musical ramblings...
Oct. 14th, 2008 10:46 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
megotelekI'm putting most of this behind a cut so you don't have to be exposed to quite so much of my musical frustration rambling...
Suffice it to say, rehearsal last night was...interesting.
First, the seating chart was completely rearranged, so I'm back in the 3rd row now (yay!) between a 2nd soprano (I'm a 1st alto) and a 1st alto who has no idea what she's doing (boo!). Also, there seem to be sopranos behind me who can't turn their vibrato off. Seriously, stop warbling like Snow White back there! I wanted to clap my hands over my ears the entire time because I'm stuck between someone not singing my part and someone singing my part BADLY. When you're already doing a piece that has really close harmonies and dissonances and you're next to someone who is constantly a microstep sharp or flat, NOT GOOD.
Second, Don for some reason had us drilling the parts of Willcocks' Great and Glorious Victory that I actually don't have trouble with. But very, very slowly. Which we have no problem with. Because the problem comes in when we sing it a tempo. Complete with accelerandos. Then everything goes to hell in a handbasket because people. Cannot. Count. And no, crazy lady who sits next to me, randomly tapping your knee with no rhythm whatsoever does not count as COUNTING. And it is throwing me off. Stop it!
Oh, and LISTEN TO THE FREAKING DIRECTOR. If he says tenors and sopranos only, that means ONLY TENORS AND SOPRANOS. WHY AM I HEARING THE ALTO PART? WHY? If he says 'without language' or 'with language', DO IT. Seriously, the amount of time that gets wasted from people not knowing where we are, not knowing who's singing, not knowing what we're doing in general...we could have done some of the Haydn, is what I'm saying.
Don't get me wrong, the Willcocks piece is growing on me, but I LOVE the Haydn (we're doing the Lord Nelson Mass). I love composers who actually give some of the meat to the alto part instead of relegating us to the bass-like, fill-out-the-chord part. I think the Et resurrexit and the Dona nobis pacem are my favorite movements. So bouncy and fun. I did have a *facepalm* moment when we were singing the Credo movement and I realized what we were singing. "Oh, hey, it's the Nicene Creed!" Yeah. We got to "Deum de Deum, lumen de lumine, Deum vero de Deum vero" and I sort of did a double-take...oh, that's "God from God, light from light, true God from true God"!
It's funny - I've sung a lot of masses, but I've never sung the Creed in Latin before. I get used to just doing the Kyrie, Gloria, Gospel Acclamation, etc. Of course, the English "translation" in our edition is not the Creed in any way...it's some random religious prayer. Which is weird. I wonder what they'll have for the supertitles -- the actual translation, or the English in the book?
PLUS, we're singing the Haydn in Germanic Latin and the Willcocks in Roman Latin. JUST BECAUSE IT ISN'T CONFUSING ENOUGH.
Sigh. The trials and tribulations of a chorister.
Suffice it to say, rehearsal last night was...interesting.
First, the seating chart was completely rearranged, so I'm back in the 3rd row now (yay!) between a 2nd soprano (I'm a 1st alto) and a 1st alto who has no idea what she's doing (boo!). Also, there seem to be sopranos behind me who can't turn their vibrato off. Seriously, stop warbling like Snow White back there! I wanted to clap my hands over my ears the entire time because I'm stuck between someone not singing my part and someone singing my part BADLY. When you're already doing a piece that has really close harmonies and dissonances and you're next to someone who is constantly a microstep sharp or flat, NOT GOOD.
Second, Don for some reason had us drilling the parts of Willcocks' Great and Glorious Victory that I actually don't have trouble with. But very, very slowly. Which we have no problem with. Because the problem comes in when we sing it a tempo. Complete with accelerandos. Then everything goes to hell in a handbasket because people. Cannot. Count. And no, crazy lady who sits next to me, randomly tapping your knee with no rhythm whatsoever does not count as COUNTING. And it is throwing me off. Stop it!
Oh, and LISTEN TO THE FREAKING DIRECTOR. If he says tenors and sopranos only, that means ONLY TENORS AND SOPRANOS. WHY AM I HEARING THE ALTO PART? WHY? If he says 'without language' or 'with language', DO IT. Seriously, the amount of time that gets wasted from people not knowing where we are, not knowing who's singing, not knowing what we're doing in general...we could have done some of the Haydn, is what I'm saying.
Don't get me wrong, the Willcocks piece is growing on me, but I LOVE the Haydn (we're doing the Lord Nelson Mass). I love composers who actually give some of the meat to the alto part instead of relegating us to the bass-like, fill-out-the-chord part. I think the Et resurrexit and the Dona nobis pacem are my favorite movements. So bouncy and fun. I did have a *facepalm* moment when we were singing the Credo movement and I realized what we were singing. "Oh, hey, it's the Nicene Creed!" Yeah. We got to "Deum de Deum, lumen de lumine, Deum vero de Deum vero" and I sort of did a double-take...oh, that's "God from God, light from light, true God from true God"!
It's funny - I've sung a lot of masses, but I've never sung the Creed in Latin before. I get used to just doing the Kyrie, Gloria, Gospel Acclamation, etc. Of course, the English "translation" in our edition is not the Creed in any way...it's some random religious prayer. Which is weird. I wonder what they'll have for the supertitles -- the actual translation, or the English in the book?
PLUS, we're singing the Haydn in Germanic Latin and the Willcocks in Roman Latin. JUST BECAUSE IT ISN'T CONFUSING ENOUGH.
Sigh. The trials and tribulations of a chorister.
