We started with hats - which had been trialled the week before. I had found my Fat Controller railway bowler but took it off to take this picture. Silly me! All the others were present and correct.

We started with some chat, which we now had time for and some warm-ups including the 1,2 3,4 5-5-5 etc one and really didn't know what to expect as Merel had purposefully not sent anything out in advance. There was also an invisible and silent stranger called Olle present so I made a note to see if he or she was registered and whether any subs were due. Turned out to be Merel's mum - most welcome but do let is see you next time! We sang a round by Victoria Hopkins and one called I will not plead by some guy called Josef Haydn. Then we sang along to the Gloria first movement of Vivaldi's Gloria, originally composed for an all-female group of singers at the 'Ospitale' (orphanage) in Venice. We were accompanied by the choir  of  Kings College Cambridge - and they weren't at all bad. Then we started looking at - and singing - Amazing Grace.  More of that next week! And wear something red next time!

Michael 

Well hello all and I trust you're all keeping safe, sane and happy during this continued lockdown period. I for one have finally got round to those jobs that one couldn’t quite muster the energy or enthusiasm for.  I know that some of you have been furloughed and maybe feeling a bit cut off or over the moon - either way it's important to stay in touch with each other by phone, email or other social media and also by joining in with our Tuesday evening choir rehearsals excellently led by Merel. It’s a chance to see each other, warm up and sing out loud, safe within the knowledge that she has muted us all and so all our wrong notes and noises are for our own ears only. 

Last Tuesday last introduced us to some new warm ups using different sounds and speeds to get the vocal chords and the air moving, These we can use at any time to keep our vocal chords supple.  Once we had Oh’d and Ah’d and vocalised other sounds and stretched we moved onto singing a lovely piece by Sarah Brightman and Andrea Bocelli, called Time to say Goodbye, a classical piece in style but with a popular sound and rhythm. We sang it, in Italian, along to a YouTube backing track which kept us in tune if not always in time, though that’s only me, others may well have been both in time and tune.  We had a lovely 40 mins in each other’s company and I am looking forward to next weeks rehearsal. 

As several of you know we have a What’s App group where various topics are posted and discussed, shared and laughed over etc, if you are not on this and want to join the group then please contact Catherine with your mobile number and she will add you to the group, I believe this is where it normally says terms and conditions apply, but as I don’t know what these are I won’t.  So until next Tuesday keep safe, sane and happy but most of all keep singing all around the house.  Oh yes, one other thing, at the beginning of lockdown I asked if any of you had a musical instrument that you played, looked at, forgotten about that you may want to get out and play again, How’s that coming on? For my part I can now play most of the notes correctly on the Tenor recorder, though some of the lower ones I do have to think about still but I can get a recognisable tune.

​Bob