Monday, 10th November – second rehearsal

The Diamond Auditorium, where we rehearse, is on Deck 12 at the pointed end of the ship. This means when there are waves, we feel the movement more than when we're on lower levels and in the middle of the ship (where our cabin is). A few people felt seasick last night as we travelled from Maui to Kona, but the rehearsal went on regardless.

We started with simple warmups with Rich from Vocal Spectrum, just humming up and down. Then we split into sections and worked on our three show songs for an hour with our bass section leader, Mellynie from Zing,who reinforced all the good stuff Kim said the night before. Lazy Days is a song Zing performs, so she knows it well. She says when the basses come in on their high Ab in bar 41 it doesn't need to be loud because the baris are also singing it, but it needs to be sung tall (and there's no breath before it). The part is moving down so we need to expand through bars 41 and 42. In bar 63 when the basses sing low Eb they need to lighten up. We need to match vowels on day (and Deborah is still not sure whether Kim wants a as in cat or ah as in cart).

Lida Rose is pretty straight forward. Mellynie says the basses sound heavy and we need to use more air, more forward motion, and remember it's a love song. “dream” should be light and high.

For the last part of the rehearsal Kim came back and directed. Before we started on Lazy Days she pointed out some things about the arrangement (and said we should analyse any song this way before we decide whether to add it to our repertoire).
- the lead is below the bass on occasion (including the first chord), so it requires a lead section that can sing a wider than usual range
- the bass range goes down below C, and most choruses are nly comfortable down to D
- there are lots of 'altered' notes – sharps and flats, eg the first line,
- the tenors go under the lead in places, so the lead has to be able to sound like the tenor, and the tenors have to be able to sound like leads
- it's polyphonic, ie the individual lines are independent of each other in places
All this means that it has a high degree of difficulty. Kim says when she told other directions at Convention we were doing this song, they didn't think we could do it. She's pleased with our progress.

There was a bit of discussion at the beginning because people have two different versions of the score: I liked the way Kim said “let's stop discussion” and got on with the rehearsal.

Other helpful hints about Lazy Day from Kim:
- transitions (eg going from chorus to verse) are dangerous places and we need to watch out when we start a new section
- if you have a moving part when other parts are standing still, the moving part needs to be brought out more
- parts that are moving down also need to be brought out
- when you think your voice isn't going to make it, the natural tendency is to 'go back in', but this is when it's most important to sing forward instead
- don't turn the dipthong on lazy until the end<
- if a breath is marked (a rest) you must take it.

In Lida Rose/Will I Ever Love You, Kim says pronounce “been” as ben to rhyme with then. In bar 50, sing “yes” light and high. Think 'taffy pull' on the repeated notes in bar 55 and get louder.

For That'll be the Day, Kim says:
- there are lots of octaves, esp tenors and basses. As a general principle, the upper note of the octave should be half the volume of the lower note to lock the chord and get the overtone. The basses' job is to be the foundation especially on repeated notes, and we must maintain the pitch. If you're a tenor with a big voice you have to be especially careful on octaves. We should mark all the octaves in our sheet music.
- Well needs more time on the eh and less on the l (Kim says, double the eh and make it one l instead of ll.)
- On the second chord, where the leads move into chopsticks with the tenors, the tenors need to double their volume.Kim comments that barbershop is changing, which is cool: tenors used only to sing thirds and octaves and could just sing high and light all the time; now they get to sing other good stuff, and even the root of the chord, and need to be able to vary how they sing accordingly.
Kim says there are no great leads without great baritones (I think this was in relation to the last note of the song, where the baris need to 'sing ugly').

After this rehearsal the Aussies all get together under Glenda's direction: we are going to do an Aussie segment in the show on Thursday night to replace a quartet that's dropped out. The songs are I Am Australia, We Are Australian, and Waltzing Matilda. Jo and Deborah only know We Are Australian, so we will fake the other two.