Practice

• Laudate Dominum

  • Latin pronunciation -  remember that the five vowels are short. A as in apple, e as in egg, i as in ink, o as in orange, u as in under.

  • This has a 1st section and a 2nd section which repeated over and over, creating a meditative atmosphere over which a tune can rise. The tune is on the second page marked Verses, Cantor – Ian sang this and it sounded fantastic against us singing the chorales.

  • Think one in a bar for this piece. 

  • First sopranos split on the top stave in the first movement. 

  • Altos all sing the top line on the lower stave. (not sure about this. If you split, the bottom line is very low, down to A on the bottom space of the bass line, so I'm assuming you all sing the top line.)

  • In the second movement, sopranos sing the top line, seconds the top line of the lower stave and altos the bottom line.

  • Remember to put in the accented notes. 

  • 'Omnes' and 'gentes' ('all people' to the English speakers amongst us!) have a crotchet rest after them. Please don’t drift into it. Keep the 's' at the end of those two words very short or very quiet. We don’t need to sound like a nest of snakes.

  • Pronounce the first syllable of 'Alleluia' as 'Ahleluia'

• Little Jazz Mass (Gloria)

NB: This is the only one we’re singing from this book.

• Pronunciations.  Keep the vowels short and imagine you’re with a sexy Italian and you’re copying his accent.

  • Excelsis is exchelsis.

  • Deo as in orange

  • Gloria as in apple

  • Terra as in apple

  • Laudamus te is lau-dah-mus te as in egg

  • Adoranus te  is adoramus te as in egg (note that this te is four beats long followed by a quaver rest.

  • Magnam is manyam

  • Pater is pater as in apple te as in egg

  • Unigenite is unijehnite

  • Jesu is Yesu

  • Miserere – all the es pronounced as in egg

  • Suscipe is sushipe

  • Deprecationem is deprecatzeeonem

• This moves fast so go through the words – in your head, then speaking them, then singing them. 

• Pay attention to the accents above the notes. If Chilcott put them there, he wanted them to be emphasised. If he didn’t put an accent, he meant it to be unaccented. E.g: bar 56 is glo ri-a but in bar 60, it’s glo- ri -a.

• Altos, you have passages where you’re singing the same as the first sopranos but an octave lower. Please sing down the octave confidently... It’s a very important part of the harmony.

• Rogers and Hammerstein 

We did the last movement – when you walk through a storm….

• The biggest problem with this is sticking to what’s written and not how you remember it from Gerry and the Pacemakers.

• At bar 353 we all sing, including the altos. The altos stop at bar 64 when they revert to their own part.

• In bar 374, the words are 'tossed (rest) and'. Keep tossed short and be very accurate with the rest.

• Note: in the last bar of page 38, both notes are C and the first note on page 39 is also C. 

• In the last two bars of page 39, 1st sopranos sing an F.

• Carnival! 

  • The Lion

    • Being the kings of the jungle they talk very posh -like we did for the Ascot Gavote. 

    • Roll your 'r's whenever you can. 

    • Practice the long roars to see if you can get them loud but don’t hurt your throat. The short 'RAH's could just go past without the audience realising so emphasise them loudly with rolled 'r's.

  • Tortoises

    • Very slow. Take deep audible breaths at every breath tick – even if you don’t need to take a breath. 

    • Hold the very last note until just before the '...TH' when we all take a huge noisy breath and then say '...TH' loudly.

  • Aquarium

    • I like the dolphin’s perception of humans.  We’re clever because we can throw fish for ever, and hold a hoop for dolphins to jump through.

    • Bar 37 looks a bit scary - it’s fast and the words can  be tricky to fit in but it’s only two notes repeated.

  • Finale 

    • This is very fast so it’s a good idea to go over the words so you’ve got less to think about when we get round to learning the tune.

NB: 

• Ian suggests we listen to the orchestral version of Carnival of the Animals to get the feel of the piece. Then listen to the recording of our vocal rendition, Carnival!

• Next Week – Please make sure you bring Flying Free and Michael Head’s Ave Maria. 

See you next week, roaring fit to burst.  

Ann