22 May 2014

Ed stood at the front with his music stand ready to conduct the penultimate practice! And reminded us that Fair In The Square starts at 11.40 on Monday.

Ed will be setting up from 6pm tomorrow, and needs our good selves sat in the front seats from 7.20 and then he coached us in acting confused when requested to sing something for an encore. I will make sure my fiancé shouts 'More!' 

Let The River Run still had issues with Ar-ses and Ass-es (careful now) and needed a brighter sound for the bridge, which moved from an Mmmmm to an Ooooo...

Long And Winding road is going to work really well in church, despite not being Jack's favourite song. We are missing the overlap echo bit, bit Ed said it was too late to thrash that one and so Jack was happy especially because after tomorrow's concert we are putting the long and winding road to bed!

Heaven Is [still] A Place On Earth. Please bring your Ooomph tomorrow. 

So then we sing Sing which I keep faking as its in such a funny key and I mustn't wreck my voice for my solos and sexy duet with Ed after half time. Please be reminded that 'clearer' rhymes with 'hear-ya'. And we did it again. So I sang it like a man!

Now the audience have got used to us and its time to take them in a new direction, and we may hear them singing along as we sing So Happy Together! Which reminds me, I still don't have a sheep, which might have helped Ed not miss out a line ...

Bread maker, I mean Starmaker, has been eliminated from Monday but is still in the line for tomorrow night! More cheese please, a lot more GLEE! Oh yeah baby ....

1st Of May is sounding lovely if you like snakes. We didn't even run it all the way through. Because we needed to slip in some Dreaming! Always the danger of an extra YOU in that one. Ed was pleased, and he even let us miss out Goodbye To Love, and even The King And I.

The medieval version of Midnight Blue was ditched in favour of Mr HinTze delivering a lecture in rhyming couplets and t'was lovely indeed. Punchy please. See you tomorrow at 7.20 raring to go. 

Love you and see you then xxxx 

15 May 2014

The one with the announcement... Yes the one about me and Mike. I think I really would like a whole bunch of Dorset For Singing at the wedding, now you mention it. How much do you charge?

Oxford people to stay behind at the end. 

Portland concert is next week and we will be supporting a lovely duet between Ed and Julie - the prayer!

Performance in the square has the same set but swapping Starmaker for Dreaming, the Blondie one ...

Time for a river-run through ....

Ass-king not arse-king for the taking please for Let The River Run, we need a nice flat northern 'A'. We had to get all the water puns out of system before a second run through. And Jerusa-lum not Jerusa-lem. Just so we are singing from the same hymn book. 

The Long And Windy Road is a real audience pleaser and will make them sigh. After the excitement of the river this ones going to take them places they never knew Dorset's Best Community Choir could take them!

Next they will be in heaven, for it is a place on earth. 

And next with a special guess soloist we sang Sing ...

We may not even always be in tune, but I think we are generally So Happy Together! 

Starmaker next. No one groaned. Much. But choir did put their everything into it and Ed was pleased. And everyone forgave little Jack for being tired from doing SATS and hiding the words at one point. Life is good!

 

It isn't The First Of May anymore, but we relived that heady moment. The Apples. The kiss. Your mum shouting you in for your tea ... 

Then along with YouTube we did our special parts for Midnight Blue. Ooo Yeah. 

Then Julie took a perch next to Ed so we could do some oooo for a song we have not done for a while with choir. Cool Duet choice guys. 

Love you. See you next week ...

8 May 2014

The one where you only stay behind if you haven't sorted out your Oxford issues ....

11.40 is the time for our performance at the fayre in the square venue on bank holiday Monday 26 May. 

We reviewed our running order for All Saints and jumped straight in with Let The River Run! It was rather flat and lacked something. Make sure you get a warm up before our concert because we need to give it our best. We divided to share out the overlaps. Ed wanted to give this another run through to break it down, but stopped when he was happy!

