Video transcript
Festival of Choral Music 2023 - Repertoire - The Captain's Tale - 01. Teaching tips

[intro music]

RACHEL KELLY: Hi, I'm Rachel Kelly. This video is part of a series on tips for conducting your choir. The Captain's Tale by Australian composer Paul Jarman is a unison piece that sometimes has the sopranos and altos taking it in turns to sing the melody and sometimes has them all singing together.

Now, there are 6 short verses that all have the same little tag on the end that goes like this. (singing) All above come down below. Hear the captain's tale! Notice, every word that I sang then joined on to the next one? So there's no little gap in the middle like this.

(singing) All above come down below. Hear the captain's tale! It's one long phrase. You could maybe teach them that little tag first and then play them the whole song and have them join in every time that happens. The only difference is at the very end of the song with that tag, the final little part of it has an optional higher octave for any sopranos that you have that might be able to sing those high notes beautifully.

You'll hear that high part on the teaching track. The text of this song is lots of fun to sing and lends itself to some great rhythms that you have to learn really carefully right from the beginning before you allow any mistakes to creep in that might be really hard to undo. If you look at the first half of each verse, sometimes at the end of the second bar, there's a little quaver rest, and sometimes there isn't.

So when it's there, that means you take a breath, and you separate those little phrases. When it's not there, you have to connect those phrases together to make one long phrase. So you'll see in verse one, there is a little quaver rest at the end of bar 11. So we sing it like this.

(singing) Here ye boys, what it'll be? Come gather 'round, have a drink on me. But in verse 2, there isn't a rest at the end of bar 24. So we join it up like this.

(singing) Here ye boys, join our song. Sink your ship and it won't be long. Now, if you've got a keen eye, you might have noticed that at the end of bar 64, where I just stopped, there isn't a rest to take a breath. But we will take a breath there.

So you might want to add in just a little breath mark comma after the word 'long' so you remember that it's a breathing spot. And then for verse 3, starting from about 36, again, it's one long phrase with no gap in the middle. So it goes, (singing) Here ye boys, we're still here. A hundred years drinking plenty of beer.

Then verse 4, bar 57 is another one that keeps on going. So it's, (singing) Here ye boys, a little advice. If you fight the swell it will take your life. It's got some extra syllables in there to fit in as well. So watch out for that one.

And then for verse 5, which starts from bar 70, we are softer, and we've slowed down a little bit. And this one does have the little quaver rest. So we put in the separation. So it goes like this. (singing) Here ye boys, the years pass by. So we stay where the sea dogs lie.

And then the last verse from bar 83 is back to what we say at the beginning, although this time we're alternating between sopranos and altos. So we put the little gap in again, and we're back to the normal speed and the normal volume. So it goes, (singing) Here ye boys, what it'll be? Come gather 'round, have a drink on me.

So that's what happens at the start of each verse. The part that comes next is the bit you've really got to watch out for when you're teaching it. Because depending on what the lyrics are, the rhythms could be quite different.

So the syncopations could come in a different place, or the emphasis of the syllables might be different. So listen really carefully to the teaching track or read the rhythms carefully if you can read the music, and make sure that they're accurate from the beginning. So in verse one from bar 14, it goes like this.

(singing) Tales to tell and tales to hear at the bottom of the sea. Notice that's all one long phrase that we joined up. You might, when you first teaching it, you might want to clap the rhythm while you do it. So you can go, (singing) Tales to tell and tales to hear at the bottom of the sea.

At this spot in every verse, we always sing, (singing) at the bottom of the sea in the second half of the phrase. But it's the first bit that changes each time. So in verse 2 at bar 27, it's, (singing) Plenty of room for a sailor done wrong. Plenty of room for a sailor done wrong.

In verse 3 from bar 40. It's, (singing) Drowned our sorrows in the deep. Drowned our sorrows in the deep. Notice, the 'Drowned our sorrows' part is all equal. (singing) Drowned our sorrows. And then we've got the syncopation. (singing) in the deep.

Then verse 4, bar 61, we've got, (singing) Died like a man, they'll tell your wife. Died like a man, they'll tell your wife. You could sing it like 3 or 4 times in a row, clapping at each time, then trying it without clapping it. Then verse 5 at bar 74, we've got, (singing) Drinking all the oceans dry. Drinking all the oceans dry.

And I bet you, they're going to want to sing, (singing) ocean's dry, like the other ones were. But it's (singing) ocean's dry, just to keep you on your toes. And then in verse 6 from bar 87, this bit is a little bit different. So it's extended.

So the sopranos do the little phrase first. (singing) Tales to tell and tales to hear. Then it jumps to the altos. (singing) And you guessed it, plenty of beer. Then all together, they sing, (singing) All of you are welcome here.

And make sure that one's even. (singing) welcome here. And then it joins on to, (singing) at the bottom of the sea. And then, of course, at the end of that section in each verse, we've got that little tag that we learnt at the beginning that goes, (singing) All above, come down below. Hear the captain's tale!

It's not easy to do that octave leap at the beginning smoothly. So you might need to practise that slowly. (singing) All ah. All ah. Then we get a little bit faster so you can make that jump sound really beautiful. And then at the very end at 99, we've got this little section that's different to anything we've done yet that goes, (singing) Hear now the captain's tale. Listen to the captain's wail!

Notice, halfway through that bit, there's one of those little quaver bursts. So that's where we take a little breath and make a gap. And then we finish with, (singing) All above come down below. Hear the captain's tale! With the optional high version for some of your sopranos if you wish.

And hopefully, you've also spotted that there's 3 times in this song where we shout out the word 'Hey!' The first 2 times are just for the sopranos. And at the very end, it's for everybody. So we want that hey to be nice and short and sharp. Hey!