Caroline and Meaghan have had a really great first two rehearsals back! I know it's early, but we are really feeling like the remainder of this season's training performances have the potential to be really spectacular. The repertoire is already coming along so smoothly, and the tone of rehearsals has been set at a higher level from the start of last week's rehearsal. We have high hopes that the singers will continue to meet and exceed our expectations as Young Singers.
We've used solfege to teach most of Birch Tree, and even did it in two part canon on our first sing-through.
We were also able to use solfege to learn Ton The. First they learned the "catchy ending" of the melody, and the entire melody fell into place soon after. Last week we learned the harmony that starts on p. 9, and we heard no complaints, only beautiful high notes :)
Only one of our singers was at summer camp, so Hamisha is pretty new to most of them. So we started with the meter, then jumped right into the text, using the monotone treble I part in the last verse to practice. Then it was no problem for them to go back and put the same text with the melody.
We've learned the melody and some of the harmony to the Wanderer. Our biggest challenge on that one will be making those phrases musical!
We're working on rhythms with IMMs, and using the syncopation the Hussar to practice.
We are continuing work on Sound the Trumpet and Dove and the Maple Tree, of course. We have introduced the concept of Songcatching. We talked about Ton The and Birch Tree, showing the singers where they could look in the front of their octavos to find out information about the song and why it fits the theme of songcatching. They seem to grasp the concept of songcatching, but don't seem to have many ideas so far of what that means for them.
On an informal note... We ended rehearsal with a runthrough of Kitty Alone. They were basically shouting, and after stopping and re-starting one or two times, we continued on. They immediately changed into the most beautiful, pure tone, and I turned to Caroline and said "I could listen to this all day." So we are glad to be working with these singers, and looking forward to seeing where they go musically over the next 4 months or so.
