Rehearsal, 11 FEB 2020

Andrew’s Corner / Notes:

Thank you for all your hard work these past few weeks. I know this past week was very technical, thank you for your attention to detail and productivity! Learning this piece is so wonderfully rewarding and also challenging. Bravo to your work… I can’t wait for what is to come!

Please find rehearsal resources on the RESOURCES PAGE

Schedule:

SATB: Warm-up / announcements (7:15 pm – main room)
SATB: Mvt. 3 RUN (7:25)
SATB: Mvt. 5 & 4 (8:00)
SATB: Mvt. 1 & 10 Review, sing through / work (8:30)

Pronunciation tip of the week:

Be very careful of the “s” that when surrounded by two vowels it becomes a “zz” sound. In addition the “r” should be rolled or flipped, never a “hard R” sound as in th word “are.” Example: paradisi sounds like [pah-rah-dee zee].

Practice tip (repeated…):

When working through the music, be sure to use plenty of air / support / space. Try to ensure you’re not “chewing” vowels and using the pure forms of I (EE), E (EH), A (AH), O (OH), U (OO). Saying these vowels to yourself through the day can help you to become more familiar and catch yourself when diphthongs creep in!

If you are missing notes because of the words, sing on a neutral vowel until you have the rhythm / notes down. THEN (just as we do in rehearsal) speak the text by itself, THEN speak it in rhythm, THEN add the pitches with the rhythm and text. Everyone works through this at different paces. Try not to get frustrated if you’re not getting it all on the first try. Work for 10-15 minutes, take a mental break, then come back and do another 10-15 minutes. I am confident you will this to be a good method. If you can work through any of it with someone else who is in the ensemble, that’s great. Often, we learn from hearing what others are doing… in addition to learning by teaching.

I can’t wait to work with you all soon!

-Andrew