Harmony and Me, We’re Pretty Good Company

Just a (what I hope will be) brief update from me about what’s
going on in Nina’s world of singing, as I am simply bursting with excitement!

In some of my previous ramblings I have told you about the
singing course I did, the lure of the limelight and my passion for singing
harmonies, and I have been promising to tell you what I planned to do about
getting all of those things together this year¦ well, here it comes, finally:

I have created my own all female close harmony singing
group! Yes! After toying with the idea for quite some time, this is now a fact!
Our working title is “From Bach to Britney” and we’ll start rehearsals in two
weeks!!

Back in the Netherlands,
my country of origin, there used to be an all male close harmony group called
Montezuma’s Revenge (yes, interesting choice of name, isn’t it!) who were
absolutely incredible. They were a group of five guys, singing a capella
versions of well known songs (though they did a few originals) and touring
around the country with stage shows. They had this huge variety of material,
ranging from the amazing to the absurd, and what made them really interesting was that they didn’t just stand and sing ’ each
song had a little act that went with it, complete with special lighting etc. They
were absolutely wonderful and I went to see them in concert whenever I could. Unfortunately
they finally disbanded last year, after more than 20 years together (and now I
can’t get hold of their CD’s any more, gah!).

This is what I want to do! I want to become the female, New Zealand
version of Montezuma’s Revenge. Of course, Montezuma were all professional
singers who, after 20 years in the business, had arranging and harmonising down
to a fine art, whereas I have hardly had any vocal training at all (and even
with a lot of training I’d be no Mariah) and only just started to learn to
arrange songs, but it is good to have an ideal to aspire to, isn’t it!

I told you about the vocal arrangements I made for Out in the Cold and Rocking around the Christmas Tree, and my brain has since exploded
and I made quite a few more ’ they just come pouring out! I did The Name of the Game by ABBA, Secret by Missy Higgins (gotta have me
some Missy!), Warwick Avenue by Duffy and even a
classical Sarabande by G.F. Handel. So I simply had to do something about it
and get me some people who would sing them with me.

So, at the end of term performance of my singing course I
handed out flyers saying I was looking for ladies to start a group with, and I
got quite a lot of response on the night itself. Things then slowed down a bit,
because of course in New Zealand we didn’t just have a Christmas break, but it’s
the summer hols too, and life doesn’t really start again until February, but
after some emailing and phone calls and text messages I got my group of five
together. This morning I found the fifth member of my group, and we’re starting
in two weeks! Weeeeeeeee! They’re all great ladies, and we really cover the
whole range from high soprano to low “bassinette” (as my singing teacher calls
it).

I simply cannot wait to start! Of course, I’ll keep you updated
about our progress!