Thanks for a great rehearsal, folks! No clinics next week, March 6! We’ll rehearse for the full time again in the music room.
IMPORTANT REMINDER: We will rehearse on MARCH 13 at 6:30 PM at WOODROFFE UNITED CHURCH. Make sure to BRING YOUR OWN MUSIC STAND.
The church asks that we use the room as is and return anything brought in (percussion, chairs) back to their places. They ask that outside footwear be taken off and put near coat closet, more so if they’re wet. And any water leaking from instruments must be wiped from the floor afterwards, so please bring along a rag to use if this is an issue (for example, for brass players). You will also need to bring a music stand. The banquet hall is the large room off the kitchen and it’s marked.
Chorale No 7:
Please practice this for warm-ups. Our goal is to use these simple, beautiful pieces to practice the sound quality, articulation, intonation, and ensemble playing we use in our performance pieces. In Chorale No 7, we will add a fermata (hold) and breath at the end of measure 4. For next week, we will distribute the parts as follows:
- Flutes, oboe and trumpet – Soprano
- Clarinets, horn – Alto
- Alto saxes, tenor sax, some trombones – Tenor
- Bari sax, tuba, some trombones – Bass
- Percussion – choose whichever parts you like!
Oye Como Va:
- Try practicing this section by section. Feel free to simplify your parts; for example:
in measure 25, leave out the second slurred eighth note on beat three, and in measure 26, leave out the first eighth note (play only the quarter notes) - Trombones at measure 33 – only half the section should play here
- Everyone except clarinets at measure 33 – come right down in volume to piano! we need to make space for the melody in the clarinets
- Clarinets at measure 33 – keep these phrases slurred, but add breath accents at the start of each note, to help project this melody; make sure to play the syncopation at the end of m 33, 35, 37 – it should feel like you arrive early on the F-natural
- Flutes and oboe at measure 41 – DO NOT PLAY the first time
- Everyone at measure 45 – come right down in volume to piano! this is the start of a long, dramatic crescendo
- Flutes and trumpets at measure 49, play the falloff at the start of the note
- Everyone in the last measure – if you have “Uh!” written in your part, belt it out with sass and conviction! it’s part of the music!
Great work and patience as we workshopped this one tonight! Thanks, everyone! I hope you felt and heard how much progress you made in a short time.
And I Love Her:
- Unison-rhythm melodic bits at, for example, measures 11-12 can be more together – listen to each other and move as one through those phrases
- Everyone at measures 49-50, add a crescendo through the long note
- Everyone at measure 62, add a breath mark before the two quarter notes – we will do this together; no rall. at the start of that measure
Mah-na, Mah-na:
- Listen to the recording, while following along with your part. Trust your instincts about where to play – I suspect you all know how this goes, but get caught up in counting instead.
- Percussion section: Angela will switch to mallet percussion to cover the xylophone solo at 45; Jill will switch to bass drum and cowbell (on a stand), playing the rim-knock rhythm on the cowbell; Wendy will shake the living daylights out of the maracas!
- Flutes at measures 30-31: take a quick breath at the downbeat of 31 – this entry happens right away!
- Exaggerate the contrast between the lyrical, long-note sections and the silly syncopated sections
