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Lather, Rinse, Repeat… Memorizing Music

David Giusti leads the Revels men in Abinu Malkeinu
David Giusti leads the Revels men in Abinu Malkeinu... notice how many of them have this piece memorized. Photo by Elizabeth Fulford Miller

Each year, our amazing Washington Revels Chorus (adults and teen) and Children have to memorize their music. The process begins in September, as we learn each piece, but the actual memory crunch tends to occur sometime in November (like… now!).  Some years our job is easier than others… like last year, when the music was almost all in English.  But, this year, we are singing in Arabic, Latin, Hebrew, Judeo-Espagnol (also known as Ladino), Galician Portuguese, Castilian Spanish, and Catalan — this definitely makes the process of learning and memorizing more challenging!

With the exception of a few lucky folks (and yes, Greg Lewis, Washington Revels ED and song leader, is one of them), the memorizing process can be the most frustrating last step on the learning to performance continuum.

Have you ever had to memorize a poem, or some lines of text to repeat in front of an audience, or a class?  This form of memorization only involves words… and, that alone can difficult.  When you memorize music, there are many more details that become part of the process:

  • pitches (the actual notes that you sing)
  • rhythms (the amount of time each note gets)
  • expression (loud, soft, smooth, bouncy, etc.)
  • tuning and harmony (how does your part fit in with the other parts)
  • timing and rests (when do you sing? when do you breathe?)
  • text and pronunciation (what syllables go with what notes, and how do they sound)

As you see, this is a pretty complex set of variables to put together.  And you have to do all of this while walking, interacting, dancing, carrying things, going up and down stairs, spinning around, messing with your costume, ringing bells, gathering children, etc. (and not standing next to someone who is singing the same part that you are singing). We spend a lot of rehearsal time really learning the music, and then each singer has to “lather, rinse and repeat” on their own, in order to develop the muscle memory needed to be able to perform all of this music in a typical Christmas Revels production!   You are memorizing not only what the music sounds like, but what it feels like to perform it.

Here is a list of all of the songs that the chorus has to memorize for this year’s show (including the languages that each song is in):

1. Tan buen ganadico (Castilian Spanish)
2. A vint-i-cinc de desembre (Catalan)
3. Lamma bada yatathanna (Arabic)
4. Quando el rey Nimrod (Ladino)
5. Children’s Songs: Gatatumba (Spanish); Matesha, matesha (Ladino); Tafta Hindi (Arabic)
6. Pues que tanto bien tenemos (Spanish)
7. New Year’s Prayer (Ladino)
8. Rodrigo Martinez (Castilian Spanish)
9 Bain el bareh we’el youm (Arabic)
10. El desembre congelat (Catalan)
11. Riu Riu Chiu (Castilian Spanish)
12. Ay luna que reluces (Castilian Spanish)
13. Cantiga 185: Poder a Santa Maria (Galician Portuguese)
14. Abinu Malkenu (Judeo Espagnol)
15. Hanuka (Ladino)
16. Ocho Kandelikas (Ladino)
17. Shalom Chaverim/Assalam wa aleikum (Hebrew and Arabic)
18. Qum Tara (Arabaic)
19. Siete modos de guisar las berenjenas (Ladino)
20. Hoy comamos y bebamos (Castilian Spanish)
21. Convidando esta la noche (Spanish)

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The Terrible, Adorable Tarasque

Usually our Mummers play–the play-within-a-play in the second part of The Christmas Revels–features a hero fighting some kind of terrible monster. St. George and the dragon, for example.

This year instead of a dragon we have a tarasque. The tarasque is a fearsome beast that ravaged, so the story goes, a town in Provence and was tamed by a young girl. You may recall seeing it carved on a pumpkin.

On Sunday we got our first look at our tarasque’s body–including all six legs. Take a look at this:

Two chorus members put the tarasque through its paces. Photo: Helen Fields

That is one exciting puppet.

Want more information on the show or to buy tickets? Click here!

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Seven Ways to Prepare Eggplant

Eggplant! Photo: David Monniaux

Last night I was chatting with John Pomeranz, the Washington Revels board member and sometime chorus member who is making the food for the cast party in a couple of weeks. He chastised me for not having previously mentioned that we’re singing a whole song about food. It’s called “Siete modos de guisar las barenjenas”–Seven Ways to Prepare Eggplant–and, well, that’s what it is. I promised I’d send him the recipes, so here they are, just in time for Thanksgiving.

1. Vava – Cut it into bite-sized pieces and serve it for supper.

2. Dolma – Hollow it out and fill it with herbs.

3. Almondrote – Hollow it out and fill it with rice.

4. Alburnia – Ok, the song doesn’t actually give this recipe, but I can tell you that it’s tasty and you should eat it before the worm gets to it.

