The 12 Blogs of New Year 2020: Day 12, Singing !

Whew!  We've got there...!   ...at last...   ...Day 12 !!!  We've arrived at the very last blog of The 12 Blogs of New Year 2020, Norwich's Phoenix Male Voice Choir's antidote to withdrawal symptoms following the end of The 12 Days of Christmas!!!

It always seems strange that in the gloomy days of mid-ish winter, we take down the very decorations that have brightened things up for the previous weeks!  It's actually good to see the number of the small pockets of 'decs' which are still on display in places.  But the '12 Blogs' are all about brightening things up too, be those things our personal moods, spirits, well-being, and so on.  So our theme for our final day is very close to 'home' to improve those things and this final blog will still be the gift that keeps on giving.

It's the final blog of our 12, so it's a great excuse to make a weekend of it and have a bit of a celebration!  It is our 10th Anniversary Year, after all!   Well, our Day 12 theme is: singing!   OK, you're not surprised, but you are wise folk, so we're not surprised that you're not surprised, and we're not surprised you guessed our final theme!!!

We're a Choir, so singing is what we do!  But it's not just 'any old' singing for us, it's got to be male choral singing...   ...we divide our membership group into 4 different clusters of men who share similar levels of singing voice.  When you look at us onstage, our highest voices (Tenor 1) are on the left and our lowest voices (Bass 2) are on the right, and everyone graduates in between, depending upon whether their singing voice is higher (Tenor 2, left centre) or lower (Bass 1, right centre).  It's this division of voice textures, along with some skilfully written music which gives each of our voice parts different notes (and quite often different words...) to sing, which gives male choral singing and the Male Voice Choir its distinctive sound.  Our mission is to give you, the general public of Norwich and of Norfolk, the chance to hear a Male Voice Choir live, and to add to the body of understanding and enjoyment of choral singing in the County.

Now, Men, if you think that there's a place within our Singing Men for you, we still have our rehearsal doors open at 7.30pm on the next two Thursdays, so just come along!  If you don't know whether singing is for you, then our Open Rehearsals are an idea chance to give it a try...!   ...No Charge, No Audition, No Obligation.   Stay and join us, or ride off into the proverbial sunset - it's entirely your choice!

Otherwise, our Singing Men (not in the least forgetting our Accompanist Jason and lady Musical Director Sarah!) give you their greatest gift (...well, OK, you do still need to buy a ticket...), and that gift is the chance to hear live male choral song!!!   We have six Concerts lined up for our special year -  three at our 'home base' and 3 around Norfolk - and we hope you can make one or more of them!   It will be great to see you in 2020!

Speaking of which, for our final blog, we offer a special (and additional...) gift and we've tagged it onto the end of our song to finish our 12 Blogs of New Year.  If you have avidly kept up with us over all 12, then thank you!   We hope you'll keep checking our website and social media platforms for what we are getting up to during the year!  For you, indulging in our finished verse of our final ditty will be easy peasy for you!

Otherwise, to the tune of The 12 Days of Christmas, with an additional 'partridge' bit in the final blog, everybody join in now!  Ready?  1, 2, 3:

"In the 12th Blog of New Year, 'The Phoenix' gave to me:

Male Choral Singing,
Level Minded Piping,
Ten Nyrrhs are Needed,
Nine Days' Revision,
It's a 'Made Up' Man Thing,
Serene Swans a-Swimming,
See Geezers Playing,
Five Sing-ing Live!
For Auld Lang Syne,
Three Hearty Cheers,
To All Men an Invite and
A Calendar with Dates we can see!
And Best Wi-shes for Twenty-Twen-teee!!!"

We thang yew!

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