Meeting in the Church

Alan went back over the three tunes from last week quiz. He had us emphasising sounds and singing double-notes in staccato style, loud/soft. The New Zealand anthem is harder to get right because we couldn't bluff our way through the melody, unlike Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. My copy of the music is scrunched up where I was gripping it so tightly.

Peter asked about the use of the Fah clef and Alan took us over to the organ to show us how the scales worked. Without the use of the Fah clef the scale sounded harsh in the middle but apart from that I hadn't a clue what he was on about. Perhaps by lesson seven I might have caught up.

Alan explained that we would focus on the Missa de Angelis setting and he had prepared booklets for us containing the Kyrie, Gloria, Sanctus and Agnus Dei as well as the seasonal hymns to Our Lady.

We started with the Kyrie. We learned that the emphasis is on the first SYlable of KYrie and of CHRIste,the last one is difficult because there is only one dot over the first part 'Chri' but five over the 'ste'.

He had us spitting out sounds and extending notes. The acoustics inside the church made us sound quite good. Not as expert as these guys though:

We sang Salve Regina to close our class.

Here we are at the end of the session:

Click to see in gruesome detail