Singing for Water - And the Radio

Hmmm, I think I need to clean that out...


My regular choir's finished for the summer now, but I've joined another one that's formed temporarily to Sing for Water, raising money for WaterAid. There's about 70 voices drawn from several choirs across Wiltshire and we have just 6 weeks to learn 7 songs. In reality it's 3 weeks to learn them as the last 3 weeks will be polishing the songs to performance standard. We met in Trowbridge for the first rehearsal on Tuesday night - 2 songs down, 5 to go! There were 3 choir leaders there, so the way of learning the songs was quite different to what we've been used to as the different parts could be learnt pretty much at the same time instead of our usual in turn. Our local performance takes place on 8th July and we'll then be going to London in September for the big Sing for Water concert at The Thames Festival, where a choir of 1,000 voices will be performing.

We learnt a E Marabini, a South African song on Tuesday - with a really catchy, cheerful tune. However, the translated lyrics are quite sad:

What has happened with the Marabini dance. It has taken them away. We will look after this child because it indeed, has no parents.

The other song was called Talk to Me and consisted mainly of the women singing 'Talk to me' and the men going 'Dum dum dum dum' - sounds familiar eh?

BBC Radio Wiltshire was there and will be returning to record most of the rehearsals, plus hopefully the concert itself. Chris, our choir master was interviewed by them last week and said there are quite a few people who haven't sung before who will get to performance standard in the time we have - well that happened to me last year and it's happening right now to one of NAH's ex-colleagues who's joined the choir. The radio wants to see if Chris' claim comes true - so it feels a bit like one of those choir reality shows that's been on the telly recently. We had a lady dressed in pink waving a microphone in the middle of us all for 2 hours on Tuesday night - and she nearly ran me over in her radio car on the way in to where we're rehearsing! Our first slot on the radio is tomorrow morning, probably sometime between 9.20 and 9.40 am - on 103.6, 104.3 or 103.5 FM. There's also a listen again facility tomorrow on the website:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/wiltshire/local_radio/radio_wiltshire/

We'll be on the Olly Dearden show and it'll be 20 to 40 minutes into the programme...

Comments

  1. Zoë6 June 2008 at 17:04

    How exciting, I love singing too, but havent in so long. When I was small our school choir made a record in Tewkesbury Abbey.

    I shall try hard to listen to it , not sure I will get it on the radio, but will listen on the play again facility.

    What a good cause too!

    Zoë

    ReplyDelete
  2. VP8 June 2008 at 11:47

    Zoe - As an erstwhile freshwater biologist it's my favourite cause, that's why I've linked to their website from day 1 on my blog.

    If you would like to sing, you need to see if there's a community choir in your area - try a UK googling of 'natural voice network', they have a county listing of choirs. It's such fun, so do give it a go!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous16 July 2008 at 11:39

    I will be going to London in Sept. I have managed to acquire the music for the songs; any idea where I could get the words?
    Petra

    ReplyDelete
  4. VP16 July 2008 at 14:07

    Hi Petra - I've got them! Alternatively try the Sing for Water website. There should be a contact email for the London organisers who should be able to get the words to you.

    ReplyDelete

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