African Coincidence

This morning when I turned over the image on my desk calendar, I was greeted by this brass Nigerian warrior.

Whilst there are no songs from Nigeria in Zimbe!, I nevertheless felt it was a coincidence too good to keep to myself as we do sing a protest song about 'not giving up the fight.'

Made by the Edo people in Nigeria, the small plaque is one of several brasses covering the doors and pillars of a large palace complex. This warrior, and his attendants are high status and look suitably fierce - I would not want to tangle with them!

They were made in the 16th or 17th century, and are now part of the Metropolitan Museum's collections of Benin art. Read more about them here.

Watch those moves

As traditional 'renaissance' choral singers it's quite tricky for us to get used to moving while singing, but look at these guys - they don't seem to be phased at all by doing star jumps and singing at the same time!

I love Sha na na and tall and lanky Bowser is just the bees knees. Oh, this does bring back memories of a year spent living in the USA, way back in 1982/83.

Other Child of our Time midi practice files

At the Stockton Corale website there are midi practice files for all the the songs in this cycle. They are available for each part with accompaniment or tutti and so really good
http://www.stocktonchorale.org/members.php

If you click on play for any of the parts you can also save them them. How this happens depends which browser you use.

Zimbe! available on iTunes

If you have iTunes and an iTunes account or are able to set one up, you can buy the Zimbe! CD tracks from iTunes for only $18.99, or you can buy selected tracks for much less. Great for practicing - and the notes will match your score!

The funky dance moves we're NOT doing

Last night was fun, wasn't it?

Learning to move and actually dance while singing is something new for most choristers. I'm no dancer, so it was a bit of a challenge to sing and think right foot double stomp left foot double stomp while singing. How do those singer-dancer types do it? Beats me!

You know, one of my earliest memories was having my little girl ballerina dreams quashed when my dance teacher told me, at the tender age of about three, that I "wasn't going to be no ballerina, mate!"

Some dreams come true, others get relegated to the wheelie bin. That's life.

Today I've decided to share with you another musician's dream. The dream of creating the world's funkiest music video.

I'm afraid its another dream that should have been relegated to life's wheelie bin a long, long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away...

Enjoy. Or whatever.



Now - after seeing that - don't you feel better about our own easy dance moves? At least we don't have to conga-line across the stage!