Practice on 24/10/12 (please read!)

So today the choir managed to complete the ENTIRE SONG (in solfage) INCLUDING DYNAMICS (to a tiny extent) for Ave Maria! WOOHOO! Good job guys! The only thing is… we can do better. We can be more focused during practice so that we can continue to have practices that are at least as productive or maybe even more!

We have exactly 7 full-day practices left to cantabile and therefore, Prague. Do you know how many hours of practice that is? 45.5 hours.

AAARGH!

And think about everything we need to do. Yagi, buwa, ting tan qin, lenggang, ave maris stella, oremus and 2 new scores whose names I’ve forgotten, and all the Christmas carols. We need to learn the notes, learn the rhythm, learn the dynamics and then we need to be in sync with each other, make sure we are in tune and then memorise everything and be good enough to go on stage without clutching our scores.

How are we gonna do all of the above, 8 times over, plus the Christmas carols, in 45.5 hours? If we really put in the effort and really strive to sing well and focus and not get distracted then we can definitely do even better than we have in the past.

another thing that was brought up during practice was that we have a 2-weekish break after wednesday. let's all be very good choristers, work like stakhanov and practice practice practice during this time. then when we come back from break we'll impress both miss thams!

and then, maybe we'll do so well that everyone'll be impressed with our performance that they'll say 'Gee, that choir's brilliant! i'm coming back next year'. and then we'll do really well for the Prague festival and touch all the little old ladies' and men's hearts and we'll be like

Our homework is that we need to put words to the notes for both Ave Maria and Oremus, so make sure that you practice. Miss J Tham told us all about the basic rules for singing in Latin yesterday so I’m sure it won’t be too taxing because we all remember the rules, right? Right!

Regina caeli is on the mixpod, along with the dude’s version of yagi bushi. I couldn’t find the female version for some reason. If you have the link for it, please send it to me.

As usual, if I’ve missed anything out, please tell me so that I can add it in.

Ankita

Practice on 24/10/12:

Good job everyone! Today was a great practice!

• Ave Maris Stella- Revise this and add in more dynamics.

Keep working hard, guys! :D

♥, Janine

practice on 23/10/12

HI GUYS!

So today was another great practice! (ish) anyhoo. we learnt the rest of In Dulci jubilo and practiced the pronunciation for that along with personent hodie. the rules are right here:

Latin Pronunciation rules:
j is almost always pronounced as y
anything that ends with an "ae" is pronounced as "eh"
all the 't's are non-aspirated unless it's like a 'th', in that case it'd be pronounced as t^h, very very softly
al is pronounced as ul
post is pronounced like in the word "posterior"
Coe is pronounced as che
when there are 2 vowels next to each other, you have to pronounce them one by one, like 'gaudia' is pronounced as "gaa-oo-dia". lol. this is very hard to explain.
where constonants are repeated, make sure to emphasise it
and roll your 'r's miss tham will get verrry (see what i did there?) angry if we don't. apparently saying koko krunch helps. i dunno. i'm one of those people who can do it effortlessly muahahahaha!

we also got started on ave maris Stella and discovered that we all had an unnamed score, which is in fact called Regina celi. I didn't know that.

make sure to practice ave maris stella so that tomorrow we can get past the notes and all the stumbling and really just focus on being in tune, being together ad listening to parts other than our own. we're also doing oremus next week so revise that and make sure you bring it to practice.

another thing. please please please, if you don't have scores for oremus or any of the scores, fb message just text or me whatever or me. I consider myself pretty accessible so there's no excuse to not tell me about not having scores.

 I don't understand why all of you didn't just tell me that you didn't have the scores before practice or even yesterday or even at the last practice. but I do know that miss j tham had to waste a lot of time while I gave out scores and that it needs to stop. mmkay? okay. I’ve put up ave maris Stella and Regina celi on fb, so there's no excuse for not revising.

ave maris Stella is on the mix pod and I’ll try and put Regina celi and the other song (what was it called?) up soon.

 I think that's all but if I’ve missed anything out, tell me. 

ankita

Christmas Songs

Carol of the Bells

• English (fast) - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Ni8Gw4Plbg

• English (slow but clearer) - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1yZah5l6S0

• Non-English - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2BN3slJWvs

We Wish You a Merry Christmas

• Please add if you find any!

Personent Hodie

• Please add if you find any!

In Dulci Jubilo

• Please add if you find any!

Sorry, I can't find them all right now, but do add some links if you find any!

♥, Janine

Hi guys!

Today we practised Oremus, Ting Tan Qin and Buwa Buwa. We also learnt a few Christmas songs, like 'We wish you a merry christmas', 'Personent Hodie' , 'In Dulci Jubilo' and 'Carol of the bells'. Make sure you're singing the right notes, because a lot of you have probably already heard these songs many times and could sing those notes by default. I will try to add the recordings of these songs onto the mix pod so that we can all (sort of) practise them at home but no promises.

After practice, Ms Ng came and talked to us about:

• our cca points, CIP hours and everything, which have all been tabulated for the year
• our attendance and how if we don't hit 85% or higher, we may not get into SYF
• how MR TAY IS COMING BACK! (does a happy jig) BUT he will be re-auditioning everyone, so practise practise practise all your songs
• our cards and all are ready, they just need to be re-packaged and sent out
• the tickets for cantabile might be ready soon too, but only if we promise that we'll all work hard and push to sell all our tickets

I'm not sure if I've missed anything out, but if i did, feel free to edit this post and add it in, or tell me so that i can add it in. just put it in the chat box over there -->

Sidebar: if anyone's interested in writing posts for the blog, e-mail me about it and I'll give you the username and password for this account.

that's all for now!

-Ankita

Hello!

Now that exams are over, we really need to step up our game!

Please go through and prepare Oremus, Ting Tan Qin and Buwa Buwa especially.

Please tell your parents to come get you from choir thirty minutes after dismissal time, as choir might end late.

The new timetable is on the Facebook page! If you don't have Facebook and don't have a copy, email your SL or ASL! Please don't miss any practices, as every single one is vital right now!

Good luck to the Sec 4s and the HMT girls!

♥, Janine

BEST OF LUCK FOR ALL OF YOUR EXAMS!
♥, Janine

Hello!!! =D

I havn't been here for SOOO long! I think its been like, 2 months, and so much has changed! Haha, I couldn't find the tagboard (which I used do my best to flood hehe), so since I still remember the password, I decided to leave a post =X hope you guys don't mind =P

This is Eli here btw! Ellissa, in long lol. Choir alumni from the batch of 2010 (so no, I'm not THAT old), same as Lee Khim (a few posts below =) Hi LK!). Miss you guys so much =(( and I really wish I could come back and visit, but I'm supposed to be glued to my desk prepping for the A's =/ And you O Level people should be too okay!! I shall come back and visit after the A's. I will annoy you with my presence until you can't get enough of me yeah =))) And I shall bring back a clan of other alumnus to 'bother' you too ^^

What LK said was BERRY BERRY true! Come to AC guys! Anddd, join the choir too! It's really a blessing to be part of a choir, so do treasure your days in the MGchoir, cause you're gonna miss it once you leave (YES, you are, I, alongside many others, speak from experience ok). And do your best in school and in your music, because the learning will be an essential part of the memories you take away from your Sec School days!

Okay, I think I've said enough for now haha. I need to get back to my books. Looking forward to seeing yall again =)

Lotsa Love,
Eli Sayampanathan