Second Soprano Rehearsal Notes

We covered some tricky spots in the extra rehearsal today –

Breath early, in a relaxed manner (that goes for all entrances in all pieces 🙂

All cutoffs should be as written, need to be exact (for rhythm and word clarity).

m. 5  “al” – bloom, lead into “ways”.

m. 6  Turn page early, rhythms on the next page are tricky.

m. 7  “time” off on beat 3, with a vocalized m

m. 8  “eyes” off on beat 2, with a vocalized z

m. 10 – 15 (and again m. 27 – 35)  Be careful not to close down on the n's or hiss the s's – keep the vowels open (see next note)

m. 11  “haws” and don't hiss the s, sing on the vowel (which means sing vowel as long as possible and just drop the ending consonant on at the end, probably eliding it into the next word).

m. 12  pronounce “can't” as “Kaent” – the a is not nasal, and not “ah”

m. 12, 16, 29, 33  Lift after “sear-ing” – each instance.

m. 17  Pronounce “cry” as “kraw”

m. 18  “aw”

m. 24  Crescendo on “open our eyes”.  Pronounce “our” as “ah” with a flipped R elided into “eyes” (pronounced as “ahz”)

m. 25  “eyes” off on beat 2 with a vocalized z

m. 26  The piano has a crescendo, we have to feel it and come in big at mezzo forte plus.

m. 37  The G has to be as sharp as you can make it.  No “R” in “per-haps”

m. 38  Mentioned again, watch Jane for the cutoff.

m. 47  “not” has to bloom, leading into “begin”

m. 3  Pronounce “here” as “heeah”, accent it each time, stay strong for the entire 14 beats.

m. 6  'Here” cuts off on the downbeat.  Pronounce “late” as “layt” but with no diphthong. It's like “eh” but with a little bite to it.

m. 8  Put an “h” before  “where”.  No vibrato.

m. 14 – 22  We spent a lot of time on this section. I have so many notes as Jane tried to get us to do what she wanted.

“Here” is pronounced differently this time because of the pitch. Your tongue should be arched in your mouth; not so much “ee” and definitely no “R”. The F must be, and stay, completely open, or we will flat the following notes. The following E flat, D, C and B flat tend to flat; they need more support, and a good setup with the open F. Pronounce “late” as “leh”, a short “e”. 

m. 17  Take the dot off the first F, change to an eighth rest. That should help with the pitches.

m. 18  High B flat.

m. 19  Stay mezzo forte. The C needs to be high.

m. 21  Match the first sopranos' G, sing a little softer as it's unison. Note the altos are singing and A flat, we need to be as high on the G as possible so the dissonance sounds good.

Lastly, Practice this section.

m. 35-36  This is sooo hard. Practice this, mark it somehow. I have “three blind mice” written in, but in the moment I'm still not getting it, and I know many others are having the same problem.

m. 36-37  Punch the note changes, but when we hit the F, match the firsts, and lighten up. F needs to be high and soft.

m. 47  Don't worry about the G; if you hit it, good, otherwise more important is the following D flat and C, they need to be higher.  Almost leave out the “H” of “hush” as it can bring down the pitch.  Practice this too.

m. 51  No R in “skirts”

m. 68  I suggest you write in the flats on the Ds to remind yourself.

m. 70  Note we are now mezzo forte

m. 74  “The trauma releases here” (I think Jane meant the notes, but I think it's our trauma of singing said notes).

m. 91  All 3 notes are staccato.

m. 97-98  Be firm against the piano.

m. 105  The A natural needs to be high, accurate.

m. 109  No vibrato, sing “oo” – it will sound warmer with a good “oo”

So, Jane's advice was to sing loud for now, so we can become secure in the pitches (and hear our mistakes to fix them). Also, to practice this with background noise, including a different piece of music. The instruments will be doing things to confuse us and this may help prepare for that.

If you missed this rehearsal, please look at what we did. For those going on vacation, have a good time! See the rest of you on Tuesday.

Linde