Il est né le divin enfant

Hey everyone, so during the (not compulsory & informal but strongly recommended) practice today we went through the notes and words of Il est né le divin enfant (pg 15 - 17 in the Christmas carol scores book). It's pretty hard to write down the exact pronunciation of the words, but here's the best I could do. In general the 's's and 't's at the end of words are silent, and if you see an 'r' you can choose to do that 'rolled h' sound that native speakers like to do.
Please note that whenever you see 'zh' it represents how the 's' in the word 'leisure' is pronounced. Don't pronounce it the han yu pinyin way! :D
Oh and I'm reaally sorry but I think I told you guys the wrong pronunciation of 'Régnez' during practice. It should be 'ruh-nee-ay', not 'rayg-nay'. I confused that verb with another really similar one :O

Il est né (Eel eh nay) le di-vin en-fant, (luh dee-veen ong-fong)
Jou-ez haut-bois, (Zhoo-ayz oh-buah) rés-on-nez mu-set-tes. (reh-zoh-nay miu-zett)
Il est né le di-vin en-fant, (Eel eh nay luh dee-veen ong-fong)
Chan-tons tous (Shong-tong too) son a-vè-ne-ment. (song ah-veh-nuh-mong)

De-puis plus de (Duh-pwee ploo duh) qua-tre mille ans (kah-truh *roll the r* meel ong)
Nous le pro-met-taient (Noo luh pro-may-tay) les pro-phè-tes, (lay praw-fett)
De-puis plus de qua-tre mille ans (Duh-pwee ploo duh kah-truh meel ong)
Nous at-ten-dions (Noo-za-tong-dee-ong) cet heureux temps. (set uh-ruh tong)

Ah! Qu´il est beau, (Ah! Keel ay bow) qu´il est char-mant! (Keel eh shar-mong)
Ah! que ses grâ-ces (Ah! Kuh say grass) sont par-fai-tes! (song par-fayt)
Ah! Qu´il est beau, qu´il est char-mant! (Ah! Keel eh bow, keel eh shar-mong)
Qu´il est doux ce di-vin en-fant! (Keel eh doo suh dee-veen ong-fong)

Une é-ta-ble (Yoon *don't emphasise the y sound* eh-tah-bluh) est son lo-ge-ment, (eh song loh-zhe-mong)
Un peu de paille (Ung puh duh pie) est sa cou-chet-te, (eh sah koo-shet)
Une é-table est son lo-ge-ment, (Yoon eh-tah-bluh eh song loh-zhe-mong)
Pour un Dieu (Poor ung Dee-uh) quel a-bais-se-ment. (kell ah-bay-suh-mong)

O Jés-us (Oh Zhay-zoo), roi tout puis-sant, (rooah too pwee-sang)
Si pe-tit en-fant que vous ê-tes, (See puh-teet ong-fong kuh voo-zett)
O Jé-sus, roi tout puis-sant, (Oh Zhay-zoo, rooah too pwee-sang)
Rég-nez sur (Ruh-nee-ay see-uh) nous en-tiè-re-ment. (noo-zong-tee-ay-ruh-mong)


-Quianna:)

Practice on 31/10/12 (1st part)

Hi everyone!:):)

So, for the 1st part of the practice, we did sectionals for an hour. We were assigned to quite a few songs!
1. First Nowell
2. Silent Night
3. Deck the Halls
4. Personent Hodie
5. In Dulci Jubilo
6. We Wish You a Merry Christmas
If there is was time (which there wasn't unfortunately)
1. Oremus
2. Ave Maris Stella

Sop 1s
-It was easier to get the notes right as Sop 1s are basically singing the melody. However, do take note of some notes that are not exactly the smae as the normal tune we sing for leisure!:)
-Megan CHong learnt Silent Night (German version) before! YEAH! :) So, sop 1s (and a sop 2) learnt a little
-Did quite a few songs, but very briefly as there was no time
-Did a bit of oremus, the sen-ti-ant part and put in the words!:)

