15 December 2016

In a rare moment of generosity, I crossed the ridgeway with hubby to offer my limited services to DFS Dorch on the occasion of their fabulous Christmas concert. I took my African Nose Flute, my adjusted folder and my camcorder and bummed a lift with our Aussie contingent ahead of Michael and our car. 

DFS Dorchester is much smaller in number than DFS Weymouth but makes up in volume what it lacks in bodies, and I was impressed by the big, clear sound. In fact they almost drowned me out during parts of My Reckless

Love or so my recording would have it. I got most of the concert btw, and will be popping parts of it onto YouTube very soon, Christmas plans permitting. 

We had a smallish but happy audience and a few days later Ed posted to facebook, "Thank you to Dorset for Singing and friends for raising £245.15 for Diverse Abilities last night.  You rock to the core!" And I was impressed too. Everyone was very friendly and asked me to pop over again. Makes a change to blog for the other side. 

Have a great Christmas if I don't blog you sooner! Cat xxx

8 December 2016

As Ed proudly posted in our facebook group, "Really pleased to announce that Dorset for Singing's concert at All Saints School last Thursday raised a grand total of £713.90 for the Dorset County Hospital Cancer Appeal.  Thank you to everyone who sang, supported and gave so generously." DFS Dorch looked forward to their concert and gave us a huge well done too. 

I love the Christmas concert held in all saints school hall each year. There's a fabulous family atmosphere with the tables and chairs in clusters, games and the best raffle ever as well as choir songs and soloists! 

I personally want to thank everyone for singing My Reckless Love with me, I'm really amazed what Ed did with a few scribbled thoughts that I sent to him this summer. I might do that again! Thank you to everyone that works hard to make DFS what it is, and that includes thanks and good bye to the school caretaker who always gave me the time of day and a smile. 

DFS Dorch concert next, cannot wait. Well I can. I'm nervous and I've not sung there before! Love you lots, Happy Christmas, Cat xxx

1 December 2016

And one more time in the common room did DFS gather, one week before their fabulous concert, expectant and thronging. Last week was our bad dress rehearsal so we were looking forward to our good dress rehearsal this year. We had 13 tracks to run through and hoped for some Random-oke as well. 

Ed has another date for next year, and though the date is yet to be confirmed, we will be singing once again at All Saints Church Portland, probably in May. Steamy Christmas puddings were available at the back, thanks to Julia. Outfits for next week would be awesome if red, fun, festive and furry. But normal choir dress would still be awesome if you prefer. 

And off we went .... after a huge pause, following the running order I published last week. Nice. I'm posting it here incase clicking last week is too hard for you. It's not so easy, blogging away live on my phone, and I can write about our surprise flash mob. Haha. 

Hello, Goodbye

Love is All Around

My Reckless Love

Rocking Around the Christmas Tree

Run

I Only Wanna Be With You

Bridge Over Troubled Water

(Solos/groups)

Is This the Way to Amarillo?

      Please guys, don't come in too early .....

When We Were Young

A Winter’s Tale

Adiemus

Christmas Medley

And this will be our final song, which will play us off the stage - 

Fairy Tale of New York

And off we will go in an orderly fashion. At the end of tonight some folk went off for a drink and discuss choir's trip next year. But before that there was just time for Any-oke but only just as Ed spent a lot of time cheeting so no ballads won. No Milk Today, I'm gonna grab a pint on the way home for my wheats-pops in the morning. 

Have fun at the pub and choose a good venue. See you next week in a ton of tinsel. Should I bring Ben the rat? Hmmmm .....  love you all, Cat xxz

24 November 2016

Back in the common room again, and warming up with the DFS VLE. Remember that one? I once made good use of that one. This time the Your Late joke worked really well as everyone pointed at Carol. Nice. 

Last minute dot com found us thusly, as Ed had rushed off to find additional music and Jack asked me to find the drop box on my phone but I'm not sure how much I helped. 

The drop box was bulging anyway, with all backing tracks and lyrics in order and my recorder was burning a hole in my rucksack. Hasn't our choir master done well getting all this done 2 weeks before our concert? 3 weeks if you count Dorchester. 

Then Ed's phone was dead so the request went out for an internet active phone and I didn't put my hand up because I blog live, but while the search was on for a phone with Drop Box installed we started singing our Beetles Medley a Capella. Nice. 

Instead of singing lots I fetched the running order from the facebook page for you (my mouth is very sore tonight). And we set to, as Ed thought it would take an hour to sing it all. 

