This is a blog for a Community Choir in Leeds, West Yorkshire to share news, events details and anything else related to the choir.

Open Day!

The take up on the blog has been small if entusiastic by those who did and I can't help wondering if it is the dificult process of joining that has put people off. So to give a little incentive I am throwing the blog open to all viewers so people can see what it is all about.
Andrew

Posted by: Frewin at 15:07 | link | comments

Huge thanks to all!

Dear All,
Just to say if you have read this already forgive me; I am new to blogging!
I would like to thank everyone at GIP for your warm welcome and your forgiving ears.
Though I enjoy singing, I will admit that unlike Natural Voices I do not believe I can. So I hope I do not ruin your wonderful sounds each Monday!
A big thanks to those of you that have helped me hear the words and ignored my pitch.
I do indeed sing everywhere, but lose my nerve when others listen. However I was much encouraged when singing at work the other day (I work with little children), that I noticed a slight improvement! So perhaps Nat Voices have a point after all "anyone can sing."
Once again many thanks.
I look forward to Monday evenings.
Cheers
A wanna be singer AKA as Han8

Posted by: han8 at 22:26 | link | comments

How can I keep from Singing

Last week I was wracking my brains to think of who I had heard singing this but inspired by a cup of Rosie Lea at the break I remembered it was Enya who you can hear singing it here www.youtube.com/watch

For more about the song click here en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_Can_I_Keep_from_Singing%3F

For Pete seeger's version www.youtube.com/watch

Eva Cassidy www.youtube.com/watch

Posted by: Good_in_Parts at 12:08 | link | comments

Hello everyone!

Hello everyone, I'm a blogging virgin who's at last managed to figure out how to enter the hallowed portals of the GIP blog! I've uploaded my photo to mo'time so hope it pops up here - I'd love to see pix of my lovely friends too, it would help me know what's blogging on!

I look forward to some good discussions around the choir. You know it's never sounded so good (in parts!) but honestly, when we're on full throttle the sound is wonderful. As one of the longerstanding (not older) members, I must say how great it is to have all the newbies joining. You have injected fresh sound and life into the choir and give me so much hope for what we can achieve in the future.

There's such a wide range of people coming now, it'd be really interesting to find out why people come, what we get out of it, our musical tastes and experience, suggestions etc.

Anyway I look forward to checking in again sometime. See you at Julie's if you can make it.
Maggie xxxxx

Posted by: maggieg at 07:57 | link | comments (4)

A Star is Born!

A huge Congratulations to Jonathan for so ably conducting the choir last night on it's live radio debut. As so often, the dress rehearsal in the Green Room was fit to blanche a seasoned conductor when we didn't even have the starting notes to Oh So Seo but Jonathan came up with the solution of sopranos singing solo for one verse so everyone else could pick up their note.

The whole operation had all the tension of the early days of TV and Radio with everything being done live but whatever nerves might have affkicted Jonathan after the rehearsal, he ascended to the pulpit from which he conducted with calm and precision and led us all successfully to a performance which was very well received.

I stuck my head into the Production area and there was guy whose job was to press a button on his computer every hour to save each hour's programme as a separate podcast as aopposed to the "streaming" audio which was being put out live. He said they would be issuing the podcasts later - I guess there was only one internet link there - so we should be able to hear ourselves then.

Posted by: Frewin at 10:48 | link | comments

Skills Sharing

Dear All
On a non-musical note, it's been suggested that a multi-talented group such as ours could be a great basis for skills-sharing (ie each of us probably has a particular ability which could be useful to the others).

To kick this off, let me offer "PC Tuning & Windows problem solving" (sorry - no Apple Mac skills - but they never go wrong, do they )

Anyone else want to reveal their secret super-powers ? Post a comment using the 'skills' tag, and then they'll all be together.

