Video transcript
2021 Primary Proms repertoire - 05. Never Polka with a Porcupine - teaching tips

[upbeat music]

RACHEL KELLY: Hi. I'm Rachel Kelly. This video is part of a series on tips for conducting your choir. This song is in two parts, soprano and alto, but quite a lot of it is actually in unison with only the occasional harmony, and sometimes taking it in turns to sing. The time signature is 2/4. This means we conduct two beats in every bar and each of those beats represents a crotchet. So, we go down, up, down, up. 1, 2, 1, 2.

(SINGING) Never polka with a porcupine.

So, a polka is a lively dance from Bohemia. It is occasionally pronounced without the L in American English. But, the standard English pronunciation is 'polka' not 'poka,' even though in Australia we do say poka dots.

Now this opening melody is all in unison up to bar 12 and it has some syncopation. Syncopation is when we accent notes that aren't on the beat. So, in bar 7, the 'cor' of porcupine is syncopated.

(SINGING) Porcupine.

And in bar 11, the word 'his' is syncopated.

(SINGING) 'His' design.

Now might be your instinct to conduct that syncopated note like this.

(SINGING) Never polka with a porcupine.

But, it's actually best not to do that here, but instead to give a strong beat just before the syncopated note. So, we'd go.

(SINGING) Never polka with a porcupine. Dancing isn't part of his design.

Then at bar 13, for the second half of the verse, we split into two parts. So, the sopranos have the melody, and they sing.

(SINGING) You can schottische with a sheep or swing dance with the swine.

And the altos have a lower harmony part. They sing.

(SINGING) You can schottische with a sheep or swing dance with the swine.

So, the note that both parts finished on bar 12 before this section was a G.

(SINGING) G.

So, the soprano starting note for their split is one note higher, up on A. So it's.

(SINGING) A. You.

And the alto note is one note lower.

(SINGING) G to F. You.

So, if you look carefully at the patterns that each part has in this section, you'll see that they're not exactly the same. So, the alto part has more repeated notes and the soprano part moves more often by step. Then for the last part of this verse, I would drill the soprano part until they're incredibly sure of it first. So, it goes.

(SINGING) But never, never, never, never polka with a porcupine.

And then once they know that really well, then you can slot the alto part in. And be careful at bar 19 of the lower alto part.

(SINGING) Polka with a porcupine.

You'll notice that the notes above the word 'ouch' here have crosses instead of circles. This means that we speak these notes instead of sing them. Now it always sounds better and carries better if we say these words in a higher register of our voice with some energy behind it. So, like this. Ouch! Ouch! Ouch! Ouch! Rather than ouch. Or not too high either. So, we don't want ouch!

And then at the end of bar 20, we see a repeat sign. This means we go back to where the earlier repeat sign is, which is bar 5. And this time we sing the words for verse two. But when we get to the end of verse two, we skip over bar 20 because that's for the first time only. It's called the first time bar. And we jump from bar 19 to bar 21, which is the second time bar.

Now at bar 22, we have a new section which is pretty straightforward. The sopranos sing a line first.

(SINGING) He's not too fond of dancing.

Followed by the altos.

(SINGING) Or other fancy prancing.

And then together.

(SINGING) He'd rather show off his tree climbing skills.

Now that word skills is the longest note we've had in the song so far. It's a minim, which means it goes for two beats, which is a whole bar in this song. So, we cut off that word on the first beat of the next bar. So, it goes like this.

(SINGING) Skills.

And we want to make sure that 'zz' sound is exactly together so it'll be nice and clear. And exactly the same thing happens at bar 36 with the word quills. Now we want to make sure with both these words that it's the vowel sound we're holding, not the L sound. So, we want

(SINGING) Skill. Not skill.

And then at bar 38, we have the final verse, which is like the earlier ones with different words. Now each of the verses in this song start with the same words. They all go.

(SINGING) Never polka with a porcupine.

So, your choir may need some prompting about which word comes next so, they sing the right verse at the right time. So, in verse one, the next word is dancing. In verse two, it's good. And in verse three, it's that's.

And the other part where they might get mixed up with the lyrics is the phrase that starts with 'you can.' So, in verse one it's -

(SINGING) You can schottische.

In verse two it's -

(SINGING) You can salsa.

And in verse three it's -

(SINGING) You can cha-cha.

So, you could come up with something to help them know what comes next each time. It could be a little signal you do that they understand. You could mouth what the next word is, although there's not a lot of time for that. Or you could tell them some kind of story that helps them remember the order in their head. Like a Scottish person eats some salsa which makes them do the cha-cha.

And then at the very end, both parts do a final ouch together. Now this comes on beat two. And if we're just conducting away in our two pattern, it actually comes from the upbeat, which doesn't look very finished at all. I'll show you what I mean.

(SINGING) Polka with a porcupine. Ouch!

So, we really need to do another kind of gesture on that last ouch. I'd probably do some kind of elaborate cutting off gesture to show that it's finished. So. something like this.

(SINGING) Polka with a porcupine. Ouch!