22 September 2026
Dear Singers,
Attendance was a bit down this week, for reasons I understand, please look at what we did so you can get up to speed.
We focused on two important things fundamental to a successful and musical performance of this beautiful music:
LEGATO SINGING - smooth lines, 'glueing' the notes together without letting consonants interrupt the flow. We used a warm-up to establish the goal, then applied it to two luscious melodies in the Requiem: 'Selig sind' in no. 7, and the ending of no.2 (Wie lieblich)
BREATHE AT THE COMMAS - If there is no comma, don't take a breath! This will help musical phrasing. Occasionally, in a long phrase we will need to insert extra breaths, which we'll mark in at rehearsal. This makes for good ensemble and musical singing. 'Cheat breathing' (ie when no-one's looking!) is often necessary, but it mustn't spoil the legato lines.
Think of a choir/chorus you admire and are impressed by - their success will be due to getting everything right, and TOGETHER, irrespective of size.
ARE YOU SITTING COMFORTABLY?
I heard some positive feedback about the rehearsal seating arrangements this week. The church seating (chairs angled towards the centre) is permanent, and members have commented on how much easier it is to hear other singers, and also see/hear me (most of the time!). We have experimented with seating psitions quite a lot over three years to enable you to hear each other and avoid T & B always being 'at the back'. We have also changed places within sections to mix things up for everyone, and to get out of our comfort zones (this does have incredible impact on the sound and ensemble!). We have never been brave enough to 'scramble' the whole choir so no one is next to their own voice part! This requires complete confidence.
Personally I can't bear getting into a rut with habits and familiarity which lead to things getting stale. As Henry Ford said: "If you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always got" Oft times this can be a good thing of course; chorally I find it can be limiting, which makes it essential to step out of comfort zones occasionally and to 'sharpen the saw' (Stephen Covey - from 'The 7 habits of highly effective people').
We ate a lot of cake this week, and had a 'super raffle' - thank you everyone for organising, serving, making, bringing, consuming, buying and sharing. It's nice social time and raises valuable funds for the choir.
CHORAL WORKSHOP - NOVEMBER 7 - 1.00 TO 5.30 @ St David's Church, Queens Terrace, EX4 4HR
Every term we run a workshop singing the music pre-concert, which is generally pretty well known by then. It's an opportunity to spend more time, with non-members too, singing it for pleasure, tweaking as we go rather than rehearsing in depth.
A new feature this term is introducing some good quality intensive vocal coaching and support from a professional singer, to help our technique and contribute to our repertoire of good practice.
Our coach will be soprano Ghislaine Morgan, a long-standing friend of mine who now specialises in teaching, coaching and enabling singers to get the best from their voices. You will receive help with breath management, reaching high notes confidently, producing a good tone, and that all-important legato singing! There will be resources to take away too. Do come, and bring a singing friend.
WHAT WE DID ON 22.09.26
Talked about breathing at commas only
Focused on legato singing, singing lines to 'ah' then adding the words, being aware not to let the consonants break up the line
Movt 7 (p84) - Everyone sang the opening melody together (in a lower key!) to explore what's required to do it well and musically. Note learning from bars to 18 to 85 and a brief look at bars 111 to 125.
Movt 2 from p 20 to recap on sectional work from last week. Moderately successful, but a good effort. We'll visit again.
Movt 4 This is a good section to help with confidence as it's not exposed in any parts and everyone moves together, mostly. We ended as we started by singing the last section (p52) as legato as possible, and ending perfectly together. We finally achieved this by 9.17!
WHAT WE WILL DO ON 29.09.26
Full rehearsal with a short break before the AGM at 8.45. Our AGMs are short and business-like as our brilliant committee is very efficient - do not miss it!
We only have a short rehearsal (7.15 to 8.30, then a short break before AGM) and will concentrate on Movement 1. If time we will sing through movement 2 up to page 20. The following week will get back into sectionals for some deep diving into notes!
Thank you everyone, some promising sounds beginning to emerge.
Peter