![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
This Pennsic the Debatable Choir will mark its 25th anniversary. (Whether this is actually the 25th anniversary depends on how you count some early proto-choir formations, but this doesn't really matter. It's 25th anniversary observed. :-) ) We've started working on the music for it and I am jazzed. This is going to be fun, and is looking to be a longer concert than we usually do, which makes me happy.
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ariannawyn asked me to direct one piece, which we started last week. Somewhere around a third of the choir (maybe a little more) has sung it before though not recently, and at least one person who hasn't is an excellent sight-reader, so after two practices at which we also did other music, people know it well enough that we can start putting some shape to it next week (dynamics, paying attention to what the words mean, that sort of thing). Except I short-changed the altos this week on going through parts, so I'll have to make it up to them.
I've lost track of how long I've been in the choir. I was one of the original members, but I took two breaks. I think I've been there for about 20 of the 25 years, but it never seemed important back then to track such things. There are two other original members, also with gaps (for moves to other cities, in their cases). But we manage to have a good supply of newer members too, so even though the choir is approximately a quarter-century old, we have plenty of vim and vigor and lots of fun.
But I must admit that even after that many years of choral singing, I just cannot wrap my head around French. Italian? Sure, no problem -- I don't speak the language at all but I don't think you'd know that from my singing of it. Latin? I understand a little of it but it's basically like Italian in my brain. Hebrew (we're doing one Hebrew piece)? I understand what we're singing; no problems there. English? Mostly fine; the 12th-century stuff is rough but we're not working on any of that right now. German? Eh, I can make it work. But French, on the other hand, to my brain is nothing but a sequence of random-ish phonemes with "eur" sounds mixed in. Memorizing French songs really challenges me. I don't know why. Fortunately for me, currently the Italian songs outnumber the French ones in the concert list. :-)
ariannawyn asked me to direct one piece, which we started last week. Somewhere around a third of the choir (maybe a little more) has sung it before though not recently, and at least one person who hasn't is an excellent sight-reader, so after two practices at which we also did other music, people know it well enough that we can start putting some shape to it next week (dynamics, paying attention to what the words mean, that sort of thing). Except I short-changed the altos this week on going through parts, so I'll have to make it up to them.I've lost track of how long I've been in the choir. I was one of the original members, but I took two breaks. I think I've been there for about 20 of the 25 years, but it never seemed important back then to track such things. There are two other original members, also with gaps (for moves to other cities, in their cases). But we manage to have a good supply of newer members too, so even though the choir is approximately a quarter-century old, we have plenty of vim and vigor and lots of fun.
But I must admit that even after that many years of choral singing, I just cannot wrap my head around French. Italian? Sure, no problem -- I don't speak the language at all but I don't think you'd know that from my singing of it. Latin? I understand a little of it but it's basically like Italian in my brain. Hebrew (we're doing one Hebrew piece)? I understand what we're singing; no problems there. English? Mostly fine; the 12th-century stuff is rough but we're not working on any of that right now. German? Eh, I can make it work. But French, on the other hand, to my brain is nothing but a sequence of random-ish phonemes with "eur" sounds mixed in. Memorizing French songs really challenges me. I don't know why. Fortunately for me, currently the Italian songs outnumber the French ones in the concert list. :-)