Choral∫∫est

i've finally roused myself to post bout it xD well..to be more systematic and not just ramble continuously i'll just classify everything according to descriptions and songs.

Description #1: A great learning experience!

Early music
Ms Lisa sure has a great historical knowledge. xD for early music we did Pastyme With Good Company (original old english spelling) it's interesting how old english is spelled and pronounced with deny as denye and stuff like that. o.O Ms Lisa rewrote the score all by herself. All our tutors are composers and extremely well-learned i would say. She was explaining to us bout King Henry VIII, the fat guy with more than 5 wives.

When we started of, we sounded like "angels in heaven" according to her xD she said we shouldn't. Supposed to sound more rough to emulate King Henry LOL she was tellin us how he beheaded every single wife of his after he got tired of her (except 1 i think..that one died of sickness i think[kelly knows a lot bout this]) Interesting to know the original composer of that piece was a guy who was into wine and women SWT

She told the sopranos (the ones sounding like angels) to imagine their King henry VIII, a fat lecherous guy o.O SWT well..guess he wasn't originally that fat..had to have a good pair of lungs to sing and dance xD and play the crumhorn. THE CRUMHORN IS FUNNY. Sounds like a duck xD i nearly got caught into making the sound of the crumhorn...but i can't make it..needs to sound nasal and i can't do nasal sounds o.O

The audience kinda tittered when the crumhorn people tried out the mike..xD anyway..shall always remember what ms Lisa said..early music isn't music played early in the morning!! xD

Jazz
Mr Ian is totally nice o.O and he taught us a lot bout singing in general. How you're supposed to create support at the stomach area and not your chest when singing, not to push notes from the neck, lifting the soft palate for high notes etc etc... He's a bit like Mr Martin xD and his singing voice is really good! He's actually quite sporting..when supposed to sing "I'm a girl..... (kelly mentioned this)" he changed to boy during practice but totally sang the girl thing during the real day (drowned by all our cheers but still)

The great thing bout all our tutors. they really inspire us!! Well..like what kelly said...she originally don't like jazz but now can tolerate it better (i got nothing against jazz but now love it!). Well, when he told us bout jazz he said it's all bout improvisation..they use A LOT of synchopation (however you spell it), it's hard to sing if don't count (not as hard as Scherzo but still xD)

AGAIN Mr Ian wrote our score by himself (if i'm not mistaken) o.O all our tutors sangat geng *21 gun salute* apparently the song Lullaby of Birdland is meant for soloists, but he wrote it for choir..and it actually sounds pretty good! It's very complex and quite difficult to sing xD apparently it's one of his personal favourties (which we ruined on performance day..sounded real bad T.T)

Contemporary music
To be honest, when I started off the piece (i say I cause no one went to the pre-choral∫∫est practice but me), i found it rather unique and cute! Ms Khoo went over it during the pre-practice. Apparently it's from one of the German books she bought when she went to Germany awhile back. I would say it's the most contemporary one amongst all the scores every group sang, since it's so unique xD

Dr Chan is the one that ultimately chose our score for us. Ms Khoo apparently submitted a few scores for him to choose from and he chose Scherzo! Said it was interesting..which it is xD HE'S A GREAT PIANISTTTTT. Anyway...xD he was explaininjg a lot to us bout how to pronounce all the weird words. At one point of the song, the sopranos are supposed to sound aggressive, the altos needy and wistful-sh, tenors (they couldn't find the translation for the German word bout their part) and basses irony (meaning something like torn between 2 decisions)

None of us actually embodied our supposed-to-have expressions at that part except the sopranos! It was funny how he got them to sound aggressive xD He took a girl's phone, and asked her to grab it back. She was kinda taken aback at first obviously, then grabbed at it. Then he told the sopranos to yell their part while trying to grab the phone. Supposed to move forward a bit like trying to attack him. AND IT'S FUNNY WHEN HE SAID YOU DIDN'T SHIT ME ENOUGH!!! aLL OF US WERE LAUGHING LIKE CRAP..and jing yin said, the sopranos get a chance to swear at the audience xD

I like the beginning of our piece! Sounds like racing cars starting and warming up their engines. And it's really hilarious! Love our contemp piece xD and Dr Chan is funny! He did the bass part of m o n e m a n e m i n e with a real funny face!! (i'm going off track here..supposed to be bout how it's a great learning experience but whatever) The thing bout our piece, must REALLY COUNT. But Dr Chan kinda saved it by indication each bar. The unique thing bout this is that each bar lasts for a few seconds, like 2, 3, or 4...it's indicated in the score and there's no specific time, the conductor is the one that actually decides how long each second lasts xD

Show Choir
Show choir is so nice!! Wish they'd have it in malaysia u_u apparently it's a normal thing to have show choir competitions among HIGH SCHOOLERS in the western countries. These show choir-ists are then taken into Broadway and theatres when they grow up! It's practically a culture there o.O

The interesting thing bout Show Choir...the emphasis is placed in both singing and movements (not exactly dancing actually at some parts). Now we know how hard it is to both sing and dance. xD AND take care of expression at the same time. 3 hours wasn't actually enough for everything but Ms Leong did miracles, i would say. Everything was so last minute but she totally changed stuff and IT WORKED!! it really worked! Kudos, Ms Leong!

