NOTES for Week of February 23, 2025

Dear friends,

Please continue to mark your music and rehearse anything for which you are unsure on the pieces we worked these past weeks. If you're absent from a rehearsal, you need to check with your section leader for any directions that you missed. 

If you have not done so, please send your music payment to Lisa Skinner at Venmo @LisaSkinner16 ($40)

Inkosi Namandla

• As previous stated, write the correct pronunciation in you score, that way you'll see it as you sing.
• Most of this is phonetic vowels are like Latin, and consonants are in somecase just more intense.
• The exceptions are Namandla which is pronounced nah-mahn-zha (like Zsa Zsa Gabor). The hl combination is pronounce sh, as in Wenhliziyo (wehn-shee-zee-yoh), Mawuhlakaniphe (mah-woo-shah-kah-nee-peh), Ungalahli (oong-ah-lah-shee)
• The click consonants need to be practiced. They are produced by creating suction with the tongue pressed to the roof of the mouth and then released quickly. We are not differentiating the placement of the tongue (roof vs. aveolor ridge). Do whatever works for you. Practice clicking first, then when comfortable, do it with the accompanying vowel. The clicks are in Zikuhaq'i (zee-koo-hah-*click/ee), uzoqeda (oo-zoh-*click/eh-dah), Cela (*click/eh-lah)
• As you practice begin memorization.

All of Me

• Practice the rhythms so that your unison is precise. In the phrases Look at my or look who I, the rhythm last note of that beat is the longest so think of stressing the words my/I. 
• NOTE the combinations of 1/4-note followed by 1/8 note patterns and vice versa. 
• Circle the breaths in the ascending and loudening passage in mm. 66-70. Get of the 1/8-note in m. 70.
• Hold the dotted-half-note on skin in m. 71 to the downbeat of m. 72, with a forte nuh release.
• Sopranos and Altos work on your oo's starting in mm. 89 and going to 97.

Seat Me As a Seal

• Number your measures.
• I've changed my mind. There will be no luftpauses in mm. 3, 12 but there is in m. 29.
• Breathe at all marked breaths.
• Watch carefull in mm. 9-10, 14-15, 26-27, 29, 34-36.
• Women sing mm. 18-25 with more movement and a full, rich tone. Men sing more gently.  Keep energy in the sustained notes, but sing lightly unless you have neither can the floods. Neither is pronounced nigh-ther.

Time

• Sing the whole song in a detached manner, with the exception of the tenuto (-) marks. Don't accent them, stretch them. 
• Work pages 8-15 which has the omitted words with rests to clean this up rhythmically.
• Begin speeding up the tempo when you're more comfortable. 
• Sopranos clean up the phrases in mm. 12 and 16 with the 7th leap. It's a bit ragged. 

Sing Gently

• This isn't a complicated song, but because is so languid, it needs to be song with rich, full, vowel tones and delayed and brief consonants. 
• Please highlight all dynamics and observe while practicing.

Music Down in My Soul

• If you're unsure of the divisi, check with your section leader - the three part sections for men and women is evenly divided. 
• Melody, please sing the I've got joy parts by yourself.
• Women please note the back and forth from B-flat to B-natural starting mm. 38-62. Be very accurate. 
• Basses be very accurate in your ascending line starting mm. 47-48 and repeating.
• This will need to be memorized.

For TUESDAY, February 25, 2029

• Nella Fantasia
• Inkosa Namandla (particularly the section starting on p. 9)
• Sacred Heart
• Rise, My Soul
• Witness
• Time (particularly pp. 8-15)