Set Order, Thursday 8th December, 7pm, All Saints School

Hello, Goodbye

Love is All Around

My Reckless Love

Rocking Around the Christmas Tree

Run

I Only Wanna Be With You

Bridge Over Troubled Water

(Solos/groups)

Is This the Way to Amarillo?

When We Were Young

A Winter’s Tale

Adiemus

Christmas Medley

Fairy Tale of New York

And Jack did a sterling job of downloading, fetching pasting and scrolling especially for all those without paper copies tonight. He dropped the backing track so you could hopefully hear me without that mic, and on we went singing our socks off. Because it's always HOT in the common room. 

The Exciting New Christmas Medley was blessed with an Exciting New Backing Track so we skipped Adele to have a shot at that. Plenty of jingle bells! A Winter's Tale also had a new backing track, and that was us for tonight, apart from random-oke and Ed scurried off to pull out a song, and ran back to Jack to have him probe YouTube. Suspicious Minds. 

Next week we meet again in the common room, and afterwoods there will be a meeting about next years DFS TOUR. 

Keep singing, as always, love Cat xx

17 November 2016

The one with the shiny new posters .... do take one and stick it up somewhere to make someone smile!

It was a dark and windy night, a little too moist for many of us, but a very good reason to kick off with a DUM DUM DIDDLY DUM, and a short warm up ending on a siren. 

The result of last weeks requests for new 'old' DFS songs were Rocking Around The Christmas Tree, Bridge Over Troubled Water and I Love It When You Call, and even A Winters Tale, which was our first song tonight, and everyone was ok about including that one. Lyrics will be ready nest week and just for the record we are singing in F minus 6. 

Ed came out from behind the keyboard to fire us up for our concert opener, Hello, Goodbye and reminded everyone to smile their cheesiest. 

Rocking Around The Christmas Tree was fine and was followed When We Were Young and Ed didn't say too much about That tonight. 

Then the blogging app crashed, and stole my witty words from at least half of my meanderings, and all the best jokes. The choir tried to remember I Love It When You Call without listening to YouTube first so that was interesting. Perfect in fact. I used that interlude to try and catch up. Then jack fired up I Only Wanna Be With You Sponsored by febreaze. My phone can spell that anymore than I can, but we did well with that, it's one of those lovely crowd pleasers. 

Another one of those oldies was Love Is All Around Me - my favourite version is sung by R.E.M. and makes me want to sing Bah-bah-bah type backing vocals. 

Back to festivities, with the Exciting New Christmas Medley, and Ed says if we are very good we will have a new backing track soon, then everyone cheered for Adiemus so I'll bring my recorder for next time, maybe even treat Dorchester too. Haha. It's a short song but it will keep the audience on their toes, I'm sure. 

We worked hard and sung so many songs, so aptly sang Bridge Over Troubled Water after Ed reminded us which waters go up and which go down. Hmm, trouble in your waters? Nice final note. I bet that was Ruth. 

And we tried to Run in the wrong key, but we all helped to find the right one by all singing at once in different keys which was very helpful. Sorted. Armadillo was squeased in. Then suddenly Ed had an Idea. I can't blog it because it would spoil the fun so if you need to know what it is ask a member!

Any-oke time now, Sweet Caroline came out of the goodie bag. Who has a lighter app? Get it on! And Teach The World To Sing followed a whole load of pieces of paper that Ed tossed to one side. Hmmm. 

 

Did I forget to re-blog one of our songs? Answers on a £10 note to The Raggy Rat if I did. Hopefully all is now sorted. Well done choir, we have LOADS more material for our concert now, keep singing, with love, Cat xx. 

10 November 2016

The one that started with a hum and an apple cake. If I get to taste it before I leave, I will review it for you. 

The concert is finalised, and Carol's still collecting for the raffle. Ed's making note of any other song suggestions for the choir, or solo performances like we love to do at half-time. A huge drum roll due, as £1036 was raised last year for MS Society. 

Warm after notices again, beginning with a huge round of AMEN and ending with a DUM DUM DIDDLE. Oh yeah. 

Our concert will start with our Beatles Medley, so it needs to be lively, so it was time for a new excersize in which we spoke out the words in an over-the-top fashion and amazingly, we still had the energy when we started singing. Nice. We did it exactly 1 million and 83 times better than last week. 

We have new lyrics for our Adele number, but the limited print outs for When We Were Young disappeared like hot (apple) cakes. And we did quite well but some people made the end of the first chorus go up. Naughty. Watch those sssssss guys we don't want any hanger-onners there! 

