March 17 rehearsal

REMEMBER NO REHEARSAL NEXT WEEK--HAPPY SPRING BREAK!

Children's Chorus

Our focus was on memorizing words, and clearing up some stray harmony notes, and we had a good rehearsal!  I drew the same structure I drew last week on the wipe off board for the words to "You've Got a Friend."  I was pleased that they remembered what the drawings were from last week, and they were happy to draw them again.  I'm hoping those images will stay with them and they will remember the order of the verses.  We made a structured list of words that went with the song "Ordinary Miracle" as well.  They were able to sing all of the songs with out music today.  I pulled out a "stop and go light" as a visual aid, and they sang out loud for the green "light" and in their minds for the red "light".  That got a lot of smiles as I tried to make it tricky.  The stop light gave us a reason to repeat the song, and challenged them with something new to think about.

Footnotes
In order to drive home the rhythm reading concepts we've working on, I composed some new 'Patschen' exercises for the girls.  These are 4 measure rhythmic pieces that use clapping, slapping, and stomping to stretch their rhythm reading abilities!  Have your daughter demonstrate the following example that we worked on in rehearsal.  It's just enough challenge to be fun, and I think it reinforces in a new way the rhythms that we are learning.  I think I will adopt this into our regular routine for a while.

Footnotes continued...
As far as last week's assignment goes...over half of them put a pencil in their music folder, but only a handful attempted the other 2 assignments.  So I handed out a few hershey bars, and we'll see how the next assignment goes which is:

• Practice and  memorize.  Sing while listening to the opposite part and keep it going!
• Swingin' with the Saints--using pencil, write in where the beats fall in measures 1-20.  Over which notes do beats 1, 2, 3, 4 go?  For example:

This was challenging for them, and although I helped many of them in rehearsal, and I did a group explanation, you may want to show them this example to help get the job done.  I hope I get to lighten up my Hershey Bar load, I better not eat them all!


Sherwood Chorale
I'm sorry so many of you had sickness and troubles yesterday.  We missed you, hopefully you will all be okay and back with us next time!  Thanks to everyone who came for being flexible with all the commotion with the SHS concert going on and the parking lot being full.  It's good our rehearsal didn't start until 7:45 since it timed out well with the intermission of the concert.

I recorded the final rendition after our work session of each song.  I have those clips here with some comments. I hope you can  take time to listen and evaluate them as well...  Hey you could listen while you check your e-mail!  Have a great spring break, and I'll see you back March 31!

• Dream a Little Dream-the brighter, focused "ee" vowel really cleaned up the sound--it sounds so much better!  There were some nice crescendos, and the accents on the da,da, da, da, da part at mm 61 was nice.  We still need to work on diminishing the volume of the "s" of the word 'kiss' and 'miss'.  Altos and tenors--more breath support, and warm up the tone mm 30-35.  Men don't be late at mm 54 Ooh.

http://www.jerryjan.com/sherwoodchorale/rehdream.mp3

• Parade--Men accent the first beat of each section starting mm 11 and 29. Check notes at mm 22, 35, 59, 94.  Everyone sync the entrances especially at mm 47.  Men--we're missing the first word at mm 53--"I'm"!  At mm 77 I'll conduct better!  There was better intonation, in those problem spots.  It's coming along 

http://www.jerryjan.com/sherwoodchorale/rehparade.mp3

•  Rainbow--some nice dynamics are happening, and it sounds pretty solid.  Everyone who has a moving 8th note line needs to be more melodic, and more in sync as a section.  We'll work on stylizing it more and giving it a little more ring, and tightening up the chords.

http://www.jerryjan.com/sherwoodchorale/rehrainbow.mp3

•  Not While--it has a plodding quality...  :)  I think we'll up the tempo to help overcome that some!  In general the lines need more direction (sing to the climax of the phrase, have strong weak syllables, keep the breath moving), melodies need to be smoother, and unisons tighter. Check notes at mm 43, 50.  Listen for pitch on the word "can" at mm 32, and "time" at mm 71.  Listen for chords "jelling" a the beginning of phrases.  There should be a new memorizationl recording on the Chorale website soon.