5. Jandrajo – Little pastries of eggplant, served with hard-boiled eggs.

6. Maljasina salad – Make it with a lot of olive oil and serve it with leftover hen.

7. Meyina – In the oven with an open dish with oil and pepper.

Ok, I didn’t say they were detailed recipes. If you don’t feel up to the recipes, maybe you’ll take inspiration from the chorus: “My uncle Cerasi likes to drink wine. Lots of it. He feels fine.”

Want more information on the show or to buy tickets? Click here!

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Meet the Brass

Washington Revels Brass
Washington Revels Brass in their "practice room" at the Washington Episcopal School... the "family reunion" begins! Photo by Elizabeth Fulford Miller

Well, it certainly was a big weekend in the life of this year’s Christmas Revels production — the full cast (adults, teens, children, musicians, and actors) finally has an opportunity to work through the entire show… in costume!  The “November weekend” at the Washington Episcopal School is also notable because it is the first time that we get together each year with our wonderful brass quintet.  As Music Director, I can tell you that we have THE BEST brass quintet!  Not only are they great musicians, but they are family.  In fact, they consider each Christmas Revels run (since they started with us in 1996) to be a “family reunion.”

Sharon Tiebert Maddox
Sharon Tiebert Maddox playing her french horn. By day, Sharon is the Director of Strategic Operations in the Office of the Vice President at Johns Hopkins University. Photo by Elizabeth Fulford Miller

Led by Robert Posten (the guy with the beard, above, playing the bass trombone), this group has performed under many “names” over the years — Boar’s Head Brass (2007), Belsnickel Brass (2006), Royall Noyse Brass (2004), Trombadori i Firenze (2009), Puddletown Brass (2010), and more — I wonder what their name will be this year??? Other members of the group are Robert Birch (trumpet), David Cran (trumpet), Sharon Tiebert Maddox (french horn), and Ben Fritz (trombone).

Prior to their yearly gig with The Christmas Revels, these musicians were known as the Annapolis Brass Quintet (at least, most of them).  America’s first full-time performing brass ensemble, this  group spent twenty-two years (from 1971 to 1993) playing in all fifty states and throughout Europe, the Orient, the Middle East, Central America and Canada.  Learn more about them at http://www.annapolisbrass.com/ (and you can even see some great photos of the group).

The next time we see the brass will be on Sunday at our run through at the Sidwell Friends School, and then we all move into Lisner Auditorium on Monday.  I will be sure to get some candid shots of the group in their dressing room.  There are two features that I look forward to each year:  1. A photo retrospective (group photo) from each year that they have performed in The Christmas Revels; and 2. Lots and lots of baked goods and chocolate treats… the brass room is a great place to get a little “nosh” during the show.  Stay tuned …

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Between the Feet and the Stage

You would not believe how much angst I had in my first year as a member of The Christmas Revels chorus. The culprit: shoes. It was 2004 and the show was set in medieval England, so we had to have very simple flat shoes. At one point I thought I’d had a pair of old shoes approved, but it turned out the person who said she thought they were ok wasn’t actually allowed to approve shoes, and their thick soles made them look too modern.

That meant, 12 days before the 2004 show opened, I discovered I was shoeless. This may not sound so bad, but I was totally stressed out. I was going to be spending approximately three bazillion hours standing over the next few weeks and I have picky feet. I was also new and didn’t have a sense yet of how flexible things were; I just knew there were rules about shoes, and I am a rule-follower.

The next night, I drove around the suburbs collecting pairs of black shoes. I brought them all to the next rehearsal – our first night in Lisner Auditorium – and showed them to Mari Parkar, a veteran Reveler who’d been assigned to be my “chorus buddy,” a kind of mentor who can answer your newbie questions. I told her I was afraid the costume ladies would pick the men’s slippers with the rock-hard soles and I’d be in pain for the next two weeks.

Seven years later, I don’t remember Mari’s exact words, but it was along these lines: “Here’s what you do, Helen. Only show them those two pairs.”

So simple, and so brilliant! They chose the reasonably cute black flats with subtle white stitching, which will be appearing this December in their fourth Christmas Revels. For most other shows, I wear a pair of boots I bought on eBay in 2006 (which apparently look 19th-century enough to get by). And, one year, I got to wear my completely fabulous Norwegian dance shoes.

From left: Norwegian dance shoes - note moose on label; shoes that pass for 19th century; black flats. Photo: Helen Fields

It’s nice not to have to worry about things like this anymore. I feel like this was also a useful lesson. Follow the rules, yes–but also ask your community for help.