And because Fulvia had already handed out Christmas card, it was time for our Exciting New Christmas Medley, and proper feative it was too. It was only a temporary backing track which had been rushed out for use in the common room. 

Time to Never Let Her Slip Away to a well funky backing track which was fabulous. Especially the tambourine! It was quickly ditched for Ed playing in a brighter key. I don't  think that's our strongest song. 

Then I sang My Reckless Love with lovely choir oooohs and aaaaaahs and singing the choruses and bridge beautifully. I love to sing with DFS. 

Amarillo annoys the spell checker something rotten, but I wonder if the mid section will bring in signs or pillows for this number? We always have at least one song good for props and dressing up. Go for it Linda! Lovely huge intro. 

No one cheered for Adiemus but we do make a rather good job of it. Ed went over the harmony parts again before it was time for our treat, Random-oke! Ed got us on our feet after laughing out loud, as we belted out Man I Feel Like A Woman. I know who picked this and it wasn't me! What happens in choir, stays in choir. Unless it's blogged ...

Well done choir, you rocked it. As always. Remember I love ya, Cat xxx 

3 November 2016

The one where we were back in the hall and not the common room! And before we did anything Ed outlined our Christmas concert on the 8th December. Please give raffle prizes to the lovely Carol so she can make up some of her fabulous baskets. 

Free apples tonight, so take some on, make an apple pie, and bring it next week so that it can be judged. By Ed. Finally, it was warm up time, so we had a quick one. 

Next year there should be a fun trip, the first weekend in may. More about that soon. Then Jack fired up some new backing tracks which were ready for the common room, that weren't in, and our choir master waved his hands in the air, like he just don't care for our Beetles Medley.

After a run through with half of choir missing, we switched to I Wanna Know What Love Is       stopping short of the repeated ending. Then it was time to get up and do something completely different. Feeling Hot Hot Hot we was not but then we Wim-a-way-ed and Amarillo was in our throats before we knew it! Hot on its tail was the Exciting New Christmas Medley. Finally we were delivering so we got our Adele on to prove that we could put the same energy into a slow song too. We even had a competition! Jenny and Fulvia earned the right to leave on time after all. Ed helped everyone with the low harmony again ... and we stood to perform. 

Wonderful. Everyone was slightly puffed. Adiemus next, where the harmony people has got a little lost. Mind you, Ed can't talk and play at the same time. Enough said. 

Do You Hear The People Sing? Well of course you do, it's choir night! Any-oke was re-named random-oke and Any Dream Will Do won. Kervyn was happy. Then Ruth was happy, Don't Stop Believing!

Well done DFS, you worked hard after all your pumpkin pie filled half term. See you next week with a hot apple pie! Or crumble, as Ron quite rightly pointed out. Cat xxx 

20 October 2016

The one with the naughty chair ...

Many members were missing tonight as the first of the winters lurgies is making itself known. And there was bad news and there was even more bad news. In bad news, please don't turn up next week because it's half term. In worse news when we do come back we will be in the common room. And nobody likes that. 

First song tonight, When We Were Young, was swiftly followed by Jack sharing some new links on the DFS website, including the opportunity of downloading me and popping me on your iPod (MYRECKLESSCAT.WAV). Nice. We have had some lovely feedback for the song that Ed and I have written, thanks everyone we won't let it go to our heads! 

When We Were Young might have needed us to be more warmed up, so we dived into our Beatles Medley next, after a quick reminder of the harmonies. We needed to break it down because the harmonies had disappeared. How lovely they echoed around the school upon their return! The 'last love' almost caused a flounce! Moving on to a reward, not any-oke yet, but Adiemus complete with a rewrite of the non-lyrics by Young Michael who couldn't follow the chop-ped-up-syll-a-ble-ver-si-on. Cool. Then, with full voice, up on our feet to perform.   

Ed was so please it was time to hit us with another part, time for some Aaahs again, before I Wanna Know what Love Is. works well with leg warmers and use of a hairbrush I think... the timing of the pre-chorus challenged us so we had to get into the groove. 

I sang live next for My Reckless Cat, haha, when Ed thought it would be fun to add harmonies in the bridge. And then American Pie still hasn't been split into solos, but I can't wait til it is because it's going to sound fab!

Tonight's treats were At The End Of The Day  and some Karen Carpenter, Top Of The World! 

Keep singing, see you after half term! Xxx