The Long And Winding Road lacked drive. It must not become a long and winding dirge! Ed demoed a few actions but we won't be trying those. So the second run through was about finding more DRIVE, seriously no pun intended!

Heaven Is A Place On Earth was ok. More harmony parts please!

Sing - The Gary Barlow number we remembered very well, with Catherine back for the solo part. We discussed the overlapping sections which worked so well last time we sang this! More people needed for the echoes too! At the second run through we were looking to work that overlap and we were treated to  Jack's upstaging of Ed. Haha. Julie said we should do the ending without music and we cracked it. Yay!

How Happy Together! 

Star Maker sounded good but more lower harmony in chorus would help to really build that up. 

First Of May was ok!

Goodbye To Love gains a Pass too! Yay! 

Comments were invited from choir members after our first run, through but no one was brave enough. 

Ed wanted to take to the piano and run through Midnight Blue, mostly our parts. Needs some YouTube listening, so that's your homework chaps!

We stood for You Raise Me Up, which is very apt and going to be our secret encore so please don't read this if you are coming to the concert. The rest of you, well done Dorset For Singing and have a great week! Cat xxx

1st May 2014

Hello everyone on our late return to summer term... Blogging live from the jolly old school hall ...

Concert in three weeks folks, so we are revisiting a couple of old friends for our Portland concert on Friday 23rd May 7.30 ... Solos welcome! We will be singing at the Fair In The Square on that bank holiday Monday too .... Time to be confirmed to end all confusion. 

After a super fast warm up, we tackled The First Of May ... I will have to tell Mary when I get home. She is 6 on the second and this is a favourite choir song! After doing really well that we dug out Star Maker, we're happy now! Ed said we might not need to practice again ... B Flat please Ed!

Ed wanted to reintroduce Midnight Blue which is mostly a solo by him. Jack added in an In and then took it out again. Priceless. And in the Bee Gees flavoured bridge, Ed added in an In and there were frowns. You have to be here, really! Over to you tube, to reINstall all the INs again ....

So happy together! This song makes me want to work/animate a puppet sheep. You know, just at the end there... Look out for the eyebrow moment of course. There won't be a dry seat in the house! Mind the treacle folks. Over the top annunciation please. 

We decided on You Raise Me Up too, as That church always asks for an encore. We also considered Sing, the Gary Barlow version, not our Karen again! So we could try that next week if Ed reads this blog post. He doesn't read these, does he?

Jack found us Raise me up words that were not quite complete, but we didn't do too badly having a crack at that!

Then jack found a karaoke version of SING, and we waited for it to buffer ... We did a lovely job of that too so we can leave the hall smelling quite sweetly tonight!

Carol nominated Good Bye To Love for our finale, and all stood to make a joyful noise. Superb. Love you, keep singing. Running order next week xxxx

24 April 2014

Hope you had a happy Easter guys! But please pass it on, choir practice tonight has been cancelled at short notice!

Have a nice time with your iPod, love you Cat xxx

27 march 2014

The last rehearsal before the Easter break....

Please don't come to a rehearsal next week, there's a social at Wey Valley school instead starting at 6.30pm. No taxies can enter after 9pm thought as the gates close for the caretakers bedtime. 

With the school hall all set up for the pupils very special Taser Service, Ed stood at the podium in conductor mode. I wonder what ever happened to the baton that the naughty corner gave him? Someone might email the school and tell them it's really spelled e-a-s-t-e-r though ...

So we kicked off with heaven being a place on earth. The ending wasn't quite what we seemed to be expecting though!

Be alert DFS. This song has a very short intro and is also in danger of a bum note start. I'm sure it will be alright on Sunday afternoon though!

So Happy Together as always! But in need of more bah-bahs... And something funny was happening with the computer. Or more specifically it's treatment of our backing tracks! It worked the second time around, with a really smart Gilbert-and-Sullivan sound too! 

