Choir rehearsal on Labyrinth Gardens

Dana Smythe

December 23, 2010 5:45 AM

Choir rehearsal by Dana Smythe

Now she had her choir, Dana had to get them ready to perform. The first step was to choose a song. After much deliberation, she had decided to run with a wizarding children's song that she hoped most people would already know. Those who didn't would hopefully be able to pick it up quickly. She had found a version in the music section of the library that had two parts written in, which she thought would sound nice and offer more variety than everyoine just singing the same tune. They were only a small group and didn't have much time to practise so she didn't want to do anything too fancy, but at the same time they should put some effort in, if simply just to not look stupid on stage.

Music sheets in hand (she'd charmed the copies herself), Dana waited for the others to arrive in the gardens. She'd decided to have the first meeting in a clearing away from the rest of the school, because even in a closed classroom they would be over-heard by practically everyone. They needed to have at least the first practise getting to know the tune without everyone listening in. So she met them at the entrance to the labyrinth, and when everyone had arrived she led them trhough the maze to a suitably large clearing surrounded by high hedges. "Okay, I've got the music sheets here," she said, and she handed one out to each student. The sheet had the score - each of the two singing parts written on separate lines - with the lyrics underneath. She didn't know whether anyone else there could read music, but that's how the sheets had come so it was irrelevant, really. "I thought we shuld do this song because it's fairly easy, and it should be familiar to lots of the audience because it's a wizarding children's song," (she explained for those who might not know). "It's called Something Wicked This Way Comes, and there are two parts, one low and one high. You can, um, pick which part you like." dana had already decided she would sing with whichever group needed her more to make up its numbers. The lower part wasn't very low, and the higher part was okay apart from right at the end, when it did go fairly high, but Dana thought she could manage it.

"I thought we should just have a run-through and see how we go - if you don't know the tune you can just listen the first time. Let's see, the lower part starts on this note." She flicked her wand to produce a loud middle C. "And the higher part on this note." Again she flicked her wand and produced an A. Dana decided to give the lower part a go for the time being. "After four, then," she said, and muttered a spell that caused her wand to emit the ticking of a metronome. She counted them in and began to sing.

0 Dana Smythe Choir rehearsal 142 Dana Smythe 1 5

Jane and Edmond Carey

December 23, 2010 6:38 PM

Rehearsing by Jane and Edmond Carey

Jane listened politely to her brother’s ramble about properties of the bushes he thought the hedges that made up the Labyrinth Gardens were made of, fairly sure she had heard it at least once before, as they walked toward the practice Miss Smythe had called for the choir. For some reason, he’d been enthusing over Herbology lately, writing letters home for books about different plants and sample kits and talking a great deal to her about flowers and how much she had deduced of the Language of Flowers from her novels. She wasn’t concerned, though; they had both been taught to follow their interests, within acceptable parameters, in the interests of being better-rounded and more generally knowledgeable, and Edmond had always been especially bad about jumping from topic to topic in ways that only really made sense to him.

She did, though, touch his arm to shut him up when they reached the meeting point. The rest of the group almost certainly lacked both her patience with him and any interest in the subject he was currently absorbed with. He looked momentarily surprised and a little put out, but then realized why she’d done it and nodded.

He was, to Jane’s mixed amusement and dismay, the only boy present. Everyone else willing to participate was a girl. Edmond, at least, appeared not to notice as he first walked with them to the clearing and then took a sheet of music and studied it.

They didn’t do it often now, not having the time or resources at school, but they had both been taught to read music, and to play and sing a little, because those were skills a lady needed to know and…well, weren’t inappropriate for a gentleman, especially the playing. Or so Mother said. So long as it was at least somewhat gender-neutral, Mother wasn’t as irritated when Edmond dropped in on something primarily meant for Jane to study as she was when Jane insisted on learning the same things he did.

It was something she just couldn’t understand. She could learn as well as Edmond could – maybe, though she wouldn’t say it, better, considering that she was learning the same things and he was older. Why shouldn’t she use it the same way? If she knew as much as he did, why shouldn’t someone respect her as much in international affairs or mathematics or whatever the topic was as they would him?

But that was wrong thinking. Mother said so.

She had heard the song they were going to do before, though she didn’t know it in full; for some reason, the music master didn’t seem to like it very much. “Can you sing in these ranges?” she asked Edmond quietly, indicating the lower part. She thought she could manage it easily – she had moved between parts a little at times, could pull off a Soprano II if she needed to, but settled most comfortably into the middle of the spectrum of Alto I – but Edmond’s singing voice was noticeably lower.

“I have no idea,” he said cheerfully.

The first run-through didn’t go badly, though she wasn’t sure the way Edmond pitched the final note, though it sounded all right, was technically in the music. She decided to speak up after it. “I think I can handle whichever part you need me to,” she said, “except for maybe the last note.” She could manage that one, too, but it strained her throat a little, and she’d been taught not to do that.

“I can also provide instrumentals if you’d rather not have the one part out of line with the others, Miss Smythe,” Edmond added. “Though I might have to have some assistance with the Transfiguration if the instrument in question is very large.”

0 Jane and Edmond Carey Rehearsing 0 Jane and Edmond Carey 0 5