Tonight was chant rehearsal at St. Joe. 2nd session. 15 minutes.

First we "warmed up" for a chant sound with ooh(do)-ah(sol-----fa mi re do). Start on D, sing up, then down. Worked for a dark, blended sound. Then sang a series of pitches from Kodaly hand signs, just a few. About six choir member hadn't been there the week before. I told them that we'd be singing things that we couldn't explain, but just sing along, and don't worry if you don't catch it all at once.

We started with Regina Caeli. First we spoke the words. I pointed out the raised inflection on the accent, which we tried. Mentioned that in the past, some people had advocated that there was no stress accent in Latin chant, ONLY the raising of the pitch. (Justine Ward seems to have advocated that.) Some folks still read in a monotone. We didn't work it, just moved on. As I got ready to sing, I remembered that we had warmed up with Kodaly signs, so maybe we should sing the pitches that we worked on so hard the week before. So we did: do re do re mi... After that, we sang thru the song, only stopping to notice the double square notes and make each one a distinct sound.

This was ok, but next time we should sing pitches first, then speak the words. Reading the pitches put equal measured metrics in folks' heads, and we never got back to the more fluid speech-rhythms. Next week will be the week before we sing at mass. I'm going to have more of a conflict than I thought, with Laura's graduation the same weekend, so I think I'll call Debbie about whether she would be comfortable conducting this one.

Spiritus Domini, I gave out a revised sheet to read from. I reminded the new people that they might not get it all, and don't worry. We actually sang only the first line. Worked on dynamics a little and separating those repeated tones. Didn't get enough melody-singing, so that they will be familiar enough with the music.

The new sheet includes a copy of the Graduale Triplex page on the back side of it, so folks will have the square notes if they want to look at them. I also included the address of my Chant Index page, and told them they could download a mp3 of the chant.

Next time, we have to sing more. Just sing it. I'll refrain from working anything except the last three alleluias.

My conducting technique (lack of it) is driving me crazy. The St. Joe choir folks are really polite, and they sing well, but I feel like I should apologize with every gesture. I practice all the time, but it's really awkward to decide what moves should be there. I use a combination of pitch clues and motions that resemble the St. Gall neums. Problem is, some of the neum combinations go too fast to conduct them all, and then I'm switching to a version of conducting toward the syllables, with some references to individual neums, mostly when there is a repeated pitch.

It is better since I figured out that I was conducting "backwards," but I haven't internalized all that that changes, yet.

I think I should take slower tempos on the notes next time. I think I'll rehearse the last three alleluias, then just have us sing thru antiphon and verses.

After my 15-minutes was up, I thanked them and went home, and instead of going to the empty house, pulled in Bernheim Forest and went to the silo. I sing there a lot, but usually very early in the mornings. At that time of evening (7:30 pm) there are people there, but I went ahead anyway and worked on chant. They hung around to listen, and it didn't feel awkward. I think I'll do this every Wednesday night after practice at St. Joe. That will make the trip worthwhile.

OH, and this afternoon at Amy's youth choir practice (the St. Joe Youth Choir), a couple of 8th graders came up to say they needed to have a quick conference about medieval music, and I could tell them that "Christus natus est," which they sang on Palm Sunday and Good Friday, was early music, as is Regina Caeli, which they are also learning to sing. And wouldn't you know, they needed info for a class presentation tomorrow, but none of us had copies of the "Christus factus est" sheet that they'd learned from. We copied the page from Graduale Triplex, but I suspect it's too complex-looking. I wonder what they'll do with it.

Actually, I have the sheet posted on the internet, here. Why didn't I think of that? I could have told them how to download it, but it's not listed in the index yet. Oh well, too late, it's almost midnight. But it's neat to know that this information posted on the net CAN be useful.

And I guess I'd better update that index.