Wed, 12th November - rehearsal

Last night our ship sailed from Kona to Nawiliwili on Kauai. We were at rehearsal when we left Kona. We started with warm ups, led by Eric from Vocal Spectrum. Then the men's and women's choruses split to rehearse separately. Cindy says the name of the women's chorus is Pele's Pride (Pele is the Hawaiian goddess of fire, and responsible for creating the islands of Hawaii during a battle with her sister the goddess of the ocean.)

We work on our songs some more. Jean Barford is going to direct That'll Be The Day. She says don't oversing, just keep the resonance big and fat. Don't overenunciate the words, as it slows you down: you don't need a lot of jaw movement, make it all internal. She tells the leads that their job is not to lead the chorus (that's the Director's job); their job, like the baris and tenors, is to reinforce the basses' overtones. in bar 23 ('that some day well') she tells us all to 'goose' the rhythm, which we think means push it along a bit.

Cindy gives us choreo. For That'll Be The Day we start 'free style', individually expressing what the words mean to us. When we get to the chorus, we snap fingers on our outside hand. Verse 1 the Leads have the words, while the rest of us are do dooing, so we direct our attention to the Leads and let them star as they improvise rock and roll moves. Back to snapping fingers for the chorus, and then it's the Basses' turn to star for Verse 2. Back to snapping fingers for the chorus, and at the end of that we bend knees and go lower. On the last bar everyone raises both hands.

Choreo for Lazy Day starts with everybody swaying, starting right. We go freestyle for the verses, and back to swaying for the Lazy Day choruses. On bar 83 everyone claps the rest. At the end, everyone's right hand sweeps to the left across the body in a pre-move, then back right and up and out for the finish. We watch the director to know when to bring our hands down.

Then the guys rejoin us and we run through the package: two songs by the women, men and women together singing Lida Rose (the first time we've done it together and the guy from Vocal Spectrum whose name we've forgotten co-directs with Kim). It sounds good.

The guys do one song on their own. Before they go, Cindy has them introduce themselves and identify who they're married to (they are nearly all husbands and fathers of Sweet Adelines). They go off for some more rehearsal, and we work in sections on the areas our section leaders are still concerned about.

After everyone else goes, Glenda gathers the Aussies together for a run through of our package. We're doing Waltzing Matilda, then a bit of explanation of Aussie slang, then someone is reciting My Country while we ooooh and then we go straight into I Am Australian. Glenda describes the choreo she wants for each verse of Waltzing Matilda and we discuss costumes and props. It should be good.

Jo and Deborah dash off to the Aloha Cafe for a quick bite, as we haven't had dinner yet - they're just starting to close up. Then to bed.