LOL IF I'M NOT MISTAKEN HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL THE SONGS ARE ACTUALLY SHOW CHOIR O.O it's more of the New York New York kind though. And all the pieces are so different yet so cool! OUR'S ROCK!! (guess ours had room for lots of mistakes though since we use all of the stage unlike the other 3 groups which stuck mostly to the bottom stage and not the risers)

and totally forgot the sneer! Well...i'll explain more of our piece Putting On The Ritz. It's about the rich and famour people of the 1970's. It starts of with saying if you're blue you should go to where fashion sits, putting on the ritz. Putting on the ritz actually means putting on fancy clothes, and isn't referring to The Ritz as in the building. Then it goes on to describe these rich people in their day coats, pants with stripes and cutaway coats (these are coats which are like vests). The clothes are perfect fits cause their all tailor-made (hence why we gotta dress fashonably for Show Choir)

Next it talks bout dressing up looking like your clothes are worth millions. And mentions Gary Cooper (the apparent Brad Pitt of the 1970's), even though kelly says he's a short dude. Next, talks bout Rockefellers (rich people, comes from the name of Rockefeller Centre) who walk with sticks and umbrellas in their mitts (slang for hands). HENCE THE UMBRELLAS WE'RE HOLDING TO DANCE WITH xD

Then it goes on bout these rich people walking down Park Avenue (the English version of Jesselton) with their noses in the air. etc etc...that;s about it for our piece xD For the steps itself, it's cool. We start of facing the front and not the audience, people without brollys fold their arms and pose LOL then we turn around. We're supposed to look like mannequins (Ms Leong told us to wear shades and white lip gloss so we don't look human, no one actually put lip gloss except our leader coordinator xD he's too sporting) we then sing WITH NO EXPRESSION WHATSOEVER on our faces (easy since we're wearing shades)

The part where the song goes (where fashion sits), people holding brollys actually sit on air xD looks cool! then the following verse just do whatever the song says.

then we start walking supposedly fashionably (didn't do it that well though u_u) with a sneer on our face since we're 'rich and famous' xDDDD LOL etc etc..it's so fun! go up and down the risers open umbrellas at the last part (they offed the lights at this part -.-)

Description #2: FUN!

Early music
Well...to be honest bout early music..it ain't as fun as the other pieces u_u it's pretty easy to sing..4 verses which use the SAME NOTES SAME EVERYTHING except words. Not much dynamics even, just soft at the second verse and pick up volume again halfway of the verse. AND SOMEHOW it still got botched in terms of timing even though it's pretty easy.

Din have much fun the second day u_u was already having a headache at the end of it (so happened the last lesson was early music) AND was already losing my voice (lost my voice during performance day, couldn't even hit a normal G without sounding like a toad xD)...SWT (off track here, supposed to talk bout how fun it is) Well, Ms Lisa has a definite sense of humour tellin us the crumhorns sound like ducks (Mr Chong xD)

She was pretty serious bout the whole thing actually o.O owell.. i DO remember the first time i sang pastyme with good company during pre practice. That time our soon-to-be leader went through it with us. Everyone was pretty quiet and withdrawn (no kelly to brighten things up and less people during pre practice anyway), so no one actually responded to him. He started to talk to us in hokkien in hopes we'll actually respond (didn't work). Anyway, the funny thing was when he told us break, a few girls ran out at full speed. he was like o.O if wanna go toilet just say la. LOL (can't exactly describe his face but it was funny)

The funny thing is, our group is in general pretty low profile o.O even with kelly and some crazy people. this uncle (he's one of the basses who's the drum during the performance) actually went and escaped during the finale xD he curi-curi go sit among the audience, kelly, kim mei and I caught him in the act LOL (side note: i kinda insulted chibi-kun by being very surprised to know he's our age...not surprising actually, he looks pretty mature. And i think only kelly knows who chibi-kun is [her counterpart] xD) and to think our group has FOUR Jonathans. it's like most if not all got stuffed in our group o.O [off track again, whatever]

Jazz
ah darn this, everything ain't as fun as contemp and show choir. (skipppp [SORRY MR IAN])

Contemporary music
Contemppppp!! It's fun cause our piece is so FUNNY!!! Time to describe our piece xD the first note, sopranos and basses go PA! (the highest note they can reach which is real high[shock the audience why don't you xD]) while us altos and basses go kuuuuuuuu (lowest we can reach), then this ku goes up down and up again (in terms of pitch) [creates the racing car effect] WEIRD HUH xD then we go kuuu-----mmmmmm and just stop. (i don't have the score now so shall just recall)