http://www.jerryjan.com/sherwoodchorale/reharound.mp3

•  Lean on Me--Ya, just keep working on it! Don't be late at mm 35, 32 second time, and 61!            Go to  http://jerryjan.com/sherwoodchorale/mainpage and click on the link to buy Lean on Me online for $1.29, then email John jgbarrow@gmail.com  and tell him you bought it.  He will then e-mail you YOUR part superimposed on the recording with the piano.  Happy practicing!  It's gonna be good!

http://www.jerryjan.com/sherwoodchorale/rehlean.mp3

• By the way, I picked up copy #9 of Lean on Me off of the piano.  Let me know who to give it back to!

THANKS EVERYONE FOR SINGING, COMING TO REHEARSAL AND PRACTICING.  I APPRECIATE ALL YOUR EFFORTS!  IT'S A LOT OF FUN DIRECTING YOU!

March 10 Rehearsal

Children's Chorus
We're continuing our routine of vocal exercises, solfege hand signal reading, and singing familiar folk songs in 2 simultaneous keys (they love doing that--its so funny), and patschen.  They are getting better and better at these skills, and I think they enjoy it too!  Here's what we worked on for each song, in case your child wasn't there, or you're curious to know my teaching strategy!

• Ordinary Miracle-I checked for accuracy of notes by having part 1 sing independently while the part 2 "sang in their head" and directed the melodic contour of the song with their hand.  Then we reversed the process.  This kept everyone engaged and thinking while we focused on only part of the group.   I found that part 2 had some wrong notes they couldn't not seem to hear until until I had them stand up and while singing, bend their knees at the point the note went lower.  After about 3 times they had it. It's interesting how using the whole body helps define the abstract concept of pitch direction.
• You've Got a Friend in Me--I drew the structure of the song on the wipe off board:

Then I chose volunteers to draw a picture a key word for that section in each of the 4 boxes.  I asked them what they thought the arrows meant, and they said "it's when the song goes up or down".  I was pleased because that is what I've been drilling over the last few weeks with the arm gestures for the song.  Now they have a visual reminder, and I won't have them do the gestures much any more.  This structure will help them remember the words to the song and subtle melodic changes for the words "you got a friend in me".

• Dream Keeper--they knew this one well enough to "perform" it for the parents and Footnotes kids who were sitting in the back waiting.  We are working on dynamics and memory.  Good times!!

Footnotes


I tried something new for ear training.  After doing a solfege exercise with hand signals, I played some mostly stepwise exercises like do re mi re do, or do do mi re and then had them sing them back to me while they signed the appropriate syllable.  They did pretty well, and I think I'll continue to do this increasing the difficulty over the weeks ahead.  I reviewed the Hershey Bar Rhythm with an overhead summarizing the relationships between rhythmic values.

 
We moved on to subdividing the beat into 3's, and then clapped exercises I projected on the overhead that were from the music we are singing.  Although not all the girls were able to clap the examples accurately, I felt we made some good progress in understanding the concepts.  I want them to understand the notation of the music, so I will continue to devise exercises and activities to help them learn to read music accurately. This exercise lead into the first song of the day:

• When the Saints--we started the first section for the first time.  It's written in 12/8 time, and I've been laying the ground work for this, the hardest section these past weeks.  They did very well singing it with me, probably due to their practicing with the CD, so I'm really grateful for that tool.
• When You Believe--we sang the Hebrew section and they did great!  This is the first time I've heard them sing it since I assigned it because we only worked on Go the Distance last week due to the performance last Saturday.  I was pleased with how well they sang--I think, they think they are cool that they can sing in Hebrew!  

I GAVE THE GIRLS 2 ASSIGNMENTS FOR THIS WEEK, IN ADDITION TO PRACTICING:

1. When the Saints--mark the beats 1, 2, 3, 4 in the appropriate places for the first section up to measure 20 only.  I didn't tell them this, but I will be giving each person who does it a mini-hershey bar.  I'm serious about them knowing what they are doing!
2. When You Believe--Part 2 only is to listen to the recording and cross out words we don't sing, and write in the words we do sing in the appropriate places.

