New Year, Same Story

Though we are now embarking on our third remote term, this feels like a good opportunity to look back at highlights from the rest of our Autumn term. We continued to make the best of our Zoom rehearsals, and really started to look at them as an opportunity to participate in the kind of development we wouldn’t typically find time for during a normal term with its race to the finish line in time for concert day.

Cyrilla Rowsell returned for a second session on SolFa, developing our technique. We practiced interval pitching with some useful exercises, and also continued to learn the SolFa notation for rhythm as well as the hand gestures. I don’t quite have them down yet, but I’m getting there!

We had a second vocal workshop lead by Felicity Hamilton, who took us through a new movement of the Britten we’ve been working on and provided useful tips and techniques, especially for the sopranos and altos.

We devoted one entire rehearsal to a social which took the form of a virtual quiz. This provided more structure than we would normally have for an in-person social which would typically involve a pot-luck cold spread (think lots of cheese and crackers, and often plenty of cake) and some wine. Sometimes we hold a raffle of donated prizes to raise choir funds, and sometimes there’s no formal structure whatsoever and we just enjoy one another’s company. In fact the only ways these evenings differ from the usual post-choir pub session is that 1) more people are generally encouraged to stick around, at least for a little bit; 2) they take place in the church instead of the pub so there’s more space and you don’t have to pay a markup on your drinks!

So it was a little different this time around, but it still proved to be a good time and made liberal use of Zoom breakout-room functionality to ensure teams had time to confer on their answers and so that people could have a proper chat rather than be stuck on mute as part of a large group all evening. The quizmaster also happened to be our resident American in the choir, and as the quiz took place on American Thanksgiving she included a round with questions about the holiday and even provided a couple of themed cocktail recipes should we want to join in the festivity during the quiz. We’re usually up for a beverage in this choir, there is a reason we’ve occasionally been given the nickname ‘the han(g)over choir’. Needless to say, a lovely evening was had by all and we didn’t keep too close an eye on the scores!

The last deviation we took from the Britten this term was to return to one of our favourite things to do together as a choir, and something we all really missed in 2020 – our last session was devoted to Christmas carols. It’s just not the same singing them remotely, but we gave it a good go. Have you ever wondered what it would sound like if you try to sing along with the rest of the choir when no one is muted? We thought we’d give it a go, how bad can it be when it’s songs that are this familiar to everyone?

The answer is…it’s bad, we don’t recommend it! But we did fall about in fits of laughter, and that’s always welcome, especially in these times. We had hoped to be able to come together for some outdoor carol singing, but the weather and Tier 2 with threats of further lockdown made us reconsider this plan. Still, I think we did very well last term – a healthy balance of maintaining musicianship and continuing our community. Long may it continue, in whatever form it needs to for now. Wishing you a Happy New Year, wherever you are!