JONATHAN

Posted by: jcoranje at 11:14 | link | comments (5)
skills

To the original choir members (pre September 2008)

 When I turned up to my first meeting of Good in Parts last September I felt somewhat daunted and not a little overwhelmed by the room crowded with people. I thought that they all knew each other and that all eyes were on me, a complete stranger. Little did I know how wrong I was.
Since then I have discovered that those of you 12 - 15 people, who are the original members, have been meeting together for a long time. I have realised that you must have got to know each other very well and had become friends so it must have been both disconcerting and unsettling to suddenly be descended by this veritable swarm of newbies.
So now to the point of this blog. It would have been so easy for you to resent all of us disrupting your smaller group of friends singing together, yet the reality has been so different. I want to thank you. the 'originals', for your openness and willingness to encourage and incorporate so many of us new people. I believe that this is an important reason why the spirit of our choir is so warm, so life affirming and such a joy to be part of. I want you to know that I greatly value your willingness to do that, so thank you again.

Posted by: RobinWalford at 12:46 | link | comments

Too previous

I responded to the last post with a far too previous "hurrah"  that I had found how to post to the blog...but I hadn't found it...maybe now I can shout Eureka??

So - to repeat myself...I thanked Andrew for getting us all started and for posting links for "Hard Times" which has gone up in my estimation. Altho i think i find the music captivating (perhaps not by bob Dylan tho')  but the lyrics ? Well - the jury's still out!

I think the songs posted from Monday night sound just great and it makes me feel good to be a part of it...esp as I can't sing! Now if we could all stand tall and open up the diaphragm the sound would be even more awesome.

Julie

Posted by: julietwow at 15:35 | link | comments

How enjoyable

I was thinking last night that as the weeks go on the sound just seems to get better and better. I think this might be because the same people are coming consistently every week and we're getting used to how our voices work together. It's so nice.

I really enjoyed singing O So Seo last night because it's one I've sung for years with friends and family in Abergavenny and it made me think of home :-).


p.s.Having the parts for Bonny Portmore on the website really helped!

Posted by: Siriol at 09:48 | link | comments (2)

What the Choir means to Me

A few months ago when Barney was preparing her article, I volunteered to be interviewed and though it ended up on the cutting room floor, talking about my experience of joining Good in Parts was stimulating. I was part of that flood of people that joined in the wake of Last Choir Standing but it had been on my mind to join a singing group for many years.

I imagined a smallish acapella group with an eclectic repertoire and I thought of advertising for like minded people to start one but what always held me back was that I knew you needed a really strong musical director and though I have a fairly musical background, I am not in that league. So the first thing I appreciated about the choir was Brian's leadership and methods which were quite new to me.

I went to Magdalen College School, Oxford which was formed to provide choristers for the college and still does. There was lots of classical music but it was intense and somehow competitive and never the joy it is in our choir. So that is my second appreciation - the Physical, Emotional and dare I say, Spiritual pleasure that singing delivers. I choose sad music when I am happy and happy music to raise my spirits when they falter ( which I am lucky enough to say is not often) and in this choir we get the entire range of emotions from Tebye Poyem to I woke up this morning with the sun in my heart.

I know some people found Hard Times a little morbid in its words but I do get a strange uplift from the sad sentiments expressed. It is strange because in many ways, Stephen Foster was a typically sentimental Victorian writer and like so many Victorians, there was a gap between the sentiments espoused and the life lived. His marriage - inspiration for Jeannie with the Light Brown Hair - was a disaster, he took to drink selling songs for nothing to buy liquor and dying in destitution. His last song was Beautiful Dreamer and that and Hard Times have achieved great success - the latter has been a favourite in the folk scene not least since it was sung by Bob Dylan. Here is a link to an Irish female group called Acabella singing Hard Times so if Dylan's scrawny looks and less than dulcet tones are not your thang then check these beauties out - you might come to love this dirge yet...

Lastly, I enjoy the choir for for the friendship I have found there and I hope that this blog will let us extend our friendship beyond the confines - limitless as they are musically - of Monday nights.

Posted by: Frewin at 22:43 | link | comments