No Yorkshire 'tums'

Welcome again one and all to our second week of Relative Pitch. Hopefully I'll be able to write a couple of posts this week for your enjoyment. Well, last night was a Wednesday so it must have been rehearsal night. Rather than crowd into the Wexler's front room (hope you are having a jolly holiday John and Susan) we instead found our way to the other side of Edinburgh to St Peter's Lutton Place. It is a pretty chilly old place and even Chris was cold (which let me tell you must mean it is Baltic in there; just as a side issue, A-L and I were wondering why it is that although a place can be really cold you can end up sweating by the end of a rehearsal... amazing!) but we kept our scarves on and braved the nippy atmosphere.


For those who are interested, we are currently spending a lot of time on a great Eric Whitacre piece called Five Hebrew Love Songs. Hence the reason for the title of this post... ok, that requires a little more explanation. In the second song the three lower parts (chorally I mean) have to sing the word 'tum' (this piece is in Hebrew - hmmm clue is in the name huh? - though I'm not sure what 'tum' means... perhaps the same as in English? noun: informal: a person's stomach or abdomen... maybe not) which should not sound like 'tomb' which is where dead people live but rhyme with 'bum', though I guess this wholly depends on whether you say 'bum' in a posh way. Go on give it a try...y ou know you want to!


I digress... the piece sounded really wonderful. We are breaking away from our acapella roots and are singing with... wait for it... a piano and a violin. Goodness me! Well in the church's great acoustic, it sounded really fabulous. Very haunting and exciting. If you'd like to find out a wee bit more about Whitacre take a look at YouTube where you can even hear him and his lovely wife (surely candidates for the most glamourous musical couple) explain the text. You can also check out his website at www.ericwhitacre.com which has a very spangly homepage.



This is the Piano/Violin/Choir version of the Five Hebrew Love Songs, this week's visual entertainment.


Incidentally we began the night with a bracing version of 'Head, Shoulders,Knees and Toes' led by (yes you've guessed it) Jenny. Cue much laughter and the lady in charge of the church reconsidering her decision to give us a key. I must admit to breathing a sigh of relief as our new temporary bass Robert came in after the madness had subsided (let's hope he's more than temporary! - chris). He would have been well within his rights to run for the hills if he had caught us trying to sing a nursery rhyme while jiggling about and trying not to say the word 'shoulders'. Fortunately he stayed...


Although I won't always mention birthdays on this blog we couldn't let Natalie's Big 3-0 go by without acknowledgement. Congrats lady!


That's all for now. I've just realised I have broken my promise re punctuation. I just can't help myself- I need to set up a self-help group...'Apostrophe Anonymous' anyone?
CSW


P.S. Hi there, Chris here; I like to interfere with things, add links etc. I thought The People might like a quick glimpse of last night's rehearsal, and the most appropriate photo has to be of our first lady of Blog. Seeya!