Category: Blog

Three of us squeezed in a super practice despite pressing issues, but soon forgot them all as we tackled “The Boston Quickstep” (Charles Zeuner Arr by Martin Todd) . It starts with triplet, which has put us off in the past. But we soon found the rhythm, and decided it is a really nice piece.…

Our new member gave us reason to replay some of our Welsh Folk Tunes, which was good. The sight reading and counting where there were several bars break was all great revision, and the familiarity of the rhythms for our newcomer was welcome. Some of us were guilty of speeding up where we knew the…

Welcome to another new descant player, who is rekindling her playing! It is always great to have new members, so it was good for us to consider what we played and how challenging the pieces might be. We played a mix, some older familiar ones, and some new as yet not practiced. Simple Gifts (Joseph…

Three of us met for a super practice, and chose some pieces that we have not yet played in the group. We worked particularly hard on “Dansereye” by Teilman Susato, playing just 4 bars at a time we grasped the 3/2 time, but recognise that we need to speed up somewhat!

A super meeting when we played an assortment of music, including Renaissance works by Thomas Tallis and Maddalena Casulana. Tallis’s “The Third Tune” with its 3 flats , was a stimulating challenge, but such a great sound! It was lovely to welcome a new descant player. The next meeting at the St Grwst Church will…

Three of us worked hard for almost 2hrs at practicing what we had gleaned in the workshop, and another piece where we found places where two bars were tied between quavers , followed by a quaver and crotchet ,( where there was a breath mark) , this proved to be a potential stumbling point if…

A brilliant afternoon! Richard Warford (music tutor and arranger) came to conduct a very enjoyable workshop yesterday. In just 2hrs we were playing differently, and even managed the whole of the piece from Christmas Concerto by Correlli, which has until yesterday had been a challenge! Having him conduct was a great help, and his key messages of…

How very important it is to give time to timing! Where a 12/8 might be played using a count of four beats to the bar, when drilling down to establish why some of us were not finishing together , we realised that counting in four sets of three had much better results! I should say here…

We worked hard last Wednesday on the pieces of music that we know will be some of the work to be covered during the workshop on Feb 7th. Namely, La Gambara, La Ugona, If Ye Love Me, and Non Lo Diro Col Labbro . The latter has points where all four parts take a simultaneous…

Happy New Year! We are back to our mixed selection of pieces that we were enjoying before we started to play Carols. Ballet by Michael Praetorius is a nice piece with a good descant part. We enjoyed ” Simple Gifts” , one of the “Tree Madrigals” and “Gwlysen”, but failed to make “Gartenleid” sound good! We…