‘got in’, to the hall, and assembled on stage … this time in chairs. None of that waiting to get on stage again, and off again like the last concert. Instead, soloists will have to tread on the toes of the front row, and the front row will have to try not to fall off the edge when they try to dance like Becky, in buttercup. Or was it in joyful, joyful?

I think joyful, joyful will have some clapping, off beat only please, and buttercup will have some step and click, opposite legs and fingers, so we don’t end up doing the ‘dad-dance’. Ed is very god at the dad-dance!

We had to run through all songs and practice standing up and sitting down. Two ‘Catherines’ will be used for this purpose, of having the job of watching for Ed’s signal to stand. When only one Catherine was employed, the choir did a wonderful Mexican wave, but that’s not quite the effect we are after!
The second Catherine is me. I really hope I don’t forget to watch Ed, and then make us all look silly.

What a giggle we had when we realised that the wrong words for two of our songs were on the memory stick. We did quite well despite this, but it just goes to show, we need to learn our songs. This point was hammered home when both Michael and Ed grabbed radio mics to give us some critique. I wont repeat what they said here, as this is a family blog. We did decide though that
California dreaming, circle of life, and shine, will not be sung at the Best of Dorset.

Eventually, everyone apart from the ‘boys’ singing shine, and some soloists, shuffled off home. After singing shine with the lads, and running through a solo song, I too went home and was so tired I nearly forgot to drop Daphne off!

12 march 2009

term 2, Week 8 – bounce your buttercups!
Weight loss – Ed confirmed that 6lb is gone! Or was it £6 he lost?

This week I met Ed at the piano before the start of choir, to audition some options for a solo. I’m just not sure which Elton John song to do…

Eh? We rattled through our warm up this week, and complemented Ed in his weight loss. With mountains of music on the piano, we attempted a run through of all our songs for our main concert. Some of them sounded really good, and some of them had a few tiny holes in them!

We managed to sing ‘circle of life’ quite well in the wrong key, and talking of keys, most of the songs we sing in choir are in ‘women’s’ keys, with the exception of ‘shine’ which we are leaving in the original key. At the concert, our few men, and those women who wish to sing it too, will sing it. Not those grumpy women that said it was in a difficult key! This one isn’t for girlies!

‘Build me up buttercup’ needs to be a bit livelier, although it sounded ok, so please add more bounce to your buttercup, next time!

Last weeks post-choir auditions filled up most of the slots for joyful, joyful, and we filled the rest up. I’ve got one. We also heard the lovely solo in ‘the lord is my shepherd,’ and gave a round of applause!

Next week – we GET IN! the naughty corner liked this news and nodded. For the rest of us it means we will practice in the hall, and hopefully this year we will get on and off stage much faster. Ed has hired an inflatable slide like they have on aeroplanes. Take your stilettos off, and carry them on the slide please.

I can confirm that we will have our projected words at the concert, and songbooks for ‘the best of Dorset’ event. Phew! Have a great week songsters, and be sure to listen lots on you-tube, to those songs which still go up, where they should go down!

5 march 2009

Week 7 – when I nod my head –hit it!

Weight loss – unconfirmed - probably 0lb

Ed was cold. Very, very cold. So he wore Daphne’s hat, and soon he was toasty and feisty again! He switched the screen off in search of a buzzing noise and we had to wait for it to warm up again. The whole choir was filled with horror at the thought of practice without words.

Michael had brought some lovely shiny posters to advertise our next concert. A member brought her clarinet, and others brought words and suggestions for solos, and sang around the clavinova. I nearly brought a giant mouse head just for fun, but I didn’t.

We worked on the two songs from last week, joyful, joyful and the lords my shepherd, and we had forgotten most of the harmonies. Joyful, joyful is sung so fast it is beginning to sound like soup. That must have warmed Ed’s cockles…do remember that only Ed, who is conducting with it, is allowed to nod his head. We are not donkeys, even though we have to sing EEEE-AAAWWWW, each week!

The new song, California Dreaming, is well known to most of us, although there was squawking and clucking about the different words, mostly from me. Sorry about that. I do have the best of mamas and papas CD that I play a lot in the car… the instrumentals were good, I can see Ed really knows this one.
Michael tried to play us the song on youtube, to end the fighting, but it wouldn’t work. A member suggested this song. If you have any others please add them to the forum on here …or keep them to yourself for singing as a solo!

Some members gathered round the piano again at the end to try for a few solo lines in tonight’s hymns, and most of us went back out into what was left of the snow.

Sorry I f you are still waiting for a nice photo of me, Michael said he would do it as soon as he has finished his next cup of tea…in the meantime he’s getting some sets of words together for those without access to a computer. That wouldn’t be you, would it?

26 feb 2009

term 2, Week 6 – sassy, and good diction!
Ed’s weightloss – 0lb

After being heavily edited lin week 5 (all the best jokes were removed), I just couldn’t bring myself to blog last week. Sorry if you logged in on Friday just to read it. Choir practice was very quiet anyway, and Ed was much less theatrical…
But here we are, and im pleased to say that we all deserved a big kebab after working really hard on ‘joyfull, joyfull’ and the ‘lord is my shepherd’ (dibbly version). Eds warm ups were very food related. The poor man must really be missing his kebabs. ‘Im not sure we should all be singing about eating in the nude, so lets hope he’s got used to the idea of pumpkin seeds by next week.

Its great to have the naughty corner back again, to make the rest of us look like a propper sensible choir. Apparently they are all avid blog readers now, so a special wave just for them. Have you done your lines yet? They really enjoyed shaing their booties during joyfull, joyfull, because we are really beginning to ‘sass it up’, after working on the harmony part and putting the two parts together. It sounded pretty good, Ed was pleased.

Next, we tackled the lord is my shepherd, with propper upright english voices again, remember to try and look like you are on ‘songs of praise’, with big mouths, high cheek bones and good clear diction. We shall all look lovely, not at all like madge the baby sitter from ‘dame edna’. Thanks Ed. We will need some soloists for this song too.

Fancy a solo in the next concert? Just give your name and three choices of song on a piece of paper to ed at the next pratice, and bribes of pumpkin seeds may be included.
The tenor line (and the base line) for this song is lovely, and after only a few run throughs we sounded pretty good, but if you are not coming to choir remember you will miss all the best jokes about tenors as well as all the advice, but do get onto youtube and do your homework. Michael will fix the words so that it says WILL in the first part and SHALL in the comfort zone…Then there shall be no more mutterings in the second row…