THEN one part (no idea whether it's S, A, T or B) goes ta pi ku!! HAHAHAHAHA (means whack butt in mandarin) except they don't SAY the words but pronounce the consonants only, sounds like spitting it out. and altos got one part where we go vvvvvv (sounds like bees buzzing..kinda annoying actually xD) I pity the front audience, our spit is practically coming out HAHAHAHAHA!!

the we go ffffffff (like on the verge saying toot but just ffffff) hard to explain la xD *spit goes flying* shall skip this part and go to monemanemine. For this part, basses go m o n e m a n e m i n e, tennors go m o n e m a n e m i n e, altos go monemanemine, sopranos go monemanemine, like getting closer together. Each part builds up in pitch till the highest note they can reach at which they scream WAK! Basses first go m o n e m a n e m i n e (continuous) WAK! then tenors go WAK! then altos WAK! and sopranos! SOUNDS WEIRD! AND FUNNY!! [and this IS music, REAL music, composed by a German dude, and the great thing is, ANYONE can do it xD you can totally go off pitch and it DOESN'T MATTER cause there's no fixed pitch! Ah the beauty of our piece xD even me who lost my voice can sing it]

the part after that have to follow pitch though, there are notes(the SAME NOTES OF THE SAME PITCH, mind!). xD BUT THE FUNNY THING IS, when singing, (imagine this scene: our mouths are open, we put an open palm over our mouths, move it away, move it closer, move it away[like doing a Red Indian warcry with a certain timing which is indicated in the score]) xD AND our conductor does it too with us.

after that, i shall not explain (don't have the symbols used and lazy explain pronunciation of each symbol) AFTER THAT, this is totally funny. it's the part where sopranos go aggressive, altos go wistful-ish etc etc.. (this has mentioned above..READ) tenors go bo-bo-be (real fast). xD oh gosh, hard to explain u_u i'll just cover the sopranos since aggresiveness is funny xD they're supposed to sound like having a literal hissy fit. They go sssssssss-TSH!! (aggresively) and us altos do a pretty decent cowboy shout ( we go AH!! EE AH!! EE AH!!) xD yea! *waves a loop of rope above my head* BEFORE THAT, there's this part where altos go oo la la! xD HAHAHAHA!

The finale of this piece, we go YU(dive down low)-uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu-(building up in pitch)aAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!! AH!! (highest note) HAHAHAHAHAHA!! SO FUNNY! then when the audience is all shocked we say MIEN (dive low) VIST (highest note again)! and walk out of the stage HAHAHAHAHAHA (it's so weird but can't help loving it)

Maybe i should explain a bit bout WHY our piece is so weird. Contemporary music refers to modern, latest music, in this case 21st century music. apparently composers of this time got bored of the normal conventional way of writing music, with fixed keys, tonality, expression etc etc.. They tried to do away with what was considered the NORM of usual music writing (hence no real pitch in our piece). they also tried to get rid of conventional timing, and changing the sounds used in singing. Like for example, people usually sing out words. but our piece has just...sounds xD and usually, people who write this music has a purpose in mind.

For example, the other pieces. The Skin is by this dude who received a traditional African drum (he lived among Africans or something like that and they gave him a drum [a great honour apparently cause they consider their drums sacred]. So he wrote the piece entitled The Skin to describe how this drum was made. (note: the first line of The Skin goes "First the goat must be killed and the skin stretched" xD [very sure Brillante people were weirded out when they saw the words, it's all very gory after that, poor goat]) Sabrena's piece on the other hand (The Hat Don't Talk), is about this famous jazz singer called Dizzy (i ain't kidding). He appeared at a performance wearing an African hat (African much?) with wordings on the hat. A curious guy asked him, "what does the hat say?" Dizzy goes, "The hat don't talk." And that's how Sabs got her piece xD (interesting!)
(Note to self: I REALLY WONDER WHAT PURPOSE THE COMPOSER OF OUR PIECE HAD IN MIND WHEN HE WROTE IT)

Anyway, I love our piece! xD

Show Choir
Ah, show choir. Everyone loves show choir, of that I have no doubt. Even the audience I'm sure (see what I mean by our tutors inspire us?). It's all very musical-ish and we really had fun in our piece since it's so high fashion-ish. (kelly is happy she can get her Esprit vest and Santa Barbara boots [total cost around RM300?...swt this girl xD])

Actually, I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be as fun if we didn't have Ms Leong. She has a real sense of humour xD AND she's a great emcee o.O Actually...i just realised there ain't much to describe bout our piece since i blew everything under the 1st description xD

-End of Post-
(due to my dad wanting me to get my phone -.- AND physics folio)