Friday 10 may 2013

The All Saints Church Concert

Well it just goes to show that holding back on the last practice night can be the very best thing for a professional choir such as ours to do, as we utterly sang our hearts out and blew the roof off that solidly built church! And the lovely men all sang in time with each other!

I'm still working on getting you a nice piece of video to watch as I am sure like me you see all those cameras dotted about to grab our tuneful loveliness for posterity! The cat will surely pounce upon it and share soon! 

See you later for another fun practice together! Well done, especially our soloists, I wonder how much, apart from the roof, we raised? Love you, The Cat xxx

9 may 2013

The one with the leggy concern! And the one were Ed had to get his coat ... Sweet cheeks!

In notices, and they can be edited if I am wrong, but we have two one o'clock concerts coming up, one is the

Rectory garden party in Sutton points, 29 June, and the other at St Edmunds on the 13 July. Be there or be at home drinking champagne!

The concert will run in there parts tomorrow as otherwise our good selves will have to stand for an hour solid and that just won't do at all! And we did some of our practice standing but a lot of it sitting so as not to wear ourselves out ahead of time. I'd like to say we sung very badly with timings all over the place so that we wouldn't peak too soon, bit of course we didn't. Don't mention the men.

The draft running order is - 

Dancing queen

Oh what a beautiful morning

If I loved you (replacing the carpenters number)

Make you feel my love

I will follow him

Run to me

Love can build a bridge

The longest time

All about you

Do you hear the people sing?

The kittens enjoyed being our audience, and taking Sophie home in our car. Now remember your last minute you-tubing, and I will see you tomorrow at 6! Cat xxx

The one with the Hacked Website ...

No access for the powers that be to alter the DFS website at the moment, so big apologies from The Team working hard to get it sorted ....

Meanwhile hop over here - http://www.youtube.com/feed/UC6xm5sU85fGo9v9zhCd01lQ and click here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmxJ7OzhCTY&list=PL9OJ1n1TguVlLybn92jRyZsnLi3Rh71pD to practice your songs for Friday night!

Love you, The Cat xxxxx PS wasn't me what broke the website. I haven't reversed into anything for ages ....

2nd May 2013

The one with the complications!

Mostly related to the dates of our tour de Normandie and not Ed's fault at all! But after putting it to DFS, we WILL be sticking to our original plan of Sunday to Wednesday, and quite possibly camping in a swamp for the first night! After our warm up, Cat's littlest kitten Mary had the best birthday serenade ever, as she was born 5 years ago today! When our choir started little Mary was 5 months ... Sigh!

Then it was time to go through our repertoire, for our concert on 10th may. When we got to 'dancing queen' all eyes became riveted to the screen. So the words were removed, and so apparently were much of the verses! Oddly enough I received this text during choir - ''Kai and her school are singing at the Royal Albert Hall tomorrow and she told me that her singing coach told them that if they forget their words, they should sing "rhubarb", as it will still look ok. Have you heard of this and if so, have you ever done it?? X'' and I think it Would be rather splendid if Abba choruses were turned to rhubarb...

The men are doing a lovely job with their solo parts, and Ed has chosen to play live to 'o what a beautiful morning' so he can follow the singers, and we don't have to try and follow a difficult backing track.

American accents needed for our carpenters number, ain't gonna sound good all British-like! Then back to neat, clipped excited-but-held-back vocals for what my kid's call 'the angry men song'.

Don't forget, we have a new hand signal to convey the term BOUNCY when Ed is conducting. To become familiar with it, try to use it at least once in all your conversations this week. Love you loads! Cat xxx

25 April 2013

The one without the piano ....

Ed was released and unfettered, as lacking a keyboard, he stood in front of us and conducted the warm ups, by sign language. And even though the secret location of said piano was discovered, we carried on or practice using backing tracks, and strong prayer!

Some nice solo parts are slotting into this terms songs, with someone very kindly volunteering someone else for the verses in 'Love can build a bridge'. Helpfully, this very certainly means that this relatively new song can feature in our May concerts. Hooray. Ed was relaxed and relieved and somewhat moved by the whole thing. Must be my country voice...

Jack was disappointed with the long notes at the end of 'I will follow him' so we tried again and it was beautiful. And jack reaped what he seweth, when he left the desk and us without any music or words, and got the sack.

Les mis went hilariously wrong, for the lyrics were not forthcoming, then the very exclusive backing track was all pants anyway, and so we axed it! A Capella was ok for us. We gave Ed a spaghetti shiver* all down his spine!

Ed had some concert tickets, get yours now and save a whole 50p on the door price. Am looking forward to the venue where the choir have their own tea and coffee served to them, again!

Now it's time (don't ya think it's time?) to get my you tubes out, love you, keep singing xxxx

*the kind of shiver you get from strong tomato sauce

18 April 2013

Yay, a new term for Dorset for Singing! Even the warm up was exciting. All saints church concert looms just before my birthday, (may 10th the concert) but we will be singing songs there that we know quite well, and it was fun singing a couple of old faves tonight!

29th of June is the Preston village garden party but our attendance is heavily penciled in at this date has only just been released! Hot off the press indeed! This is one venue that is also very easily rained off of course. And dfs don't really look good in wellies anyway ...

Special rehearsals will take place on sat morning, 27th april, at 11am for those of us going to Normandy. I can't wait for our little trip, as I haven't left the country for quite some time. Expect lots of interesting blogging, and incriminating Instagram pictures all the way! I am bringing a special friend with me who will get blog posts all of his own over on my raggyrat blog!

Choir tackled some new material with great gusto today, looks like I got away with eating chocolate for a couple of weeks instead of doing vocal exercises! One of the songs was suggested by me so please don't kill it and the other was a Karen carpenter number. Karen carpenter is the new Abba.

Look out for suspension bridges and keep singing, much love, Cat xxxx finishing the blog on the sofa!

21 March 2013

The one where Ed and the blogger both did it live...

This Sunday we will be gathering to sing at 1.20 at the pavvy. And next Thursday our poster-less event will kick off at 7.30, please bring a raffle prize. The blogger is sorry to say she won't be there next Sunday as she is double booked, but I will see you on Sunday with the kittens!

Ed had his own keyboard to facilitate recording our backing tracks just in time for Sunday, and we kicked off with Dancing Queen, and romped onto a beautiful morning, to Tonight!

The wrong key always makes me feel old, haha. But there will be no Karen carpenter on Sunday, but Ed recorded it for embarrassment on you tube.

What fun we had when Ed launched into a classy key change and the bulk of the choir did not! Such professional are DFS that they soldiered on, bravely, while the unprofessional half laughed. I suppose that means only half of us listen to the backing tracks?

See you Sunday dear choir, big hugs, Cat xxxxx

14 march 2013

The cat that came back!

So sorry for the lack of choir blog, the cat and kittens returned this week after 4+ weeks of illness, when the cat stayed mostly on the sofa and the kittens pretended to be very good but really were drawing on the upholstered dining room chairs...

Lots of catching up to do, including trying to help ed find the right keys and being reminded of our 2 concerts and our being a part of the best of Dorset again, because we are. Truly. The best choir.

Then we had a run thru of this terms songs, concert style. And a bit of a vote on those for the best of, and promises to ourselves to practice those we don't know very well!

It was great to be back, even if I still can't sing very well, especially to be part of 'the angry men song' which the kittens love a lot! Looking forward to going to normandie with the cream of DFS! And no kittens, eh! Keep singing, I love you loads and thanks for missing me! Cat xxxx