21 November 2013

The one with the cleavage ...

We gathered in the common room and realised that we had a Christmas concert imminent and no festive numbers! Then Ed sneakily asked me to check the blog for keys before we started. So you don't know that, right? The blog actually has a useful purpose after all!

A huge thank you to Jack and Harry for working out how to put words on our lovely website! We wont need a £500 webmaster after all ... or any expensive microphone stands, look .... 

In NOTICES - Ed is gathering names for soloists to sing at our Christmas concert, so let him know if you are up for it. Then he plugged tomorrow's concert, which of course I will blog for you at the weekend. Because i love you!

We kicked off with The Feeling, but using very old words. And extra free words thrown in by choir.... 

It nice to be Keeping the Dream Alive, but it looks like we are completely lost with out the uppy- and downy-arrows!  Because they were missing tonight! Jack to find all new words for next time!

Of course we were all in the wrong places, seating-wise, for The King And I. ''And now and then, we'll sing, something out-of-key!'' 

So in a bid to Festive-Up our next concert, we had a shout out ... In The Bleak Midwinter was first up for a Christmas Sing-a-long. We popped a blues pop ballad sound with it and rocked the common room. Happy Christmas indeed, but we need to perform it more gently for Lesley, but more roughly for Jenny. Ok!

We killed Aled Jones, then moved onto a bit of Slade in various keys - ending up in PLUS 3. 

Away in a Manger was chosen to be an interactive number. I suddenly felt very small again singing that one. Well, smaller. Cough! Then I found out I don't know Jingle Bell Rock! Little Matty didn't like that one either ...

We had an education searching for lyrics for Holly And The Ivy, I can tell you! The Internet is a scary place! And then Santa got stuck up the Chimney, briefly before A Winter's Tale... F-5 for that one!

The First of May is well know to us, C-3 was given a try! 

And the cleavage? Ed could not be heard at the back in the common room, so he plugged in a microphone and was in need of somewhere to wedge it. Oh how we laughed at such innovativeness, or was it at the inevitable droop? How I love Dorset For Singing! I might get banned from blogging after this session though!

Keep practicing. Please. Love you, Cat xxx

14 November 2013

The one with the Top A Flat .... Where Ed had to rapidly De-Camp!

After a shorter warm up this week, we had notices then dived right into The King and I. 

Our 12 dec concert is now live on the official pavilion website, where you can boom tickets for friends and family and other innocent victims. Keep a out for details of our tour D'Oxford! Possibly the 4th July weekend! And we might do a flash mob at some point, but its all very hush-hush at the moment, well it has to be, otherwise it wouldn't be a flash mob, would it?

Julia the Christmas pudding lady also co-ordinates carol singing this festive season. See her for pudding orders, and meeting to entertain folks!

Ed de-camped during The King and I number, and in a moment of passion, bit his own lip. He was so pleased with our progress that we raised the hairs on the back of his neck and he wept tears of joy as he praised our efforts! I can still feel a sense of pride lingering ...

The song will never be over! But once we became happy again, Keeping The Dream Alive was put to bed. It was only revision, anyway!

Right Here Waiting for us to get it right was, Right Here Waiting. We will look at this one again next week, and if it doesn't show signs of recovery, it will be put to sleep, so it won't suffer. It's your choose DFS!

We dug out the original Uptown Girl, and I had a quick scroll through this years blog posts to check which key it was in, man, I love my eye-phone! They didn't pay me to say that BTW. The bum notes were all Ed's this time! We will end with a great, big GIRL because a choir can't really do repeat-to-fade!

Next week meet in the common room, our favourite room! Love you lots xxx

7 November 2013

The one where we did it standing up...The warm-up, that is!

So sorry for the pre-half-term lack of blog, I've brought a note from my mechanic detailing the MOT failure of my car if you would like to see it? Better than a note from your Mum any day.

In notices, we have a Meeting - 7pm Wednesday 13 november Wyke smugglers. We will talk about our tour any many other pressing choir matters. Email Ed if you have anything for the agenda, especially if its wine ...

Downtown abbey's church has accepted us for a concert which is nice! Who needed the actual abbey anyway? The acoustics of churches are much better, as we well know after our years of performing together, now.

Concert imminent - 'Ed Hintze and Friends' performing on 22 November at St Mary's in town at 7.30pm, Only £5 for tickets and its all for charity! Can't wait to try out these acoustics! One of the Friends is going to be out lovely Julie and the other one is me, come along and show your supports ....

Our ocean room 'pavvy' concert is all booked too, my, aren't we popular! Thursday 12 December for that one. Raffle prizes wanted please, hand to Carol, to be collated and basket-ed beautifully.

Groovy kind of love needs to be more choral. We worked on the harmony parts again. In case we forgot them. Then the ending got a bit high!!!! It's going to be a show stopper I think!

Our 'King and I' number got off to a great start. Almost. The original key was then applied with much improvement! We might need more men, but Ed was pleased with our progress, this is surely our magnum opus! Bound to top the aforementioned show stopper ...

'I love it when you call' is definitely in F! We stood for some lessons in pelvic movement! And smiling! But I kept bumping into Daisy and so I think my timing went out. Why is singing and moving together so difficult? I have a feeling that's why Legs And Co were invented....

See you next week DFS, love you long time (well over 5 years in fact). XXXX

17 October 2013

The one with the brand new warm up that lasted rather a long time and ended up in the jungle (breathe now).

