Last TOR fall rehearsal

Tuesday was the last fall rehearsal for the TOR chorus.  We'll be coming back in January, and then we'll be rehearsing on stage, and we'll need to have our lines memorized! (Coro Verdi is easier in that we can continue to use our scores while performing.)

I'm usually quick to get my lines memorized, but this year I've been a bit slower.  I won't have much excuse for not learning them, because we have a piano I can use for practicing with. (It's a Yamaha baby grand we bought in the 1970s.)

One way I learn my lines is by writing them down syllable by syllable. (I indicate a rest by writing [_] for each eighth note.  I actually use a more curved version that makes the length clearer, but [_] is all I can type in this post.) Most syllables last an eighth note, but if one lasts a quarter note I write a hyphen (-) after it.  If it's three-eighths, I follow it with an equal sign (=).  If it's a half note, I use both (=-).  If two syllables last a sixteenth note each, I but a brace bracket under them, which indicates triples when it's under three syllables.  If a syllable lasts three-sixteenths and the next one sixteenth, I put a slash (/) between them; if the first is one sixteenth and the next three, I use a backslash (\).  And I use (|) to indicate barlines.

My approach can be useful for learning elision, which is common in Italian, one of our opera languages, but doesn't come so naturally to Anglophones.  If we're given "che un" to pronounce as a single syllable, I write down "kyun." And "E il" as a single syllable can be written "E'l." (In one part of BARBER OF SEVILLE we pronounce "si e un" as one syllable, so I wrote "syen.") One part that goes "E il cervello, poverello, si riduce ad impazzar" I wrote down as "E'l/cer |vel_lo, ___po/ve| |rel_lo, ___si/ri|du-chad___im/paz|zar."

I have some other tricks.  When a whole passage gets repeated, I put brace brackets ({) at the beginning and end, along with the number 2.  If it's just a bar or two getting repeated several times, I put the brace at the top, making it long enough to show the beginning and the end.  A big problem ends up looking smaller.

What a long post I've written!  I wish I had a subject like this every night.