No. Not a scatological latin joke, it’s the blackbird.
The choir were superb with this today. They learned it extremely quickly – which means that after two weeks of singing together everybody’s musical ear is tuning up nicely. The men and the altos picked up the harmony lines in an instant. They listened to each other singing their respective parts, and achieved a lovely blended sound. This is a high level skill and requires much more musicality than singing along to the radio, so the musical development is there for all to hear. The sopranos likewise delivered the tune with style – perhaps shrieking at Major Tom also had an impact…
In many respects the Russian National Anthem has been a turning point in the sound we’re making. We’re risking more and finding that our real capabilities lie well beyond the imagined ones. The limitations are those of fear, and when fear is overcome – through play or just recklessness – we achieve a much better sound than we ever thought possible. If only there were another couple of weeks, with this kind of bravery and commitment we’d be hammering out something extremely complex in 4 part harmony.
I hope the parallels between these musical achievements and the potential success of your stories don’t need spelling out here.
Da Sweedanya!
