ISLAND CITY CHORUS

Date: April 30, 2001 Great Job at contest!

Have you sold your Show tickets? John Clendinneng tells me many members haven't yet taken tickets for the show. If this includes you, how much you are prepared to pay in dues to keep singing with this great chorus. The show is our largest fundraiser, by far. We need to sell ALL of the 1000 seats. Right now, we are sitting at half the seats taken. A ticket to our show is an easy sell. We have a great chorus and two great quartets headlining the show. Ask your friends to come. They will enjoy the show.

Even if you have taken tickets, you must sell them. Please do that. We ALL need to do our part.

Music Team NEWS Thanks to everyone who participated this weekend. It was a lot of fun. We came 3rd in the chorus competition and qualified for district.Although we didn't make a lot of progress on the point score each and every one of you is to be congratulated for making a tremendous effort to learn the music and choreography very quickly. This was a real first for us and says that we can do anything we set our minds to in a short period of time. The judges pointed out the areas we need to work on and the music team will start the ball rolling next week to help improve vocal production, mouth shapes, vowel matching , attacks and releases and selling the songs to the audience. We're going to knock em dead at district.

Congratulations to "For tonite Only" for participating in the Quartet competition for the first time. It takes a lot of courage to do it.Our goal is to have 4 competing quartets next year so let's get started.

Congratulations to South Side. ( Editor's note: I was blown away by them. They placed 5^th in the Prelims and qualified for District)

Thanks to Bert Brossoit for arranging transportation. It went like clockwork and everyone had a lot of fun.

Thanks to Mike Nicols for a very invigorating warm up. It sure woke us all up in a hurry.

Those who went to the Sugar Shack for breakfast with the Concord Chapter had a good time and they appreciated us joining them.

Monday night we will start 16 Tons and will hopefully look at Orange Colored Sky for the first time.

Only 6 weeeks to Showtime so everyone please get involved with the various committees in order to make it a huge success. Don't wait for someone else to do it. Ask Jerry S., John C., Bert B. and Mike F if they need any help.

That's all for now folks, Alan Kenley, For the music team

H H H H H The Blue Champagne CD is now available. What a great sound these four talented ladies make. The CD makes it sound like you are right there with them. See Liz Mance and have your $20.00 ready!

Mini-Pitch Editor needed. Murray wants to give someone else a chance to edit the Mini-Pitch. He will be asking people for their recommendations. If you think you would like to try it out, let Murray know. He will help get you started.

A: Food should never actually touch the vocal folds (vocal cords). That's why we cough if food goes down the trachea instead of the oesophagus. It's the wrong tube. The vocal folds are in place to keep foreign objects out of the lungs. But food does affect the vocal mechanism by how it affects your overall health, and the lubrication in the larynx.

The first question is: What foods are good for you, period. You are a VOCAL ATHLETE and need to eat like one. A sensible, balanced diet will serve you well. A triple, bacon, cheese, chiliburger will leave you gassy with a rumbling stomach. Being a fast-food junky will impact not only your singing, but also your mental and emotional health. Eating things your body can digest easily, in a reasonably short amount of time, will leave you energised and ready to be your best. Salad, protein, fruits and vegetables, in right portions, will leave you feeling wonderful with the energy you need.

Then there's the AMOUNT of food you eat. Eat too little and you are not nourished. Eat too much and you are sleepy. All your energies are working on digesting food, not helping yo sing. The other common side affect of overeating is just not feeling well and more difficulty in breathing. And, if you lay down while overly full you invite the stomach acid to pay a visit to your vocal folds. But that's a separate topic.

Then, there's the affect of food on the lubrication in the larynx. Is it promoting a good mucosal viscosity (resistance to breakdown)? In other words, are the vocal folds getting the lubrication they need for the hundreds of thousands of articulated vibrations in just one song? To get a small idea of how important this lubricating is, start quickly rubbing your hands together. In just seconds, you feel the heat. If you put a smooth lotion on your hands they still move, but without producing the same heat.

To promote good mucus stay well hydrated, avoid overly hot and spicy foods that can leave the throat feeling raw and give you indigestion.

And limit caffeine (coffee/coke/black tea) which can seriously dry out the throat. They also dehydrate, as caffeine is a diuretic.

Foods do affect people differently, but know that you will seldom hear a great, consistent singer who abuses sound principles of diet.

Practice is something we do at home, every day, between rehearsals!

Rehearsal is where we reinforce what we have been practising every day!