Sop 2s
-Concentrated on 3 Christmas Carols
1. Deck the Halls
2. The 1st Nowell
3. Silent Night (No German Words though...
-The songs were quite long, and sop 2s usually do not sing the melody, but that's what a choir is right? Not everyone will get to sing the melody! But that does not mean we are less important!:) Every part of a choir is very important, no matter how small or big the part is! IT MAKES A WHOLE LOT OF DIFFERENCE! :):) So, we must work hard, follow the scores and go through them at home!:)
-We also went through We Wish You a Merry Christmas which was quite good! YEAH!:)

Altos (1 and 2)
-I'm sorry, we need an also ASL to fill this part in. The only thing I really know is that Alto 2s only managed to do 1 song

Whole Choir (Sec 1s and 2s-After sectionals)
-We went through familiar songs
1. We Wish You a Merry Christmas (which was not too bad!:))
2. Personent Hodie
3. Silent Night (in La La La)
4. Deck the Halls (Sops, take note of Page 33, system 2, 1st bar of that system)
5. The First Nowell
6. Briefed through Oremus sen-ti-ant part

Everyone, I think practice was quite lethargic before Ms J Tham came in. I know it isn't easy, but no matter what, we must persevere ok?
“Get going. Move forward. Aim High. Plan a takeoff. Don’t just sit on the runway and hope someone will come along and push the airplane. It simply won’t happen. Change your attitude and gain some altitude. Believe me, you’ll love it up here.”

- Donald Trump

I think this quote really applies to the choir at this point. We MUST aim high if we want to get at least a gold, and to aim high, you have got to take the initiative to get on board the plane to get higher right? So we must practise hard so that we can get on that plane ok? And I am sure when we do well for Cantabile and Prague, ALL OF US WILL LUV IT!:):):):):):) So let's put in some effort and get on board that plane together ok? Not the plane to Prague (for the non-touring girls), but the plane to reach higher grounds.

Do work hard this holiday, I don't mean WORK WORK WORK and no rest time, just set some time for choir practice, concentrate, then go fly like a free bird for the day! But don't forget to come home and practice again before going out to play!:):):)

HAVE A GOOD HOLIDAY EVERYONE! Lyn:):):):):):)

Practice on 31/10/12

HALLO PEOPLES OF CHOIR!

Good news: this is the last practice before the 2-week break

Bad news: THIS IS THE LAST PRACTICE BEFORE THE 2-WEEK BREAK! AAAHH!

Mmkay, down to business.

Don’t know what went down during the first half 'cause I wasn't there (read: A SEC1 OR SEC2 BETTER COME AND GET THE USERNAME AND PASSWORD FOR THIS BLOGGER ACCOUNT SOON AND WRITE ABOUT IT) 

But for the second half, for which I was there, we ran through ave maris Stella, and put in the words for it. We were supposed to have learnt that. Miss J Tham had to go through the whole piece, including notes.

Before that, we went through oremus, where we learnt how to sound chim (cheem?) while practicing the tricky notes. I have no idea how to explain it over blog post (perhaps a junior who can do so should get the password and username from me and do it) but it's pretty cool

For Regina celi, Miss Tham told us where the doh changes, because it's an evil piece that changes key very often. People, who were absent, go get it from you SLs or whoever.

After that, Ms Ng came along and gave us a whole list of announcements

1. Sec 1s and 2s who are not going overseas during the 2-week break, miss Tham (not sure which one) would like to meet up with you guys if possible, so keep your options open?
2. We may call for more practices after the 2 week break
3. Please tell lyn whether you've received the angel cards to sell (for all sec 3s, lyn already knows)
4. There will be pre-order forms for cantabile tickets, like last year. Sec 1s and 2s have to hand these in by 19th November, sec 3s by 21st
5. Prague people will have to stay back after practice on the 16th for admin stuff to be sorted out.
6. Prague comm will have to stay back even after that to discuss more stuff
7. For the sec 3s who are just returning from Rocs, as much as possible please try and attend the practice on the 16th November

39 HOURS TO CONCERT 

tell me if i've missed anything out, kay? kay.

ankita 

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