Please encourage your daughter to practice and do these assignments.  Believe me, this music is challenging and they need to be prepared for rehearsal.  THANKS!!!!


SHERWOOD CHORALE

Thanks to everyone who has come in early to audition for the solos these past 2 weeks.  You've all done a wonderful job, and there were several choices I could have made for each solo that would have been just wonderful.  I'm glad I had recordings, as I had to listen to a few people a few times before I decided!
Here is what I decided:

• Dream a Little Dream--Vicki 
• Parade-Emily
• Somewhere Over the Rainbow-Polly and Nathan
• Lean On Me-Niqui and Matt

John giving Cindy the checks for the VPA donation!

Now for more BIG news!  John Barrow presented the VPA with a donation of  about $2200 which was the result of an auction held by employees from McAfee.  The winner of the auction determined which charity the money was to be donated to.  John won the auction with his winning bid of $650, and he decided to donate the sum to the VPA for use in the schools.  He says that McAfee will match the donations of employees, so it's likely when all is said and done that the final donation will be around $5000.  We are THRILLED to have the donation which will help a great deal with the scholarships and grants we award this spring.  THANK YOU JOHN!  John also announced that he has taken a new job with the LDS church overseeing the translation of their written curriculum into foreign languages and integrating it online.  This is such a wonderful opportunity for him, but will require a move to Salt Lake City Utah.  We will miss the Barrow family tremendously.  It was kind of a bitter sweet moment for us with all that news!  WOW.

March 3 Rehearsal

Children's Chorus

It was so great to see the kids, and sing again after our week off.  The thing that tickled me during the warm up section was they wanted to sing a song with "Chinese" music.  True, a lot of Asian music is full of parallel 4ths and 5ths which is how we sang last week.  I had them guess what song I was leading them through with solfege hand signals.  They guessed correctly, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.  Then they sang as two groups in solfege again, but with the home note DO, 3 notes apart.  That made for interesting harmony, and the awesome thing is they stuck to their part, and were not pulled away by hearing the other group!  This is so essential for building harmonizing skills!  Another aspect of our warm up that I haven't mentioned yet is the rhythmic reading & skill building exercises.  I learned the concept of 'Patschen" in college, and devised my own exercises a few years ago, which I use with overhead projections.  The kids read the rhythms, AND multiple lines of music at once, teaching them to stretch their field of vision which is very necessary in piano or choral music.  There are 3 lines they follow simultaneously, clapping, knee slapping, and foot stomping.  They keep a steady beat, read accurate rhythm, and use multiple body parts thus engaging both sides of the brain in the activity, AND it's fun. That's the best part, they are gaining music skills, and to them it's a fun 2 minute game!  Here's an example for your viewing pleasure.  Take a minute, and try it out, you might have some fun too!

Footnotes

    We spent the entire hour preparing for our Saturday performance.  I was concerned that things would be pretty rough since we missed rehearsal last week.  I don't think a huge amount of practicing at home happened, but enough happened so that we could progress in rehearsal.   The girls focused well, and even though we spent time a lot more time on the details than we normally would in one practice, the time seem to fly by.  I feel like the performance will be fine on Saturday and will be a good push off for this season.  We will do more for the concert on that piece, but it will be fine. 

     It's hard to sing early in the morning for some people. So here are the tips I gave the girls:  

1. Be well hydrated Saturday morning--drink a glass of water right when they get up, then drink another after they shower and get ready, then eat breakfast and don't forget to go the bathroom!!!  
2. I recommended that they don't drink milk or orange juice for breakfast, instead apple juice or water is a good choice.  I also said to be sure and eat, and not skip breakfast. 
3. Lipstick and lip gloss can be throat drying, so vaseline is the best bet for dry lips.  
4. A good nights rest is a plus too.  
5. My last recommendation is to sing in the car with the CD on the way over, this will help them warm up the voice, and it will wake up their brains, and help them remember the song.  Please don't forget that detail.  

