The Beatles
Photo: Wikipedia
After a great success with his own ABBA arrangements for SIC, Ralph Allwood turns his creative musical arrangements to classic Beatles tracks for Soprano, Tenor, Alto and Bass voice parts. We have five fab tracks to learn, enjoy and record (if you wish). We shall then combine all voices in the studio and play back the complete SIC versions to us in an online concert.
The backing tracks for our Beatles arrangements have been specially recorded for this course by ex “Swingle Singers”
Ben Parry and Joanna Forbes L’Estrange
Join us for
The Beatles
The five songs chosen are:
Yesterday
Written by Paul McCartney, Yesterday was first released on the album Help! in August 1965, except in the United States, where it was issued as a single in that September. The song reached number one on the US charts.
McCartney's vocal and acoustic guitar, together with a string quartet, essentially made for the first solo performance of the band. It remains popular today and, with more than 2,200 cover versions, is one of the most covered songs in the history of recorded music. "Yesterday" was voted the best song of the 20th century in a 1999 BBC Radio 2 poll of music experts and listeners and was also voted the No. 1 pop song of all time by MTV and Rolling Stone magazine the following year.
Hey Jude
"Hey Jude" was released as a non-album single in August 1968. The single was the Beatles' first release on their Apple record label. "Hey Jude" was a number-one hit in many countries around the world and became the year's top-selling single in the UK, the US, Australia and Canada. Its nine-week run at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 tied the all-time record in 1968 for the longest run at the top of the US charts. It has sold approximately eight million copies and is frequently included on music critics' lists of the greatest songs of all time.
Honey Pie
Recording began on 1 October 1968, at Trident Studios in London's Wardour Street. Only one take was recorded on the first day. The song is a direct homage to the British music hall style. It concerns a famed actress, called only by the term of endearment "Honey Pie", who becomes famous in the United States, and her old lover, who wishes for her to rejoin him in England. The premise – a humble admirer yearning for the return of his lover – is not unlike a typical music hall plot. To establish an appropriate, old-timey sound, the band added the third line, "Now she's hit the big time!", along with "crackles" taken from a 78 rpm record. The song begins with a slower intro, and becomes fast after that.
When I’m 64
"When I'm Sixty-Four" is a song by the English rock band the Beatles, written by Paul McCartney (credited to Lennon–McCartney) and released on their 1967 album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. It was one of the first songs written by McCartney, who wrote it when he was 14. The song was recorded in a different key than the final recording; it was sped up at the request of McCartney to make his voice sound younger. It prominently features a trio of clarinets (two regular clarinets and one bass clarinet) throughout.
Here, There and Everywhere
"Here, There and Everywhere" is a song by the English rock band the Beatles from their 1966 album Revolver. A love ballad, it was written by Paul McCartney and credited to Lennon–McCartney. McCartney includes it among his personal favourites of all the songs he has written. In 2000, Mojo ranked it 4th in the magazine's list of the greatest songs of all time.
McCartney began writing "Here, There and Everywhere" at Lennon's house in Weybridge in 1966, in early June, while waiting for Lennon to wake up. McCartney recalled: "I sat out by the pool on one of the sun chairs with my guitar and started strumming in E. And soon [I] had a few chords, and I think by the time he'd woken up, I had pretty much written the song, so we took it indoors and finished it up."
Between 1962 and 1970 the Beatles released 213 songs and many more remain unheard or unreleased.
How it Will Work
We shall learn choral arrangements of these 5 songs with Ralph Allwood MBE in live sessions. Once we have learnt them, we shall invite you to record your own voice for each song and send these into us. We shall then combine all the voices in the studio and play your version back in a Concert Performance.
Course Director
We are delighted to welcome back Ralph Allwood MBE as our Course Director.
Ralph Allwood MBE DMus was for 26 years Director of Music at Eton College and is now a freelance choral director. He is the Director of the Eton Choral Courses, which he founded in 1980.
Ralph was our Course Director for our popular ABBA course, completed in March 2021.
Backing Tracks
Ralph will teach each song to a backing track per SATB voice part prepared exclusively for this course by Ben Parry and Joanna Forbes L’Estrange. These tracks will be made available to us so that we can learn our part. We shall also enjoy “VOICE LOUDER” backing tracks where your voice part will be louder than the others. This is very helpful when we are learning our part in the songs.
Joanna Forbes L’Estrange
Joanna Forbes L’Estrange is an internationally renowned British soprano and jazz vocalist, specialising in contemporary music of all styles. A Master of Arts music graduate of Oxford University, she began her career as soprano and Musical Director of the five-time Grammy® award-winning a cappella group the Swingle Singers and, since then, has enjoyed a busy freelance career as a concert artist, studio session singer, song writer, choral composer and choral leader.
Ben Parry
Ben Parry is a British musician, composer, conductor, singer, arranger and producer in both classical and light music fields. He is the Assistant Director of Music at King's College, Cambridge, Artistic Director of the National Youth Choirs of Great Britain and Director of London Voices. This choir has performed on the soundtracks of major films, including "The Hobbit", The Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, the Harry Potter series, Spectre, Aladdin and Jurassic World. The choir has performed and recorded with major artists, including Sir Paul McCartney, Dave Brubeck, Bryn Terfel, Angela Gheorghiu and Renée Fleming.
Timings
The live sessions with Ralph are as follows and each session will last no more than 90 minutes. Please do not worry if you miss a session - they are all saved for us to enjoy later on and as many times as we like.
Monday 12th July
Course Start at 17:00
Tuesday 13th July
Tenors at 11:00
Basses at 15:00 (note: not 17:00)
Wednesday 14th July
Basses at 11:00
Tenors at 17:00
Thursday 15th July
Sopranos at 11:00
Altos at 15:00 (note: not 17:00)
Friday 16th July
Altos at 11:00
Sopranos at 17:00
Monday 19th July
Full sing-through at 17:00
Friday 20th August
CLOSE RECORDINGS
Wednesday 22nd September
FULL SIC CONCERT at 15:00
Saturday 25th September
FULL SIC CONCERT - REPLAY at 19:00
Course Fee and Scores
The Fee for this course is £35 and the scores are sold separately at £11.45 for all 5 songs.
PLEASE ORDER THE COURSE FIRST AND THEN THE SCORES.
If you need the scores only, they can be purchased here: https://www.theselfisolationchoir.com/store/p/the-beatles-scores
The course fee includes:
Ralph’s tuition
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Backing tracks recorded by Ben Parry and Joanna Forbes L’Estrange
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Mixing all voices in the studio
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Concert Performance
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A mosaic picture featuring the whole choir
