A snapshot of an era

Glad to be back on track with rehearsals. It was slow going last night in places after a week off, but we made it! A few reminders:
Take notes during rehearsal - mark up the music so you can remember expression, cues, and breaths from week to week.
Go to www.musictheory.net and click on "Exercises." Scroll down to "Interval Ear Training" and say "Yes" to customizing your exercise. UNcheck all the minor intervals and the tritone. Check the second box under "how should intervals be played" to hear them played in both up and down directions. Then, click "Start Exercise." WHEW! The result is a wonderful ear training exercise on all the intervals of the major scale. [Hint: If you need to hear the interval more than once, click on the sound icon at the top of the page.]
Come early to rehearsal. I will have the music in order on the board, so assemble your pages before the rehearsal begins. This will also give us a chance to catch up with each other without interrupting our singing.
Have fun! This is great music, and I hope you will enjoy singing it. Below is a brief paragraph from our upcoming newsletter. See you next week!

The Renaissance was a turbulent yet inventive period of European history. The printing press was invented allowing dissemination of information like never before. Martin Luther's Protestant Reformation highlighted the loosening of the Catholic Church's grip on society. A humanist spirit prevailed resulting in a groundswell of artistic creativity and production. Music was no exception to that rule, and a wealth of choral music from that time remains in our repertoire as one of the foundational building blocks of the modern choral ensemble. Composers began writing multiple voice parts and more independent musical lines called counterpoint. Music within the church continued to flourish as English mixed with Latin texts. Dance and folk music were the basis of many secular choral forms. It was a significant time where many guidelines of choral singing and composing were established forever permeating this fine art.