   Thanks for your support.  We are planning on all but 3 of the girls to be there.  Parents can come and watch if they want.  Afterward we are meeting at Shari's in Sherwood for a little socializing.  I'll post a picture of the performance later!  I'm looking forward to it!

Chorale

Thanks to everyone who came out for the solo/duet auditions.  You all did a wonderful job.  I can think of many possibilities to fill the solo roles, so we'll see what happens later.  I will wait until after next week's round of auditions to make the decisions.  

I was pleased at how much of Dream a Little Dream you had memorized.  Were you surprised?  We will keep working toward that end, and begin adding choreography at some point soon on that one.  For 'Lean on Me', I think the new voicings would be a lot less tiring on your voices, but I'm willing to leave it the way it was for the sake of simplicity as per your requests.  We'll see if we stay happy with that!  

Remember auditions are at 7:15 next week, and rehearsals start at 7:45.  Keep practicing!

 

No Choir Feb. 24!

SNOW DAY!!!!

9:00 AM Thursday

I hope choir members will take the rehearsal time to practice the music with the recordings.  Here are some suggestions for using the recordings.

Children's Choir--Go through each song at least 3 times with just your part only.

• Ordinary Miracle--Listen carefully to page 5,6,7 three times without singing it.  Just watch how the notes move up and down, and follow with your finger in the air as you listen to it.  Then play the recording and sing along with your part only. 
• You've Got a Friend--Listen to page 5 & 6 only several times, then sing it a couple of times.  One way you can do this by singing everything until you get to page 5 & 6, then listen to those pages, and then sing page 7 to the end.  Do the actions if you remember them.
• Dream Keeper--Review and do the actions if you remember them

Footnotes-Go through each song at least 3 times with just your part only.

• When You Believe--work especially on the Hebrew section by listening 3 times before you sing it.  Remember "i" sounds like "e" as in "me".  "ch" is a throaty "k" sound.  All the "a"s are "ah".  Sing it 3 times with the recording.  If you don't feel like you are getting it,  just listen and think it with the recording without singing out loud.  When you think you understand it try singing again.
•  Go the Distance--we need to perform this March 5, so you need to start memorizing.  This can only happen if you work on it!  Go through it multiple times!
• Swingin'--focus on page 7 to the end, that's tracks 6,7,8 for Part 1 and tracks 17,18,19 for Part 2.  Don't do the beginning yet, I have some things I want to do in rehearsal for that.  Only sing your part, don't listen to the other part yet!!!

Have a happy snow day!!!! Sing, sing, sing this week!  I'll look forward to seeing you next week!

Chorale
No rehearsal tonight!  Stay warm and cozy!  You might want to review by listening to last week's rehearsal online at  http://jerryjan.com/sherwoodchorale/mainpage

February 17 Rehearsal

Children's Chorus
I think I'll share a few interesting things from the warm up.  Every week we sing vocal exercises to help the kids hear patterns, and singing vowels properly.  They match 4 random pitches, and also follow me leading solfege hand signals. I'm focusing on singing step-wise through the scale, and singing from so to mi--which is a skip of one note (fa).  To help foster independent singing, and harmony this week, we sang a round from last term-- "I Put Music in My Life Today", and then "Mary Had a Little Lamb" in 2 groups starting on different tonalities.  Basically I had each group sing the song in a different key signature--Their starting notes were 4 notes apart, so it sounded pretty strange, and they thought it was GREAT! 
    
We reviewed all those hand gestures from last week, and learned a few phrases of harmony.  In Ordinary Miracle, I showed them a "map" of the melody of a certain phrase--it looked like a 'dot to dot' drawing with the lyric below.  For the new harmony, I drew a different colored 'dot to dot' map that showed that the harmony was almost parallel to the melody, it just started a bit higher (a 3rd to be exact).  They caught on to that immediately, and sang it very well.  I'm sure practicing with the recording helped too, but it was good to see the correlation visually.