Want more information on the show or to buy tickets? Click here!

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Widening the Circle

A chorus-sized circle lines the rehearsal room at the Revels office. Photo: Helen Fields

At the beginning of most rehearsals, and before every performance, we all stand in a circle for something we call – wait, the clever name will amaze you – “circle.” Some people find this a bit off-putting. Yeah, there’s a certain amount of hand-holding. But it’s part of what brings us together, and coming together is what makes The Christmas Revels.

Circle is a time for announcements about logistics and schedule, and for standing with your stage family, hand in hand, getting your body ready for singing. It’s for people who aren’t on stage and aren’t singing, too. The circle keeps getting bigger, reaching out to hold more and more of the Revels community and beyond.

The circle was pretty big at Saturday's all-day rehearsal. Photo: Helen Fields

Artistic Director Roberta Gasbarre explains it to us like this. At the first circle of the year, in May or June, the circle is just the adults in the chorus and a few other people. As the year goes on, the circle expands. The teens join us in September. In October we meet our children for the first time. Volunteers appear to work on props and make crafts to sell at the merchandise tables. Designers stop by.

In November we have weekend rehearsals in larger spaces. The costume and props crews start fixing us up with things to wear and things to hold. In a little over a week, we’ll be holding circle under the stage at Lisner, where there’s no room for a single file circle. The usual call is “Come to circle!” but at Lisner, it’s “Come to blob!” as we all squish in to listen to each other’s words.

The 2007 cast assembles under the stage for circle. Photo: Erin Sutherland

Finally, in December, the cast and volunteers and whoever else is there will end every performance singing Sussex Mummers Carol, holding hands, across the front of the stage and up the stairs at the side of the theater to encircle the audience. That’s when the circle is at its largest.

The point of Revels isn’t to stand on stage and sound pretty. (Although we do that, and quite well.) What makes Revels special is that we build a real community among ourselves, as we learn and practice the traditions represented in a particular show, and then keep expanding that community to include the whole audience in our celebration of the seasons. As the poem goes: “Singing, dancing to drive the dark away.”

Want more information on the show or to buy tickets? Click here!

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Eight Hours Beneath the Basketball Hoops

Chorus members line up to carry props from the rental truck into the gym. Photo: Helen Fields

As the fall goes on, rehearsal starts taking up more time and more space. This weekend we have two all-day rehearsals at a school in Bethesda. Saturday there were props. Today there will be costumes. There are musicians wielding brass instruments. There are musicians wielding every other kind of instrument, too. And apparently we’re going to perform this show in two weeks in front of a paying audience, so Saturday seemed like a good time for the directors tell us where to stand for the second half of the show.

So we spent all day Saturday under fluorescent lights in a gym, walking through the second part of the show. Lines on the floor corresponded to the borders of the Lisner Auditorium stage. We got a bit of music practice with the brass quintet and Trio Sefardi. I used to find these all-day blocking rehearsals exhausting, but I’ve learned over the years when I need to pay attention and when I can zone out. I impressed one of the new people with my ability to knit whenever there was a break in the action.

I made a lot of progress on this baby sweater today. Photo: Helen Fields

One of the teenagers got excited this morning when she heard I was writing a blog and said I should do it Gossip Girl-style. Me: “I heard a rumor that someone hasn’t memorized all her lyrics yet.” Her: “Is it…95 percent of the chorus?”

I think most of us know most of the lyrics already, and I know I’ll have it all down by the time the show opens (hopefully earlier). But the lyrics don’t really get solidified in my head until I put my notebook down, walk around, and sing the songs as if we were on stage. With more than 40 hours of rehearsal in the next two weeks, I’ll have plenty of opportunities to do that.

Makeup designer Roger Riggle saw everyone on Saturday to match their skin tone with foundation. Photo: Helen Fields

Today we’re back for another six hours in the gym. It’ll be our first time running the whole show, our first time rehearsing in costume–and our first rehearsal “off book.” That means the notebook, with my script and music, stays in my backpack. Yikes. I’ll be spending the morning transferring all of my blocking notes onto a piece of paper and copying the lyrics I’m not totally sure about onto index cards. Then I just have to confront the reality of a day where I’m reliant on pieces of paper and wearing lovely white robes…with no pockets.

Want more information on the show or to buy tickets? Click here!

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Ocho Kandelas Para Mi

Trio Sefardi and Flory Jagoda perform. Photo: Helen Fields

Last night at the Trio Sefardi concert we had the privilege of hearing Flory Jagoda sing her song “Ocho Kandelikas.” Trio Sefardi are playing in this year’s Christmas Revels; they’re the specialists in Sephardic music.

