No, not bass as in the bottom line of choral singing, but Bass as in the strait which separates Tasmania from Australia, or, as Tasmanians would say, the strait which separates Australia from Tasmania.  Anne and I have just spent a couple of weeks there on holiday.  It’s a beautiful place populated by warm, friendly people.  And the idea of a holiday is that you leave all your everyday cares and concerns behind.

Which we did, in the main.  The scenery is stunning, quite different from anything on the mainland.  My favourites were the rich pastoral landscapes with a broad backdrop of craggy mountains, snow-capped for good effect.  There are places in the wilderness where, were it flat, the end of the world would be just over the horizon.  The West Coast Wilderness Railway passes through some of the most inhospitable landscape ever tackled by civil engineers.  And Hobart is a delightful place, with both grand and lowly original sandstone buildings, thoughtfully restored and still in use, peppered between more modern constructions.

So how about the connections?  The first was at Sunday morning service at Hobart Cathedral, complete with choir.  The psalm of the day was sung – “I will lift up mine eyes to the hills from whence cometh my help”.  Of course, it was Psalm 121, which is the basis for The Protector in Stella Natalis.  The music was not Karl Jenkins, but it was a chance to focus on the words and their profound meaning.  So it was very interesting to sing the Jenkins version at rehearsal last night.  Carlos was at his most lyrical, cajoling us into singing not just the notes, but even more so, the words.  He asked us to look at the words of every piece before we sing them, to soak up their meaning, to enter into the spirit of both words and music, and to project those ideas to the audience.  That is what makes for a good performance.

The second connection was a bit tenuous.  It happened at the start of Holst’s Planets Suite, which the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra played brilliantly in the perfect acoustic of the Federation Hall.  Mars, the Bringer of War, started with a strange beat, and I thought, “I have been here recently”, but I could not make out what was making the connection.  Then it came to me – not two, three, four or six beats to a bar, not even five, but SEVEN!  Just like Wintertide in Stella Natalis!  Holst uses the rhythm to create the jarring effect of conflict and weaponry.  Jenkins uses the same device to create a scene of jagged icicles and involuntarily chattering teeth.  Yet another point where we have to project the notes and the words to make for a good performance.

Oh yes, the third connection.   This is the exception as it does involve a bass singer.  Anne and I were very privileged to have been given tickets to hear a concert by The Tallis Scholars in Newcastle on Tuesday evening.  Think Allegri Miserere and Spem in Alium, and more besides.  It was superb.  Also in the audience were Jack and Sandra Christie.  They are settled in their new environment and have joined the Newcastle University Choir.  It seems much more disciplined than MWC, for example there being absolutely no chatter during rehearsals.  Sandra commented that she misses the cameraderie of the back row of the MWC altos!.  They send their best wishes to us all.

I have to confess that I blow hot and cold over Stella Natalis.

At home, going through the bass part, it seems to be a matter of singing lots of consecutive bottom A’s, then lots of consecutive bottom C’s, and then, oh my goodness here’s a D for a change.  And so-on.  Which is not very exciting, although it is a bit of an exaggeration.  I always say that JS Bach was a tenor as he gives the tenors all the best tunes.  Conversely, Karl Jenkins can’t be a bass, given that he has written these somewhat pedestrian bass lines in Stella Natalis.

Then we get to sing the whole piece, all the parts together, on a Thursday evening, and it’s really exciting!  Last night was a case in point.  From our Earth sounds lovely in the round, but you would not expect it from just the bass line.  It helped that Carlos showed us how to bring out the contrast between feelings of quiet wonderment at the complexity of the cosmos and striking awe at its majesty and enormity.

And then of course there is the exception which proves the rule.  Dona nobis pacem has a fascinating bass line.   The harmonies are interesting, and it does not matter that we are the only voice which does not get to sing the glorious melody. Picking out the intervals is much easier using the techniques Cathy Kerr passed on at the recent Vocal Workshop, for example, singing a sixth by thinking up a triad then adding a tone.

So after last night, things are blowing warm, possibly even hot.  I have a feeling they will stay that way, at least until December.

At the end of last night’s rehearsal, Carlos made a point of saying that he felt that we are well positioned to produce two excellent performances of Karl Jenkins’ Stella Natalis.  The music is not difficult in itself, he said, and we are already getting to know and understand the occasionally unusual harmonies.  We are even getting to grips with the unusual rhythms and getting the feel of the quirky time signatures of five and seven beats to the bar.  With sufficient practice and constant concentration, he said, we will deliver exciting and memorable performances.

The concentration business is interesting.  There were a number of occasions last night where I found myself lacking.  For example, the music abounds in sudden changes as you turn the page.  As a Bass, on more than one occasion I had been enjoying listening to the Sopranos and Altos singing a delightful melody on one page and immediately on turning over found myself quite unprepared to sing a tricky chord in an unusual rhythm.  It’s one thing to remember all these changes, and another to be always ahead in the score (not with your head in the score!), but that may not be enough.  I hope our Librarian does not mind my making this suggestion, but I find that it helps enormously to mark the end of a page where the next page starts with, as they say, something completely different.  Attacca  is the official musical term, and some people write Watch out or put an exclamation mark, but any mark will do, just as a reminder to turn the page early and be ready for whatever comes next.  And, of course, make any mark in a soft pencil which can readily be erased.

Many of our members do this already.  If you don’t, why not give it a try?  It’s worth it in the cause of giving great performances to our loyal audiences.

Sydney is rapidly running out of water.  Consumption has increased dramatically in certain areas of the City.  For example, domestic consumption in the Northern Beaches and surrounding areas has rocketed just this week.

Sydney Water was at a loss to explain the sudden change until they heard that Cathy Kerr and Nadia Piave had conducted a Vocal Workshop in the area on September 25th.

A spokesman said “Nadia and Cathy persistently tell attendees to practice in the shower.  We understand that the exercises given can take rather longer than most showers for the purposes of washing.  After completing the exercises going up the musical scale, most people then follow up with downwards exercises, then find that they make up their own exercises for good measure.

“We are in the process of developing a virtual shower, giving consumers the feeling and sound of being in the shower without actually running the water.  That way, choristers will be able to practice all day long if they want to without affecting the water supply.”

A spokesman for the Manly Warringah Choir was unavailable for comment.

Even those of us with a only modest appreciation of jazz will remember Take Five, that gently swinging number by the Dave Brubeck Quartet.  Listening to it always gave me the feeling of standing in a crowded train swaying irregularly from side to side as it negotiated a particularly complicated junction or misaligned piece of track.  The effect is due to there being five beats in the bar instead of the usual two, three, four or six.  Sometimes a bar comprises three beats followed by two, sometimes two followed by three.

At M W Choir we don’t often get to sing music with five beats in a bar.  But last night I was reminded of Take Five as we rehearsed The Triangle Song in Stella Natalis.  Incidentally, I had expected, not unreasonably, I thought, a piece about a triangle to have three beats to a bar, but then Karl Jenkins is always doing the unexpected.

So how do you keep track of five beats in a bar?  Quirkily, perhaps, as per the instruction at the start of the music.  I found myself having great difficulty until I hit on the idea of tapping out on my knee “One, two, three, four, five”, repeatedly with the successive fingers (preceded by the thumb of course) of one hand.  By the end it was working quite nicely, and I hope that practicing during the week will reduce my reliance on the tapping to give more of the feel of the piece.

So – that’s a good technique for The Triangle Song.  But what about Wintertide?  That has the even more eclectic seven beats to the bar, and will need a different technique as most of us have only five fingers on one hand.  Does anyone have any ideas?  All suggestions are welcome!