Gentlemen, are you ready to proclaim your Faith?

Six of us met in the Hall, weather, lectures and a bicycle malfunction kept others away.

There was talk of the flu jag and also several jokes about the news of supermarket hamburgers containing horsemeat. My favourite was 'My Lidl Pony'.

We began with prayer, Glory be to the Father.
Alan led us through Salve Regina several times. By the end, we sounded quite convincing.
He emphasised the lightness of voice and the focus on the words. We were encouraged to think of the meanings of the words. Instead of ending with 'O dulcis.....Virgo Maria', we should make it clear that 'sweet' applies to the Virgin Mary. So sing it as 'O dulcisVirgo Maria'.

In the Kyrie, Alan argued that the last syllable should sound 'ay' rather than 'ey'. And we learned to watch his conducting hands. He also gave us the metaphor of a relay-race for the Schola joining the Cantor after his introduction. We had to begin running before he got to the hand-over.
Some of us would make a pretty unlikely team of relay sprinters, but we got the message.

During the Sanctus, I worked out the liquescent neume in Hosanna, while Alan explained the need both to stop clearly at the end of words while flowing into the next word, as in '...Sanctus. Dominus Deus...'

After this Alan asked 'Gentlemen, are you ready to proclaim your Faith?'
Somewhat arresting.
But we knew what he meant. We had never prayed the Credo together but our first attempt wasn't too bad. I was able to follow the notes and even got to grips with Jack's Pig's Ear:

Porrectus A high note, a low note, and a high note.
The line starts at the first note and goes down to the middle note.

There are lots of them in the Creed.

 Alan asked us to try to sing 'Et in Spiritum Sanctum, Dominum, et vivificantem' in one breath.

During all of this enthusiasm, we agreed to sing the parts of the Mass in Holy Spirit at 5.00pm on 3rd February.
Then on to 'Anyus Dei', where Alan showed us how the liquescent in 'tollis' sounded.
It is more like a run-up to the L than a humming sound.

We closed with 'Ave Regina caelorum' which none of the Schola knew. But we were able to limp along and we brought a cheer to Alan's face.

Click to enlarge

Hail, Queen of Heaven. Hail, Lady of Angels.

Hail root, hail and gate from which the Light of the world was born.

Rejoice glorious Virgin, fairest of all. Fare thee well most beautiful, and pray for us to Christ.

Our next session will beThursday 24th January, probably in the church.