Six of us made it out this week, including a new person! Since one of our members is hosting a harvest celebration this weekend, we worked on appropriate pieces she'd like us to sing there, "Lammas Gift" and "Harvest Chant". Since it's a much shorter and easier piece, we started out with "Harvest Chant", singing along to the Reclaiming recording (linked). We identified a number of ways their version is different from the sheet music we have. In fact, it was our new person who noticed that it wasn't just the rhythm that was different, they'd changed notes, too! Reclaiming's version is more fun and less solemn than the version we have music for, so we tend to just use their version. Once everyone felt they had the gist down, we started singing it without the recording. We found there were some places where we struggled to get the rhythm the way we wanted it, so we all stood up to keep time more physically. Eventually, we decided we were overthinking it and moved on to "Lammas Gift". Our new person picked this one up really quickly, as well, so we were able to work on some of the details of the piece. We opted not to sing the piece piano while trying to work on other specifics, since it adds an additional complication, but we also didn't want to belt it, so we settled on a volume we've jokingly dubbed mezzissimo, very medium! 😂 In addition to a quick reminder about softening some sounds to "ah", we also focused on synchronizing when and how we hit "t" sounds. For example, "without a door" sounds better sung, "wihou tah door". This also involved clarifying which syllables are held for two notes, since most of the verses are printed as only lyrics, without the music directly above them. We felt like we had a firm grasp of the piece about ten minutes before rehearsal ended, so we packed up while singing "Harvest Chant".
If you'd like to review any of our material, the sheet music and recordings are available on our Drive. For the naming conventions of the recordings, see the document in our Drive. You can also listen to the TPC playlist of recordings of some of the pieces by professional artists on Spotify. If you're trying to practice at home and can't quite discern your note, you can use a keyboard app to plunk out whichever ones you're having trouble with. (This is by no means an official endorsement, but the app I use is "Voice Training - Learn to Sing" by the developer Learn to Master. It labels the notes on the keyboard and gives you real-time feedback on what note you're singing.) If you need a tutorial on how to read music, this one seems sufficient for helping you figure out which note you want to find on the keyboard.
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