In news, Downton abbey are looking rather full, but Blenheim Palace have booked us... Downton abbey might squeeze us in next summer, wait and see!

Keeping the dream alive might still need some arrows, but I used my finger in the interim. Hmmm. You really have to be there to know what I'm on about, don't you? What ever would 'Blog Reader' say?

'I love it when you call' causes us a few problems again when we tried to add in extra letters all of our own. We should have it all! We really do because we are the best choir in Dorset.

We had a listen to Babs singing that King And I number, following the words as we went along, and as the choir joined in all hairs stood up on the back of my neck. I promise it wasn't the thought of Yul Brenners shiny head .... All new to me! But I still just want to sing 'if I loved you' during this song! My bad ...

In the original key we were in the mood for dancing! The YouTube seemed to be sung by a 5 year old Michael Jackson. So key from B down 4. Phew. Then back up 2! The words will have an update.

We finished with a groovy kind of love, them went home to our night caps! Keep singing, and keep listening to our songs on you tube, paying attention to the bit you know you really don't know. Love you, Cat xxx

10 October 2013

The one with the photographer!

The photographer smiled with satisfaction after each shot, zooming here and there and swinging from the rafter to get that perfect composition. And then demonstrated how to navigate Youtube on the big screen in order to facilitate your homework! Thank you Jack. Please remember not to get too excited that you don't change the words! you know how much we are all addicted to staring at them!

We kicked off with uptown girl, key-original again, and some work on some harmonies. And the knows, noz and knooooowz! Ouch!

Ladies only for the start of a song I don't know from the king and I am very sorry for not knowing it. Some parts were very high even for the ladies! And sorry also for attempting to sing 'if I loved you' over the top, and it's performed in the original key. On YouTube look up the Barbra Streisand version (king and I medley)She sings both parts herself. 

We tackled the feeling number, no not the wine one! And it's in the key of F. Vava voom needed! Drop me a line if you like this fun song, 'cause I love it when you call!

Dropping down again (see last blog post - back down a key) we sang 'groovy kind of love' and thought of Jenny. Well I did. But please sing it from the boots everyone, as we need more volume, especially the last chorus! Julie's high harmony is lovely :-) Well done Julie and Ed on the duet, getting to be a habit ...

In other important news, DFS needs an admin and PR body, which could be me if i have a bit of training, and also know how to chat up the folk at The Echo, and at Wessex FM already ... Better offers apply through Ed or Jenny please! Love you, Cat XXXX

26 September 2013

Happy Birthday Dorset for Singing!

Ed greeted his lovely choir with ice creams on arrival... And then we sang to ourselves, most excellently, and Jack cut our very special cake!

Then in notices we talked about this years Christmas concert, already booked in the pavilion! And Ed tried to get sympathy for his man-cold! We will also be back at All Saints Church next May, and next week we may bring information on charities we wish to support this academic year. I wont be here, so I will pop some information up here for your consideration :-)

A choir meeting is long overdue, especially as there is talk of us performing at Downton Abbey! (During a school holiday, and cheers all round from choir at that idea!!)

We met some new songs and revisited some old ones! The first old fave was the freiheigh number, Keeping the dream alive, in the key of G. Ed would like us to get out heads round the three part harmonies. We had to improve our diction, and we also need some help with the ends of lines, as some of them go down and some of them go up!

A favourite of Jen's was next, 'groovy kind of love' in the key of C. Rapidly followed by the key of D, on account of Lesley! Mind bendingly good!

Then 'Uptown Girl', firstly in the original key, and with massive potential for harmony parts of course, and very quickly performed in the original key, and on our feet!

Do check out the DFS you tube channel, as demonstrated by Jack, for all potential songs - and to have a practice. Tonight's showcase ballad was to be 'Right here waiting for you' but not before we gave ourselves a big round of applause, and one for Jenny too! (In the original key!) See you soon, keep singing XXX

29 July 2013

The one with the free lunch ...

Selected members of choir only and their significant others went off one blustery day for a free lunch, on Portland, with cameras in our faces too! Some folk went into the restaurant and pretended to chose from cooked food, while the elite went outdoors for a cream tea ...

The views were nice, from the roof garden, and the plates looked like they were going to blow off too ...

Ed found the cups and plates strangely disturbing as you can see ...

We felt sorry for the 'dead cat' who was doing all the hard work and ....

so we gave it some eyes!

And dear jenny laughed and laughed with delight!

The hot scones followed the posh sandwiches, and were washed down with lashings of ginger beer, sorry, tea ...

And the pots of jam and honey we didn't use went home in our hand bags of course!

It was wonderful darlings, do come again!

Term Dates for DFS!

Hello me dears, here are all the term dates for this our 6th accedemic uear togeter! for when we meet on the 26th we will be 5 wonderful years old! I guess we will all start getting wobbly teeth.... so on Thursdays from1845 until 2000hrs, we will meet on the following days to practice doing what we do well-

Sept. 26th
Oct. 3rd, 10th 17th, 24th...
Half Term
Nov. 7th, 14th, 21st, 28th
Dec 5th

Jan. 16th, 23rd, 30th
Feb. 6th, 13th
Half Term
Feb 27th
Mar 6th, 13th, 20th, 27th
Apr 3rd

Apr 24th
May 1st, 8th, 15th, 22nd
Half Term
Jun 5th, 12th, 19th, 26th
Jul 3rd

Add those to your lovely smart phone, now! Concerts to be confirmed and subject to change if we feel the venue is beneath us ...