Last night was a great one with Freedom Train really singing up a storm. This choir has grown from strength to strength over the past 20 months and is sounding better than ever. I can't believe we're nearly 2 years old.
So what did we do? A bit of a rehearsal log...
We recapped on All You Need Is Love. This is a new arrangement which we've just finished learning. Performed it for the 1st time at 20 March Live & Local Expo gig.
I've constructed it as your traditional 4-part harmony choir piece, acappella (no instrumental accompaniment). I reckon it's the most complex thing we've tackled so far. The Sopranos hold the melody and get to sing those incredible John Lennon verse lyrics.
I love the contours of each part though - each harmony is also a melody as far as I'm concerned. The Bass part is cool, essentially the pulse of the piece.
Sounds great already and will only sound better when the flow of the piece is under our belts and we don't have to think about it. Starting to add greater dynamics to it etc....
Then we learned something old but new for Freedom Train: Dona Nobis Pacem (Latin for Give Us Peace). A group member had asked for us to do something more "traditional" so here t'was. A bit of learning curve for some members who'd never sung in Latin before but all good fun, especially when we broke it out into the 3-part round - pretty stunning.
To finish, we recapped the first new song of the year Let It Go, a beautiful 3-part hymn by Micheal Leunig & Suzann Frisk - group sounding like angels on this. Well of course - they are.
Then we broke it down into a bit of "skill and confidence building" exercise, getting 2 volunteers from each voice part to sing it as a sextet, then in trios.
This was a tremendously powerful experience for the participants and the listeners as they keyed into how all the parts interact & blend, with the increased clarity of being the only person singing their voice part.
Gave ideas for how we could use this exercise to build performance arrangements. I'm hoping it will also help more choir members be confident enough to sing solo in future. Will do more of this next term.
No choir for 2 weeks - Easter break. Looking forward to next term!! Have a fab Easter everyone.