h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

We are the RGU:Singers. The music group that was formed at university now has a name. We wanted to avoid anything that had "choir" or "choral" or "society" in it, which made it a bit difficult to choose a title for ourselves. We've decided on RGU:Singers. It's non-committal regarding what style of music we cover, how big or small the group gets, and saves people having to remember a formal name - we're just the RGU Singers which at the same time identifies us as one of the Robert Gordon University societies.

We've been trying all sorts of music out recently, from fancy stuff like the Ave Verum by Mozart, modern African tunes, the Mamas & the Papas. With Robert Burns' anniversary coming up next year we're also doing lots of traditional melodies so that we can put on a performace if we want.

Before the new academic year starts, there's going to be a stand at Freshers' Fair to get new students interested and to swell the numbers. We need to put together some publicity ideas for flyers and cards.

i love singing.. its great

its great that youve got a singing group at uni!

im in my schools choir. we are Blaxland High Schools Vocal Ensemble (which doesnt have the words 'choir', 'choral' or 'society' in it which is good ) we just went to an eisteddfod on thursday and are traveling 2 .5 hours to go to one of friday... should be interesting.

is your group you competing?

(yay, the mamas and the papas!)

Hi Hannah

Someone was looking through the list of groups and societies and realised that, amongst all the RPG and debating societies, faith groups, sports and activies teams, drinking and toast-eating societies, there were no music groups of any kind, neither singing nor playing. A call went out for musicians and singers to join a music group, and from this has formed the RGU:Singers.

That's a good name you have for your group, and sounds interesting what you get up to. We're not a competative group of any kind but we are being volunteered for future fund-raising concerts, and have been asked to do backing vocals on a musical director's latest album.

We're still finding out what music we want to do, and Mamas and Papas' California Dreaming was an initial piece put forward to find what voices we had among us.

Hi Hannah

Just to check with you, how did the eisteddfod go, did you do well? At my school choir, or any to which I belonged, we've never travelled further than the nearest main city to participate in local things. I'd love to take part in competative things, but just for fun(I hope that makes sense). Any news about this, or any upcoming events?

hey! thanks for taking the time to ask how the eisteddfod went! one of the vocal groups im in came first and the other got a highly commended which was a great outcome seeing as we were competing against all private schools...

the good thing is we dont take it too seriously how is your 'choir' coming along??

i think that was our last eisteddofd for the year but the bus trip home was awesome-we sung the WHOLE time! such fun.

hope you are well and thanks again!
Hannah

You were in two groups? Were these of different age groups, or different classes/styles/categories. Either way, sounds interesting. I'm not too au fait with some arts things, but I thought that Eisteddford only happened once a year, like the Proms and Glastonbury are annual events.

RGU:Singers is just for fun, with the option of participating in concerts at some time. However, we've been asked by our acting Musical Director whether we'll do backing vocals for her latest CD. Apparently that's why we've been learning the old Scottish folk melodies

the first one was for our Senior Vocal Ensemble and we were in the Welsh category so we had to sing in Welsh.. the second one was the Junior Vocal Ensemble where we sung New York State of Mind and Forever Now in an open schools category.

we are lucky to have lots of different eisteddofds throughout the year at different places. and they are all annual. what are the Proms and Glastonbury?

singing backing sounds like a lot of fun! you guys must be good let me know how it goes! and so is the director making a solo album? folk music?

Hannah

We're not bad, good enough to be suitable for the purpose and available. The right place at the right time and all that. It's her third album; I've not done much looking around but I think she does do mostly traditional Scottish music, stuff like Dainty Davey, Waltz of the Wind, Motherbird - yeah, I'd never heard of them either until we learned them After rehersals in the Sports Hall, we head out into the Atrium of the building where the acoustics are much better and finish with a couple of silly fun pieces. There are only about ten of us.

Here are a couple of links for you:-

The Proms A442784, an annual classical music festival at the Albert Hall in London.

Glastonbury A480304, a festival of chart, popular and 'alternative' music bands, held in Somerset.

The Welsh language sounds wierd initially, but interesting after a while, like most of the celtic languages. It must be fascinating to have two languages like that. At one choir contest at my school, our music teacher had to stop us from singing on the way DOWN so we didn't ruin our voices, we were soooo looking forward to the event.