Members Home Page
These pages are for choir members and provide rehearsal schedules, the
constitution and other useful items of information. The current tea rota and raffle rota
can be downloaded from here as PDF files. These were updated on 8 January 2012.
The Rehearsal Schedule and Tea Rota run until the end of September, whilst the Raffle Rota runs to the end of May.
Rotas for the remainder of 2012 will be added when the concert date (likely to be late November) has been agreed.
The HOC held its AGM on 6 September 2011. For the benefit of those who were not present, the Conductor's reflections on the choir's very successful 2010/11 season can be downloaded, as a PDF: Martin's musings.
Your Skills We would like to collect a list of the skills of the choir members, beyond a beautiful singing voice. You could help this by downloading the Word document and emailing it to Judy Leslie-Carter.
In December 2011, as usual, members of the choir gave a carol concert at the Hill House, as part of the National Trust for Scotland's special festive opening of the property. Photos (of the equivalent event in December 2010) appear in the Picture Gallery.
In August, a member of the choir kindly hosted a very successful luncheon party for choir members and their family and friends. The weather didn't quite come up to last year's standards but the food was as wonderful as ever.
In the Helensburgh and Lomond Community Spirit Awards 2010, the Choir was awarded a finalist's certificate under the Lifetime Achievement Award, reflecting the choir’s ongoing contribution to the civic life of the area. Walter Smith presented the awards at a ceremony in the Victoria Halls on Monday 26 April 2010 and Sarah Scott, as chairman, accepted the certificate on behalf of the choir. A photo of the certificate appears in the Picture Gallery.
On Sunday 27th November choir performed J.S. Bach's Mass in B Minor in St Andrew's Kirk, Colquhoun Square, Helensburgh (formerly The West Kirk).
Publicity posters for future concerts (in PDF format) will be downloadable from here in due course . Background information about prospective concerts is made available on Advance Information Leaflets ("AIL") which you may download here in the month leading up the concert. You have four options, namely: AIL, Word format-A4 size , AIL, Word format-A5 size (2 copies) AIL, PDF format-A4 size , AIL, PDF format-A5 size (2 copies)Until recently, if you wanted to listen to the work which we are learning, without investing in a CD, you could use websites such as spotify.com and we7.com to stream a selection of recordings to your PC. You had to join and put up with some adverts but this was an excellent way to experience different performances free of charge.
This state of affairs was too good to last! Spotify changed the rules applicable to its free service in May 2011 and we7 followed suit in September. Of the two systems, Spotify's free service is probably the more useful for choir members. There is a 6 month introductory period when things work much as before. After this, members are allowed to stream a maximum of 10 hours music per month. There is also a lifetime limit - any individual track can be played a maximum of 5 times.There used to be a waiting period of several months for membership - if any choir members sign up, the webmaster would be interested to know if this is no longer an issue. we7.com is supported by advertising (which some members may find irritating). In September 2011, it changed from an on demand service to a music DJ service. Its website states 'We believe what you like is more important than what you know'. The free service still allows users to sample the first few bars of any track but, since September, members who wish to control what they listen to have to pay for the premium service.
If you are interested in using Cyberbass to learn a part, the individual parts are available.
The Duruflé Requiem is classed as a major work and has a direct link:Cyberbass: Duruflé Requiem
Ubi caritas, the first of the Duruflé Motets is also available on Cyberbass.
Having found the work you are looking for - using the link above (or the one below to the main Cyberbass index) - you should find all the parts shown. "Click" the part to which you wish to listen on-line. You can also choose all the vocal parts - "Tutti". There is a facility to vary the tempo up or down (see Player Controls-Speed) - in accordance with the Music Director's current whim.
The Dingwall Choral Society website has a very good section on preparing for singing. It contains loosening-up exercises (two of which we use already), comments on breathing and preparation and other material on warming up the voice. This site carries Martin's warm recommendation!