Conductor’s Notes – Thursday 11th January

Good evening friends, I hope you’re all well and have had a good week! It’s been so lovely to get back to singing with you all again following the Christmas break and to share this excellent music with you all. Below are my weekly notes, so please do give them a read through.

What we did – 4th & 11th January

We started our term by looking through as much music as possible. Over these two rehearsals we looked at:

• All of the Bible Songs in week 1, learning some of the notes in detail, but mainly getting a feel for each hymn and the melody in each.
• In week 1 we looked at the 1st movement from Songs of the Fleet, noticing its strophic structure (i.e., the repetitions), before we abandoned ship!
• In week 2 we covered the remaining movements of Songs of the Fleet, practicing the rhythms, finding notes, and getting a feel for the structure of each movement, helping us build a picture of the entire work.
• We also did some work on ensemble and tuning!

To Catch Up: If you missed these rehearsals, please have a listen and look through the music for this term.

What we’ll do – 18th January

We’ll be starting with 3b – In thee is Gladness (page 9 in the booklet), and then we’ll split into sectionals to work on the first and last movements of the Songs of the Fleet.

Marked Score

Attached is the marked score of Songs of the Fleet. I ask that you please put in the markings into your parts. Having things like where to breathe already marked in the score will save so much time in rehearsals. Thank you all for your time with this!

Learning Resources

The Spotify playlist HERE contains the whole programme. To get an idea of the music, this is your best place to start.
Alternatively, feel free to search for the pieces on YouTube.

I’ve found two free sources for Learning Guides for Songs of the Fleet, so you can choose which ones will help you most in learning the music:
The first is HERE.
The second is HERE.

Other Forthcoming Events

I know these are fairly far off, but I thought I’d share them now. The first is my auditioned choir, newCHOIR, with our Spring concert – a fantastic programme, and if you don’t know the Vaughan Williams you’ll absolutely love it! The second is a Come-and-Sing day I’ve been asked to share with you all. Check out the posters for these events below.

That’s it for now! Have a great weekend and see you all on the 18th January.

Ben