The Long and Winding Road. Blogging live has its quirks. I'm sort of giving you a running order while listening to a conversation about the numbers of grandchildren some people has. Then I had another feel of Jenny's balls. Lovely.Energy  is needed for this number to keep the lack of cheek bones and dirge at bay. All stood to tackle it a second time. 

Dreaming. Dreaming is free even if the All Saints computer doesn't like Ed's endings. We really enjoy this one and it shows. Just a really funny gap to watch out for, near the beginning! Trying to work out the timing together proved hilarious, and included an impromptu honk of geese and a visit to lambing-live. 

Freedom. This week we definitely had enough Duddle-uts printed on our words, so that was good. Pay attention to those ^arrows^ near the end so your Freedom doesn't go up when it should go down ... Ed asked for more butt. Sorry, 'but'. 

I'll Say Goodbye To Love actually said hello to an almost intact ending. We only ran through it a second time because Carol likes it! 

King and I. The knight that never ends, cried Ed, as he gave us a break in order to say something very silly to someone new. So I wrote a few more lines of blog. Then it was time to tackle some last minute issues, and run through everything again!

We stood for our finale after Ed took numbers for our social, and numbers for any extra copies of music for Sunday, then it was bath time. Love you, keep singing! XXXX

13 march 2014

The one with the big breaths ...

Ed gave us a reminder for the Mother's Day concert, in two weeks at 2pm at the pavilion...

We started with Karen Carpenter and said Goodbye to Love in the key of original, but everyone but me found it a tad low. So then it went up to +3 and Ed found it much less dreary. I'll not get bidda. Don't forget to smile, and make good use of those big breaths. 

Surely heaven is a place on earth when we sing like hosts of the aforementioned realm? Baby I was afraid before, but I'm not afraid - anymore! And Ed was pleased ...

Good morning sunshine in the original key won't be ready but Freedom looked good with not a single doo-doo out of place. It's still in C+3 as it was last week! We do need another two lines of Duddle-uts though ... Ed got everyone on their feet to give it some welly. And we dooooooo.....

Dream time next without Debbie Harry. And not because I kept yawning tonight! We will perform it a little slower than she did, and without the very distracting drums but still in the original key of D for Dreaming.

We ended on a long and windy road, probably the one leading to my snuggly bed, especially if it's windy! 

Then we read the music festival feed and watched the best toddler in the world!

Next week we will have the definitive list and then a further two weeks to practice on those! Keep singing, remember I love you XXX

6 March 2014

The cat in the hat came back ... To blog!

Ed's ear infection caused him to take a sickie today so we had to have choir without him. 

So he didn't have the comments sheet, about the performance on Saturday at the music fesival, but he did give us some lovely feedback and the sad news that DFS are not invited back for Friday nights concert, unless of course anyone wants to come and watch!

Working towards 'the best of' we will be preparing about 25 minutes of songs for that concert, and we kicked off with Karen carpenter and I felt shocked. What have you lot being doing in my absence? It was in a shocking key (C+3), and so we slipped it to a C+2 and tried again. The extra long phrase had to have some breathing spaces slotted in, in two secret places! Sorry that all those 'aaaaahs' made me yawn ... Then we stood to perform and no one played air guitar after all...

Freedom next, and no I don't mean the accessible boat in Weymouth harbour, but the wham! song from our collective youth. Well ok just mine and Ed's, and at 'C+3' was a tad high for most of us ... Ed's choreography was excellent. And as for our singing, I'm not sure if we got it in the bag, but I think we hit it over the head quite a bit!

'The long and winding road' hasn't yet disappeared from our repertoire, and is well high at C+6! It may be missing some trombones and a banana. Alex volunteered to be a French horn. And then we went into the jungle, without so much as a mosquito net. 

Last song, plucked from the menu, left us 'happy together', in E-minor! 

Thanks to all those who said they missed the blog! I've really had fun doing it this week. Must have missed it myself.