Footnotes
We're tackling the music chunk by chunk.  We've made it all the way through "Go the Distance" and we will  be working it really hard for the next couple of weeks so that we can sing it on MARCH 5 at the "Muscle Walk" for Muscular Dystrophy at Washington Square.  We will be wearing the polo shirts and jeans, and will need to be at the Mall at 7:40 AM--yikes!  More info will be coming on that from the parent council who is coordinating this opportunity.  I think it's a perfect song for the venue!  
     We are continuing to explore the Hershey Bar rhythm chart, as I try to help them understand some rhythms they are encountering in their music.  They are all very good at learning by rote, but I want them to become musicians and understand music notation.  So, though it's a long hard road, it's worth going down, step by step.  Please remind them to practice at home, or we will never get this music performance ready in time!!!  Here's this weeks assignment:

• Part 1 Tracks, 1,2 7, plus the tracks from last week 4, 6
• Part 2 Tracks 12. 14, 18 plus the tracks from last week 13, 17

One of the sections has HEBREW lyrics.  We read through it and I taught them the pronunciation, but we didn't go through the notes.  I recommend practice on this at least 3 days before rehearsal next week.  They are going to feel so pumped when they have this learned.  Please ask them about it!

Footnotes on Feb. 17

"When You Believe"

Sherwood Chorale

It was the first "logit." rehearsal working through all the concert music, and nothing else.  Check out the rehearsal recording if you missed it.  http://jerryjan.com/sherwoodchorale/mainpage  It was a blast, and we had great attendance-though we missed a couple of you!  I especially enjoyed the warm up.  Let me explain the thought behind it:

The first exercise was all on one pitch till the fall (slide down an octave or more)--

• mmm  (place the tone high in the head) mmmah (open and let the tone flow forward freely) yah yah yah (keep the tone high, feel aware of the height) \ the fall at the end where you sing through every pitch trains you to keep the breath supporting the tone, the vowel pure, and the voice registration staying smooth as you go from high register to low register.  
• The other exercises, as you discovered, were patterns that were taken from the music that I felt were problematic.  By focusing on them in an exercise format, you were able to focus on singing them in tune by understanding the intervalic relationship between the notes.  (You know intervals--the distance between 2 notes-steps, skips, jumps, or numeric relationships like 3rds, 4ths, 5ths, etc.) 
• So yes--come in time for the warm ups, there's always a purpose in them.

Milling around after choir

Good rehearsal!

2nd Rehearsal February 10

We passed out rehearsal CD's.  The singers have been asked to practice at least 3 different times during the week.  This is crucial for our success--especially for Footnotes.  One practice slip turned in can be redeemed for a mini-candy bar.  Please encourage your child to practice.  This week practice:

• Part 1 tracks 1,4,6
• Part 2 tracks 12, 13, 17
  

Children's Chorus--Fun rehearsal.  Robyn Folsom is going to sit in on rehearsals and help me teach harmony to the kids.  I'm glad to have the assistance, as we are learning a lot more harmony this season.  One way that kids can learn a melody or harmony is to add some physical gestures that match high and low pitch.  For "You Got a Friend in Me" there are many phrases that are the same words with similar melodies, but the last 2 or 3 notes are different each time. So I had the kids use patterns of gestures to help them remember the differences.  We will continue to refine them over the weeks to come, and then eventually take the gestures out and work on other elements of the music. 

We also used the same techniques with the "Dream Seeker Song".  So if you see your kids doing some funny movements that don't really look like good choreography moves, it's because it isn't choreography, it's melodic contour gestures!  In our vocal warm ups they are learning vocal technique, doing 'ear training' by matching random pitches, they clap rhythms, and are learning to hold their own part by singing dissonances and reading hand signals for solfege (do re mi fa sol...).  So there's a lot happening in our one hour rehearsal!  Good times are rollin'!

Footnotes--we had a very productive rehearsal.  There is a lot of music to learn, and a lot of home practice to do to to make it happen!  I hope your daughter has taken advantage of her rehearsal CD and is practicing the assigned tracks.  I dug around the Senior Center and found the overhead projector that we got donated from Intel a few years ago! Yae it was still there.  It's old stuff, but hey it still works!  I put up a rhythmic exercise which was a direct quote from Swingin' With the Saints.  We clapped it and counted to prepare for a tricky section of the song before we sang it.   We used the Hershey bar visual aid again, and now we need to move on to equating the concept with real musical symbols.  The girls are so capable, and so eager to sing and meet the challenge.  We have a HUGE challenge ahead, but I'm confident that they will rise to the level of the expectation.

