Chorus Notes #11 - Chapter Meeting March 11, 2008

Special Thanks to Dean Rust for this week's Chorus Notes!
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Craft

-Did tuning drills on chromatic passages in "Happy Feet" in preparation for the recording session.

- There are chromatic passages in Clap Yore Hands that we also need to be mindful of. From Chuck:
"They're after the (2nd) key change and right before the tag. After the high-voiced chord on "thigh," the whole "Don't ya lose time, don't ya lose time, everybody" passage descends by half-steps. Very difficult to keep perfectly tuned, the more so because it's high in the range. Then after that the three repetitions of "come along" separated by the measure of silence move up a half and then back down relative to the starting chord. As always, the descending ones call for small half-steps. Ideally the chord on the third "come" should feel slightly higher than the starting point.

I Love You Truly

- "Coming home" (ms 1-2): 3 points on the ground, body engaged, keep the chin level, "coming" should be as resonant and open as "home"; Lead - blown pitch is your starting note, be on top of it, don't cover the tone on "home", keep it open; Bari - don't be timid.

- "is all I need to know." (ms 3-5): think of "know" like "home" in terms of destination and the vowel.

- "is my life" (ms 6-7): Bass/bari - watch Director for move on 2nd half of "life", it comes sooner than you expect.

- "sweetheart" (m 13): non-Bass - wait for bass swipe on "sweet."

- "life (my life)" (ms 15-16): Bass/bari - get the tone all the way back up on the repeat of "life", there's a tendency to be under the pitch.

Clap Yore Hands

- "Oh whoa, Oh whoa" (ms 1-4): give full metrical value to each phrase, there's a tendency to short-change the last "oh"; make something out of the "oo" between the "oh's" in each phrase, it's getting lost; Lead - keep good vocal technique when jumping up to "whoa".

- Non-basses, "just remember" (ms 28 and 74): more emphasis on the "just" downbeat (remember the designated breath before "just."

- "Send-him-to-the-de-vil" (m 52, first time): there should be a space between each word/syllable, put "h" on "him", give a strong emphasis to each but don't splat and keep good vowels.