Tuesday, October 14, 2014

Tonal Tuesday - Oh Happy Day Or Not

Yes, indeed it has been a happy day.  It is our Canadian Thanksgiving Monday.  I spent the last few days at a large country fair meeting and greeting lots of people.  Happy days.  I talked to our daughter in England and she celebrated Canadian Thanksgiving making a typical feast and inviting friends to her new flat. Happy day.  It didn't rain on our day.  Even happier day.

It is every bit as possible that the same or opposite could have happened to some or all of your choir.  Then they come to practice.  They may start out the practice like this song starts out after the warm up. 

So how does Whoopi Goldberg get them on the same musical page?  Better yet, how will we do the same at one of those draggy, rainy day type rehearsals?
  
Why don't you try:
1.  Singing a fun song - Row, Row, Row Your Boat and Frères Jacques together.  a tongue twister like Betty Botter Bought Some Butter or Peter Piper Picked a Peck of Pickled Peppers.  Don't know the tune then make it up.

2.  Use a different voice - Sing as if you were a dog.  Ruff, ruff, ruff ruff ruff.  Woof, woof, woof, woof woof. Yip, yip, yip yip yip yip yip.  Bark bark bark bark bark is Row, Row, Row in "dog".  You get the idea.  Sing as if you are a small child, very cold, very tired.  

3. Sing a song replacing all consonants with "s" or "d" etc. - You will create some really fun words.  Remember that singing is REALLY serious stuff except when you are doing the above. 

You get the idea.  When the choir in the video loses their courage, Whoopi reverts to warm up sounds.  Will that work?  You won't know until you try.  The main thing is that you mix things up and don't get into ruts.  When you do things differently, you hear and understand differently.  Above all HAVE FUN!!!!!

2 comments:

Holly M said...

Great tips for a dull day to start rehearsal off on a positive note :)
Ive featured you as one of our top 3 posts at our October Choral Linkup http://stairwellcarollers.blogspot.com/2014/10/sing-along-and-add-your-post-link-now.html
Keep singing!
Holly :)

Embro Thistle Singers said...

Thanks Holly. As always you are so supportive!! We will keep singing AND having FUN!!!!