1st week advent

1. A new conductor is born!!!
It is good to see the past students put their abbreviated piano lessons to good use.
V stopped at g5
M at g3
V at g2
G at g0.

Maybe they continued their lessons elsewhere? I guess I was always pushing for excellence, and kids hated that. Personally I looked back and was always grateful that my parents and teachers pushed for excellence. Excellence is definitely better than mediocrity....isn't it?

2. Good diction
SCC is a good choir with bad diction.
Ok, saying this is going to make people jump up and down!
But I am honestly saying that with love.

I had the opportunity to run to the other end when guest pianist played.

Let me draw from teaching pianists. Especially at the higher levels.
Technique is the foundation and cornerstone to any good sound coming out of the instrument.

Scales, hanon, studies, etudes....all the boring stuff are the real meat to the playing.
And you thought repertoire was the meat....in my opinion, repertoire are frills to show off the technique acquired at the boring stuffs.

So how to incorporate diction into practise?
That crucial 5 - 10 minute warm-up!!!!!

1. You can work excercises that work the phonics and vowels.
2. You can work on breathing.
3. You can work on getting choir to start and end together.
4. You can work on dynamics.....experience forte; experience piano; even pianissimo....

All this accapella.
Get the people to LISTEN to one another. This will perhaps stop certain individual voice from popping out too much.
Good choral singers work to blend.
Perhaps the conductor needs to tell the voices that pop up to tone down?
Again, the key is to LISTEN to one another.
Listen to the persons on left, right, in front and behind....then you monitor your own voice to blend into theirs. So if everybody does that, the choir will sing well.

3. Horrors!!!
We are practising christmass mass things already?
Need to urgently get the key musicians together.
Need to program the instrument.
Will probably go down on a weekday to do this.
Need to tell the 2 J's what to do or else moi going to jump big time at practise this week again!!!!

4. Speaking of instruments...
Let me recap the part about excellence. Then again, what may be a stickler for me might be the least important thing in the world for them.
You can do the hands; but wouldn't it be better to learn to master the legs?
You can do arpeggios; but wouldn't it be better to learn to master other styles?
You can pass g1....how about aiming for g2? and you pass g8? how about aiming for diploma? Of course there is always that PhD? hehe....

5. Noel
Noel was great!
Imitation is the best form of flattery.

Can I get hold of the triangle, tambourine?
Was also looking at the band things?
Can the flute person bring the flute?