The members of Trio Sefardi all learned from Flory, a wonderfully talented musician who lives here in the D.C. area. Flory was born in Bosnia in the 1920s and came to the U.S. after the Second World War. She’s not joining us for the exhausting weeks of rehearsals and performances we have coming up, so this was a special occasion.

For about half of the concert, Flory sang, played guitar and percussion, and told stories about her childhood in Bosnia. Like the one about the aunts who knitted sweaters; one of them always made the sleeves too short and one made the sleeves too long. So if you met someone with a new sweater, you could tell which aunt made it.

“Ocho Kandelikas” is a counting song about the eight candles of Hanukkah. A “kandela” is a candle, so a “kandelika” is a little candle. The chorus goes “Una kandelika, dos kandelikas, tres kandelikas….” We’ve learned a version arranged by Trio Sefardi member Tina Chancey, so it was so exciting to hear Flory singing her composition tonight.

You may wish to study, because this is one of the times when the audience gets to sing along.

Want more information on the show or to buy tickets? Click here!

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Sefardic Celebration!

Sefardic Celebration CD Cover
Sefardic Celebration CD Cover (Trio Sefardi)

Tonight at 7:30pm, Trio Sefardi will be presenting a special concert at Cedar Lane Unitarian Universalist Church.  This will be Washington Revels’ second “salon-concert” presented in conjunction with the 2011 Christmas Revels show–offering a great opportunity to hear and interact with our guest musicians in a more intimate setting than Lisner Auditorium.  Tickets are available online or at the door tonight.

Trio Sefardi

Performers Howard Bass, Tina Chancey and Susan Gaeta share a love of and a wide-ranging experience with Sephardic music. Its members have performed and recorded with La Rondinella, the Western Wind, and with NEA National Heritage Fellowship awardee Flory Jagoda, the renowned Sephardic singer and composer, who will be joining them tonight in this very special performance.

Trio Sefardi
Trio Sefardi (Howard Bass, Susan Gaeta and Tina Chancey)

Trio Sefardi combines a respect for tradition with a creative approach to arranging and scoring to bring the vibrant past into the living present. After making their Washington-area debut on the Kennedy Center’s Millennium Stage in November 2010, the trio is now releasing their first recording, Sefardic Celebration this month! In fact, if you attend tonight’s salon-concert, you will have an opportunity to purchase one of the first copies of this new CD (Hear audio excerpts from their new CD online).

Learn more about the performers in tonight’s concert:

Learn More

What is Sephardic Music?
Music of the Sephardic Jews, including traditional songs encompass ballads, romances and wedding songs that were passed on orally and sung originally in various Iberian languages (Castilian, Catalan, Galician, etc.), as well as Hebrew.

Who are the Sephardim (Sephardic Jews)?
Those Jews whose roots can be traced to the Iberian Peninsula where Jews first appeared in the early years following the Roman destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem, and exile from the Holy Land. There are references to a Jewish presence in Iberia from the time of Solomon, when Jewish adventurers sailed the Mediterranean Sea.  The first notated date is 79 AD.  Spanish Jews in Iberia lived in relatively good times under Moorish rule during the 10th and 11th centuries when Islamic power was at its zenith.  Jewish physicians, advisors, diplomats and financiers were important participants in the Islamic Courts in Spain.  They were classed as politically neutral and used as arbitrators in all disputes between Muslims and Christians.

Information on Sephardic culture excerpted from Susan Gaeta’s Web site (www.susangaeta.com)

Want more information on the show or to buy tickets? Click here!

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The Future Has Arrived

iPad Sheet Music at the InterFaith Concert
My friends, the future has arrived. Photo: Helen Fields

Tuesday’s InterFaith Concert was lovely – there was such a delightful variety of performances, from traditional choirs in formal wear to barefoot dancers in shiny costumes. But this may be the thing that amazed me the most that night…

See that thing on the piano? Ramon Bryant Braxton, the accompanist for the combined choir pieces, played from an iPad! I hope he had a paper backup. You’d hate to have the battery run out halfway through the song.

Actually, the fact that pianists are using iPads these days wasn’t the only fun new thing I learned while we were at the cathedral. Terry Winslow, one of the esteemed veterans of our chorus, told me he grew up a few blocks away from the cathedral and, in the 1950’s, played tag among the chapels on the lower level. Another chorus member has been performing there since she was in high school (and I don’t think she even grew up in the D.C. area). Still another sang in a wedding there sometime in the last few years. The best part of being involved in Revels is getting to hang out with all these cool people and hear their stories.

Want more information on the show or to buy tickets? Click here!