The Acorn - Weekly Bulletin for Oak City Sound - Nov 10, 2022
| Type of post: | Chorus news item |
| Sub-type: | No sub-type |
| Posted By: | Nic Cols |
| Status: | Current |
| Date Posted: | Wed, Nov 9 2022 |
1. Notes for this week
- Next and last NCSU Football game concession is Saturday, November 12, with a 1pm show-up time. Kickoff time is 3:30pm. See Tim Kinsey for parking passes and details.
- Next Monday, November 14, we have our usual rehearsal at Searstone at 7pm.
- We'll continue to work Christmas rep. By now, all songs should be memorized and we should be off-spots!
- Memorize, memorize, memorize!
- Board Members: Next board meeting is on Monday Nov 14 at 6:00.
- Christmas Show Important Info:
- This week is your last chance to sell program ads for our Dec 6 Show at Cary Arts Center? Have you approached at least one person, organization, or business to sell the Ad to? All sales have to be turned in by mid-November!
- If you have people you would like to invite to the concert and want a digital version of our poster to send to them, feel free to download the poster at https://www.oakcitysound.org/dbpage.php?pg=view&dbase=uploads&id=71501
- Additionally, tickets can be purchased online using the following link:
- John Adams - Funeral arrangements:
- November 12, 2022 @ 11 AM
University United Methodist Church
150 E Franklin Ave
Chapel Hill, NC 27514
- November 12, 2022 @ 11 AM
2. Carol's Korner
- Challenge yourself to come to Monday's rehearsal and sing through our concert repertoire without music in your hands. I think you will be pleasantly surprised by how much of the music you DO know, and it will make it very clear what music you DON'T know. We have only 3 rehearsals left before we are performing for an audience. We all need to be comfortably off paper so we can work on presentation.
- Work toward consistency in applying "The R Rule" to all of our songs. Every. Time. For those who have not been paying attention, "The R Rule" is: Unless R is the initial letter in the word (such as Ride or Reindeer) DO NOT SING IT. If it is an R sound connecting one syllable to another, either sing it by flipping the tip of your tongue up behind your top teeth to make a sound more similar to D, or keep the tip of your tongue down behind your bottom teeth to make a modified R sound. At all times, avoid the urge to point your tongue up in the middle of your mouth and sing like a drunken pirrrrrrrrrrrrrrrate!!
- Remember that good singing diction consists of clear, crisp consonants and clean, pure vowels. 99.9% of our singing time should be dedicated to vowel sounds. The consonants are a tiny disruption to the line of vowels that is the icing on the cake.
3. Ben's Buzz
Breathing buzz part 3 …
Breathe silently. When the audience hears breathing, whether slow breaths during rests or gasps anywhere, it interferes with the music. Breathe silently.
Two key things to do this:
First, breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth. Many people breathe in through their mouth, especially for gasping air. To make it worse, a wide mouth, like you use in a grin, increases the noise of the air intake. Yuk. Listen to your breathing in a recording sometime.
Second, pull in air using your diaphragm. Your chest and shoulders shouldn’t really move when you breathe in. Your stomach area should grow, and more than that, your whole middle section should expand all the way around.
Here’s an exercise:
Lean against a wall with your feet several inches from the wall, using good posture. Now breathe in deeply through your nose, mouth open or closed, and notice your belly growing. Also feel your back press slightly toward the wall. You can also feel your “back breathing” by putting your hands on your lower back while you breathe. This gets the air all the way down to the bottom of your lungs (remember the last buzz? See https://www.oakcitysound.org/dbpage.php?pg=view&dbase=uploads&id=71203 )
Doing just these two things will lead to quieter breathing and also set you up to better support your sound.
.
Breathe silently. When the audience hears breathing, whether slow breaths during rests or gasps anywhere, it interferes with the music. Breathe silently.
Two key things to do this:
First, breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth. Many people breathe in through their mouth, especially for gasping air. To make it worse, a wide mouth, like you use in a grin, increases the noise of the air intake. Yuk. Listen to your breathing in a recording sometime.
Second, pull in air using your diaphragm. Your chest and shoulders shouldn’t really move when you breathe in. Your stomach area should grow, and more than that, your whole middle section should expand all the way around.
Here’s an exercise:
Lean against a wall with your feet several inches from the wall, using good posture. Now breathe in deeply through your nose, mouth open or closed, and notice your belly growing. Also feel your back press slightly toward the wall. You can also feel your “back breathing” by putting your hands on your lower back while you breathe. This gets the air all the way down to the bottom of your lungs (remember the last buzz? See https://www.oakcitysound.org/dbpage.php?pg=view&dbase=uploads&id=71203 )
Doing just these two things will lead to quieter breathing and also set you up to better support your sound.
4. Future Notes
- Dec 5: Show, a Monday evening Christmas Concert at Searstone.
- Dec 6: Show, a Tuesday evening. We will put on our Christmas show at the Cary Arts Center theater.
- We will need to sell tickets and Ads. Last week, Mike emailed to all of us a summary of what you need to know regarding Ad sales. He mentioned Monday evening that we are not married to a particular pricing structure, so be inventive! If each one of us sold a single Ad, it would bring in more revenue than the entire revenue from our last concert. Just do it!
- Christmas Vignettes: As part of the Christmas Show, we will again offer our audience personal stories regarding Christmas. This has been well received by both the chorus members AND the audience. Mike keeps asking for these .... so please create one from your holiday memories THIS WEEK and send it to him. A photo or two to go along with the story would be helpful.
- Dec 12: Christmas Show at Glenaire! On a Monday evening. Show up time will be 6:15, and concert starts at 7pm.
- Dec 19: Christmas Concert at Springmoor Retirement Community in north Raleigh off Creedmoor Rd. On a Monday evening. Show up time will be 6:15, and concert starts at 7pm.
- And THAT! gentlemen and gentle lady, is an example of a full Christmas Season calendar. So many of us are also so busy with Church choirs and other family activities. It's a very busy time of year for singers, so we should thank each other for each's time, dedication, vitality, and enthusiasm in supporting the Oak City Sound at this time.
5. Long Range
- January - start counting on having a guest night in late January.
- February - plan to run Singing Valentines again this year. February 14 is a Tuesday, so we'll look for opportunities on the previous weekend.
6. Champagne Room
- Any good singing or personal stories????
