Video transcript
2021 Primary Proms repertoire - 10. Those Magnificent Men - teaching tips

RACHEL KELLY: Hi, I'm Rachel Kelly. This video is part of a series on tips for conducting your choir. This was the theme song from the 1965 comedy movie of the same name. It was set in 1910 in the early days of aviation. This arrangement is all in unison, which means the sopranos and the altos always sing the same thing.

The time signature is a C with a line through it. This is called cut common time, and it's just another way of writing 2/2. So, we conduct 2 beats in every bar, and each of those beats is a minum. So we go down, up, down, up, 1, 2, 1.

(SINGING) Those magnificent men in their flying machines. So, the singing comes in halfway through bar four as we're conducting our upbeat. To give some extra help to the choir in coming in we can use our left hand to cue them as well. So, from the very start we could conduct it like this - (SINGING) da da da da da da da da da. Those magnificent men in their flying machines.

So, throughout the song we want to connect all the notes of a phrase, and only breathe when we see a rest. So, the first verse would go like this - (SINGING) Those magnificent men in their flying machines. They go up diddle-ee up, up, they go down, diddle-ee 'own down. They enchant all the ladies, and steal all their scenes. With their up diddle-ee up, up, and their down, diddle-ee 'own down.

Now because of its old fashioned feel we can be quite posh with this song without pronunciation. Be careful of words like down, so it's down not down, and around not around. So, there are a lot of octave jumps in this song. An octave is an interval of 8 notes.

That means the distance between the 2 notes is 8 notes, and it's quite a big gap in singing. We have to place our voice carefully from one note to the next without sliding or scooping. So, we had an octave leap in that first verse when we sang - (SINGING) down diddle-ee 'own down. So, just be really careful to get that jump exact.

We also have a few octave jumps in this next section from bar 21. So, at bar 21 we've got a high C, then in the next bar we sing a middle C, which is the distance of an octave. So we sing - (SINGING) up, down. Then at bar 29 we've got - (SINGING) they're all.

And then at bar 35 - (SINGING) flying machines. And then kind of opposite to that we've got these chromatic notes. This is why we're singing the smallest possible distance between 2 notes, and this can be tricky too. So, at bar 23 we've got- (SINGING) flying a D, C, sharp D. It's an interval of a semitone.

And then at bar 31 we've got - (SINGING) frightfully. So, just make sure that we're singing those tiny intervals accurately, and not just kind of making it up. So, in this section those octave leaps are quite separated. And the little chromatic phrases are lovely and smooth and joined. Let me show you how that works.

So we go - (SINGING) Up, down, flying around. Looping the loop and defying the ground. They're all frightfully keen, those magnificent men in their flying machines. And then in this middle section from bar 37 we've got some more chromatic notes to be careful of. So we go - (SINGING) They can fly upside down with their feet in the air. They don't think of danger, they really don't care.

And so on. Then the next section is a piano solo. You might want to add some exciting choralography here if that's your thing so, your choir isn't just standing there for the whole time. But don't worry if that's not you, you don't need to do it. Then from bar 72 we repeat the middle section that we did earlier, but this time it's marked p, which stands for piano, which means soft.

Also, there's some little gaps that we add into the middle of the phrases. So, they're broken up into smaller parts. Earlier we sang - (SINGING) They can fly upside down with their feet in the air. This time we sing - (SINGING) They can fly upside down with their feet in the air.

And look out for the word danger. Very excitedly we have a rest halfway through a word, which hardly ever happens in a song. So we sing (SINGING) They don't think of danger, they really don't care. So much fun.

So, we've been all soft up until now, and then at bar 82 we see mf, mezzo forte, which means moderately loud. Followed by a crescendo sign, building up to an f for forte, which means loud. So, then we finish this section nice and strong. So, I'll just go from bar 81, so we're singing - (SINGING) Newton would think he had made a mistake, to see those young men and the chances they take.

Then we've got this dramatic piano interlude that slows down quite a lot. So, we'll slow our conducting pattern down here. So it's - (SINGING) bum, bum, bum, bum, da, da, da, da, dun dun dun dun. Then when the singing comes back in at bar 92 we pause on each of these 2 words. (SINGING) Those men.

Now don't worry about which beat you're conducting here. Just show each of those pauses. And then we're back in - (SINGING) nificent men - with our normal 2 beat conducting at the old tempo.

And then it goes along with parts that we already know, and it doesn't do anything different until bar 122. At this point, instead of finishing off the phrase like we would expect, we repeat the last few words a few times before doing a slow big finish. So, it's always good to have some kind of warning signal that your choir knows about that you can use when there's something a little bit different coming up that they need to remember.

So, for me I just usually put a finger in the air like this. That means warning, pay attention. So, from bar 117 I'd go - (SINGING) they're all frightfully keen those magnificent men, those magnificent men, those magnificent men in their flying machines. And we hold that last note on for 2 bars, and then we cut off exactly on the first beat of the next bar.

Don't forget there's an extra piano chord at the very end, what we might call the button of the song. It's good to conduct that, too, even if you're using the backing track just for a nice theatrical finish. So we'd go - (SINGING) chines - off, last note.