NOTES for the Week of February 2, 2025

Friends,

Again, I want to compliment you and thank you for your improved musicality. Please keep it up! It makes a tremendous difference. Look for every opportunity to sing musically and expressively, even when you're learning pitches and rhythms.

Now is the Month of Maying

• Sing the fa-la-la's lightly and detached so they don't sound muddy, particularly mm. 28-32.
• Work through second verse lyrics.

Set Me As a Seal

• Insert luftpauses in mm. 3, 12, 29.
• Use punctuation to mark additional luftpauses for sections, such as Tenors in m. 31 and 34.
• Women, sing legato in m. 18 but don't slide up the progression.

Time

• Sing the tenutos (-) as stretched notes, not as accented ones.
• It is helpful to write in the beats in measures with added rests.
• Don't overly concern yourselves with the bended pitches in the tick-tock sections

Sing Gently

• Practice singing with elongated vowels
• Though slow, keep sustained tones energized and in tune

Witness

• Basses make sure moving lines are clean and acurate. Ex. mm. 17-24, 27-29, 65-68.
• Make sure of pitches (intonation) on all for my Lord cadences

For TUESDAY, Feb. 4, 2025

• Sacred Heart (Sections A-C)
• Inkosi Namandla (through m. 66) - don't wory about language
• All of Me (we'll work through this together)
• Time
• Witness
• Bring Me Little Water, Silvy

Here's the body percussion pattern. It is a two-measure pattern that repeats in the designated measures. At tempo, it goes quite fast! Practice it for a couple of minutes daily so it becomes automatic. It needs to be fully in your motor memory before we put it together with singing. NOTE: I have actually left off an additional foot stomp that occurs in the repeat (beat 2 of the repeating 1st measure) because I find it awkward and it might be too much stomping on risers.