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Advocaat – One Of Your Five A Day? By Liz

Saturday 7 January 2017 – Dynamic Meladies’ First Meet of the New Year

Well, had any of us done any singing since before Christmas? Karen wanted to know. I’d had the flu and was still coughing, but had had a go at a few scales whilst driving my van the day before, making sure to do this very quietly at traffic lights, and hoping the Police didn’t stop me for driving with my mouth wide open (you should be able to place two fingers between your top and bottom teeth, whilst doing scales – not pretty but apparently good for you).

Anyway, here we all were, reasonably recovered after the festive, and once we had discussed whether advocaat was alcoholic or one of your five a day, we were ready to begin. A new lady had joined the group so we did a couple of name learning games – firstly clapping a rhythm and saying your own name then the name of the person to your left (went ok except on occasions when we couldn’t remember our own names), then we had to say who we were, and one positive thing about ourselves. This proved much harder than you would think, with a fair sprinkling of “sometimes” and “a little bit” – one day we will stand tall and proud. Then the co-ordination exercise – jumpy stuff you with your feet whilst doing octopus-on-acid impressions with your arms. Everyone else seemed to manage ok.

On to the breathing exercises. Take a breath, top it up with another, then another, feeling your ribs expand, lor lummy. Hold your finger out at arm’s length and blow slowly and steadily at it. It was easy to see who had too much breath. (Not me).

Then the voice warm up, making the sound “ng” as you went from your highest note down to your lowest, and back up again. This exercise is called ‘sirening’, and clearly shows the break(s) in your voice as you change from your high notes to your lower notes. We were asked to notice where these breaks were, and to glide up and down over them, to try and smooth them out. Some interesting sounds emerged, and the observation was made that it would be no surprise if we found a pod of whales outside.

But all in a good cause! With it being January, we were to learn a couple of Burns’ songs, to the delight of some and forbearance of others. “Ye Banks and Braes”, a lovely lilting tune, with a beautiful lower harmony arranged as always by Karen. We decided we would pronounce “departed” as “departed” rather than “depairted,” as the latter did not sit comfortably with us (!). Unusually, we were permitted to look sad – the song being about a young woman who has been dumped – her lover has taken the rose but left her with the thorn. Ah, we’ve all been there.

The second Burns’ song was the much livelier “The Deil’s Awa’ Wi’ the Exciseman”. Apart from the pronunciation – (sounds like “A war” rather than “A waa” as I’d have said in Aberdeen), there were some jinky wee consonants to get your tongue round – “And mony braw thanks tae the muckle black de’il” and “But the ae best dance that e’re cam’ tae the land,” – they would give “The Mucking of Geordies’ Byre” a run for its money. Best keep off the advocaat. Next week we will be intermingling the song with the Beatles’ “Taxman” – an idea Sheena says she came up with at 3am. We’ve all been there too, ideas at 3am, but have every faith in Sheena and await next week with enthusiasm and curiosity. It’ll be good!