April 19, 2012 Rehearsal Notes

Great rehearsal last night, everyone! A couple of things before I begin the synopsis: Erin was requesting any feedback that people have from past concerts - any good memories or things that touched them so we can keep a record of it. Please email her if you think of any stories or thoughts about past concerts. She also brought up that the board is going be looking to have an historian starting in the fall, so if anyone is interested, please email me and let me know. This is a great way to preserve memories and remember our choir's history.
I also wanted to thank all of those people who helped set up and clean up the party last night after rehearsal. It was greatly appreciated!

Okay, so first of all, Erin announced that Cindy and It Takes a Village need to be memorized. We were able to memorize the first part of Cindy including the clap/stomp section and the entire score of It Takes a Village last night, so if you were not at rehearsal or if you didn't quite get it last night, then please work on it this week so we can move forward next week. We will be expected to have the entire Cindy song memorized by next week. Thanks in advance for all of your hard work with these two pieces. They are sounding wonderful!

In sectionals the women worked on For the Beauty. We worked on our phrasing and making sure each phrase had movement. We need to try and make sure our vowels are tall and that we have resonance. Be sure to review the last two pages of that piece since we seemed to have the most trouble there.
The men went through mm.52-75 of Pirate Song.
We then worked on memorizing It Takes a Village mm. 25-76 and Cindy mm. 1-135. We practiced the stomp/clap and the women perfected it! Woohoo! We then worked on trouble spots in Little Potato, making sure we were getting the right notes and dynamics.

In SATB we memorized It Takes A Village. We need to make sure we watch Erin for the specific dynamic elements of this piece. We need to have a dark gospel sound and we need to crescendo on notes that are held out. I would suggest to everyone that we work on this at home and be super awesome next week!
We then memorized the first half of Cindy including the clap/stomp section. We need to whoop and holler during the clap/stomp section. When we sing the phrase "Get along home little Cindy" we need to crescendo on the work Cindy so there's a little change in dynamics. We also need to make sure we pronounce "purdiest" correctly, not prettiest. This is a hoe down, people; so let's pull it off! :)
We then worked on section I to the end of Little Potato, making sure everyone had the correct notes and rhythms. This is the trickiest section of this song, so be sure to review is during the week as well. Then we ran through A Child's Prayer. Be careful to not sing it like the primary children do.

Thanks everyone, and have a great week!
~Laura