Rehearsals are marked blue. Feel free to use the chapel for other rehearsals.
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Entries in the Ildhafn journal of Music
For a list of Ildhafn's upcoming regular practices and meetings, please see our Regular Activities page.
With The Bloth impending, we took the opportunity to rehearse a little. Most items were practised and then revisited, and we also arrayed ourselves as we would for an audience.
We opened with the classic Jubilate Deo - as usual, starting in unison and then splitting into five parts.
As is currently tradition, we opened the practice with a few decent rounds of Jubilate Deo.
Another fantastic crowd of nine at singing today!
Another impressive week this week, with nine people in attendance!
This afternoon Christine took us through some breathing techniques using imagery as a refresher from when she first took us through these, and Katherina Weyssin drew some diagrams for us showing how the lungs and diaphragm interact when we breathe - there's also quite a lot of good videos on YouTube, using a variety of methods, for those that want to explore this further; searching for "diaphragm singing" and "diaphramatic breathing" gets some good results .
Today Katherina led us, with Anna, William de Cameron, Caterine, and Fina singing.
Today's singing was run by Katherina Weyssin, and attended by herself, Caterine de Vantier, Anna de Wilde, and William de Cameron.
We mostly focused on singing some of the simpler stuff from our repertoire this week.
Singing today with Katherina, William de Cameron, Eleanor, and Caterine.
An excellent afternoon's singing.
We learned two new rounds, and revisited the Contrapunto Bestiale.
Canterbury Faire in 2013 was outstanding for a great deal of part-singing, both in formal classes and casual singing in the campsite or around the fire.
Some of the pieces we sang were:
We had some visitors from outside Auckland today, which was lovely - thanks for joining in!
An excellent session, with last-minute sewing.
- My love hath vowed
- Verbum caro factum est
- Margot
- Il bianco e dolce cigno
- Dona nobis pacem
(See ildhafn.lochac.sca.org/music for details of each piece).
I've assembled those of our current songs that aren't covered in the Snogbook or Cantiones Secundae, and had them printed and bound, as "Ildhafn's extras". They're in my singing box, with copies of the songbooks above, and a plastic tenor recorder (for getting start-notes).
We had nearly our full complement of singers once again. Thanks for hosting it, Caterine.
Laudemus Virginem
A nice warm-up, as always. I'll get a pronunciation-guide together at some point.
O my heart
It was nice to have all three parts represented again, in their customary octaves.
We had nearly our full complement of singers once again. Thanks for hosting it, Caterine.
Verbum caro factum est
We've returned to singing it in C, with both men and women on each line, and women singing an octave higher than men. I've updated the sheet music and sound files. William de Cameron has switched to the top line, and Christine to the bottom line. William de Wyke and Emrys learned this for the first time.
We're continuing to vary who sings which verse.
Another lovely session: long and intense, and very productive. Thanks for hosting it, Anna.
O my heart
A warm-up song. We tried a somewhat unconventional arrangement of voices today: Anna singing the top (soprano) line alone, Christine and William de Cameron singing the middle (tenor) line, with Christine an octave higher than William, and Katherina attempting the bass line an octave higher than it is set, in the alto range.
It was a surprisingly pleasant setting of the song, as well as an effective warm-up.
Today we took a break from our Christmas shopping to make our first attempt at Gush forth my tears, a very pretty Holborne piece, that is more rhythmically challenging that the pieces we've tried as a group so far.
My love hath vowed
A pleasant warm-up, as always.