Chorale--We had a lot of fun filming video clips as we lip synced  to the song we recorded last week.  This video is for the Sherwood Wins Video contest.  We are using it as a marketing video for the VPA.  I think the clips captured the good fun we have in choir pretty well.  I'm looking forward to seeing the finished product.  We had sectional rehearsals and joined together at the end to sing through everything once.  We are off to a great start!  Thanks to everyone for wearing their white Sherwood Chorale polo shirts.  You looked great!

Setting up for the video

First Rehearsal--We're Back!

I'm very excited to begin a new choir season.  As I narrowed the music down, I noticed a theme evolved of hopes and dreams.  I'm glad that there is somewhat of a thread going through the concert; now I'll just have to figure out how it all will work in the concert format! 

Rehearsals CD's-I have to thank Robyn Folsom for learning 4 of the 6 kids choir songs, and for helping me record them.  We were lucky to have John Barrow available and willing to engineer the recording on his snazzy equipment, and also for Cindy Souza  learning the accompaniments and doing a smack bang up job in  recording with us!  Robyn, John and Cindy are all part of the Sherwood Chorale-and they are a great resource to me!

Children's Chorus
Robyn Folsom came and performed the songs with me for the kids.  That was a lot of fun, and it was great to have our accompanist Jenny Arave back with us as well.  We started on the songs by working on sections of the music that were the same or similar.  They did a good job at listening and echoing back to me.  I was pleasantly surprised at how many kids wanted to learn harmony and sing part 2, and that they wanted to keep singing when I was ready to move on to the next song!  That's a good sign! Whew, they liked the music!

Footnotes
The music I chose for this group is much more challenging than last fall.  It has serious harmony, and it will require practice at home to achieve.  I'm grateful that Rachel will be helping me this term again, and I'm looking forward to mentoring her and giving her some opportunities to learn and teach. 

So, for one of the songs I was pondering how to teach the concept of subdividing the "beat" into 3 instead of the usual 2 or 4.  I thought of the divisions that are obvious in a Hersheys bar, so I made some magnetic visual aids to illustrate the point.  Well, silly me, after I made them I got around to checking out my white board, and it wasn't magnetic!  Drats.  So I went to 2 construction surplus stores here in Sherwood and they had no scrap metal, (I did discover that I could donate my remodeled bathroom's pedestal sink and toilet there though! HA), then I went to Home Depot to check out their metalic paint, but it was too expensive and too much work.  Then I had a whim to stop by Walt's Appliance, and rather timidly I asked if they had any old appliance metal they were recycling.  He came back a few minutes later with a dishwasher front!  I asked him how much he wanted for it and he said, " it's FREE, I was just going to recycle it".  I said "cool, I'll take it!" So, as I drove away, I chuckled at how ridiculous I would look taking that panel to choir with the Frididaire label on it, but I didn't have a better option.  When I got home, my husband and I had a good laugh, and then he disappeared into our shop, and I heard a lot of pounding going on.  When he emerged, the label was gone, and the sides were pounded flat, and it looked very respectable.  What a guy! 3 Cheers for Walt's, a handy husband and a little perseverance!

This shows a pattern of 4 beats

Subdividing the beat--equals 8th and 16th notes--but we will make that transition later.

Dividing into 3 subdivisions, or triplets.

We actually counted and "read" these and other rhythms created on the board.  

The girls clapped and counted the Hershey Bar notation. 

Sherwood Chorale

It was a great reunion to see everyone again, and to welcome a few new members too.  We listened to recordings of the music and sightread through the songs.  I wrote a little song that we recorded that evening for a video that we would record the next week.  It was a pretty fun project.  John Barrow took the recording mixed it, added some clapping and got it ready for us to use when we video taped.  More on that later!!!  It's great to be back at it, this is going to be a good season!