Thank you!

What a great end of term rehearsal! You all worked so hard but didn't you feel those goosebumps when it all came together? I don't know about you, but I always feel about 2 inches taller at the end of a rehearsal....

Looking forward to seeing you all after our Easter break- and anyone new reading this, we'd love to see you at rehearsals- all welcome from junior school age (with a responsible adult) to ......... and you don't need to read music, just want to have fun and learn lots, and share our love of singing together!

finale of Sing while you work

Did you watch Gareth Malone and the final episode of "sing while you work" last night? Ely Cathedral is one of my very favourite places to sing in- when I was at college, I sang in a scratch Mendelssohn "Elijah" one Christmas. I had a lousy cough (nothing new there) but I wasn't going to miss it for the world... The experience was amazing- the sound bounces around into all the nooks and crannies and up to the incredible vaulted ceiling..... As we left to go back to Cambridge, the Bishop of Ely was standing on the steps to wish us happy Christmas and to thank us.... I was coughing really badly and he asked if I wanted to turn my toes up.... as it's not a bad place if you're going to go! I said thank you but no thank you!

Anyway, back to last night- I was pleased that even the choristers were giving the choirs the kind of tips I keep talking about- dropping your jaw, letting tongue drop and relax, use teeth and tongue to get clear consonants, standing properly, no hands in pockets or folded across body....

And even though the music WAS cheesy, it was fab! I think we should aim to be able to perform pieces like that so keep singing, keeping practising, and see what a difference knowing your part and not needing to look down at music makes. (there's a hint there- try to learn your music off by heart and then you can sing from the heart!

Happy Christmas everyone- see you on 7th January!

End of term!

We had a fantastic last rehearsal of 2013 on Tuesday- lots of singing, including work on a new song, and everyone brought so much delicious food to share- wow those stuffed dates were amazing!

We're singing for the Dursley Lions tomorrow night to provide some Christmas cheer and say thank you for their very kind donation to help with funding our overheads and music and after that, as Grace says...

KEEP SINGING! till we meet again on 7th January 2014. How exciting is that?
New Year and loads of new songs to learn.....

strange week!

It seems very strange that this week there will be no choir as it's half term! But keep practising and learning those words and see you in two weeks!

It's October!

Yikes, where did the year go? Where, for that matter, did this last week go?

Maybe it's because we're so looking forward to another week of singing that time flies...

Don't forget to bring in your stuff for car booting and if anyone can help out on 12 October at Norman Hill, that would be even more wonderful!

After last week's scrumptious cakes, I'm already salivating at the thought of this week's!

xxx

tonight

what a wonderful time we had tonight! The singing was great fun, we got through a lot of work, the cakes were amazing and it was fantastic to welcome some more new members of the community choir. It's lovely to see new people fitting in and having fun and basically doing what this choir is about- singing, enjoying ourselves, feeling good and sharing in a brilliant experience of music. Thank you all for making it all SO worth while- I love my Tuesday nights!!!!

so what's choir like?

It's great fun! We sing lots of songs- at present everything from gospel to folk songs, songs from round the world, and of course at this time of year, we're starting to think about some Christmassy ones as well!

And then you get to eat the most divine cake... this week Marie made her (infamous) amazing millionaire's shortbread- we all think she should be on cake duty every week! But whatever cake we get to eat, it's always over a cup of tea and a good natter, before we go back to the job in hand- we're here to sing and feel good about singing!

So come along, don't worry if you think you can't sing, you'll soon learn as everyone has it in them, however deep down it lurks if you were told to mouth the words at infant school..... do teachers realise how much harm they do telling kids that?

See you all on Tuesday!