12 February Update

Week 6 of 6 (Half Term 1)

In this week's bulletin, we have Coffee Notices, a rehearsal recap including notes on Flight and California Dreamin'.

☕ Coffee Notices

Registration now open

The registration form is now open for our performance at West Norwood Feast on Sunday 5 April. Please register as soon as you can, as this helps us plan and prepare for the event.

WhatsApp Community

Our WhatsApp Community is now live! Angela has worked hard behind the scenes to ensure a smooth move from individual group chats into one Community tab, where all our chats can be easily found. If you’d like to join the Social DIVAS or Setlist chats for example, you can request access directly within the Community.

The Announcements group will be used to keep everyone updated with weekly sessions, events, and other important information. DIVA! – the COTH chat group remains the best place for conversations and general choir chat.

Well wishes

Our lovely Kathy Chapman had a nasty accident this week and is currently in hospital. We’re sending her all our COTH love and well wishes, and hope she has a speedy recovery.

Half term reminder Next week is our half-term break and our next rehearsal will be February 26th.

🎤 Rehearsal Recap

Warm-up:

We had a noisy warm-up this week, with the addition of hand drum pads from Elena’s collection. We worked on keeping the rhythm and understanding some of the fundamentals of music. Almost every musical genre uses repeating patterns to build harmony – it’s the foundation of any good piece of music.

Our vocal warm-up used the whiny ‘oooooo-neee’ sound, first sliding from low to high and then from high to low. We managed to reach both the highest and lowest notes on our small keyboard. Keeping the voice loose before singing is one of the best ways to protect it. Even when practising at home, a quick five-minute warm-up is always recommended.

Song 1 -Flight We continued working on the first eight boxes of the lyric sheet. If you’ve missed any rehearsals, you might find it helpful to have a look back at previous bulletins, as the recaps can be a really useful way to catch up with the work on this new song.

Box 9

The word ‘sky’ is sung differently for altos and sopranos (approx. 2 minutes 8 seconds in on the current recording).

• Sopranos hold the ‘sky’ for six beats before dropping down on the ‘y’ for the 7th.

• Altos drop from ‘sky’ to ‘y’ first, sustain this note for six beats and drop down on the 7th.

Box 10

• The first line, ‘I’ll just roll’, is sung the same way by both altos and sopranos.

• The sopranos sing ‘I’ on the final beat of the altos’ second line, then the phrasing of their next section follows the same pattern as used in Box 4.

Box 11

This section is the bridge of the song and follows a slightly altered pattern.

• Both altos and sopranos gradually ascend the scales to build tension.

• Sopranos emphasise ‘where’ on the third line.

• Sopranos emphasise ‘hunger’ on the fourth line.

• The final word, ‘that’, creates suspense, with the note dropping slightly.

That completes the first page of the lyric sheet. After our half-term break, we’ll continue with the final three boxes on page two.

California Dreamin'

Our rendition of this song is starting to sound really good. Some small pointers are as follows:

• This song sits quite low for both sopranos and altos. Try to produce the lower notes from the larynx rather than the soft palate.

• Allow the lower jaw to relax – this helps the larynx enrich the sound and gives the low notes more depth.

• Sop 1 – line 13: ‘You know the preacher likes the cold’ begins on a higher note.

• At the bottom of page 2, we have now agreed that Sop 2 and Altos will sing the additional lines that are not on the current lyric sheet. It should read: California dreamin’, on such a winter’s –California dreamin’, on such a winter’s –California dreamin’, on such a winter’s day.

• The final word ‘day’ is harmonised across three notes.