Rehearsal Explained: Anders Hillborg – Muoayiyoum
Rehearsal Advice:
1. Each part requires at least two persons (16 parts in all), and high soprano parts should have at least three persons for stagger breathing need.
2. The main purpose of this song is to achieve the greatest possible precision concerning timbre, pulse and dynamics.
3. Practice the phonetic word "muoayiyoum": (1) Choose a comfortable pitch and sing the "word" legato at a slow tempo to let each individual phoneme to be intentionally articulated. (2) Gradually increase the tempo. (3) One sings the "word" so quickly that the individual phonemes can not be articulated clearly and the "word" is perceived as a single sound. (4) Practice the rhytmicized type in order that the rhytmicized tone disappears into the sustained tone as faintly as possible. (Many similar transition sections are performed as imperceptibly as possible.)
["muoayiyoum" sounds like the sound effect of khuumei (a kind of overtone singing method) of Mongolia.]
4. Sing completely without vibrato!
Some Interesting Sections:
1. m. 1: All altos, tenors and basses sing their low or lowest register, and everyone has a different pitch.
2. m. 35: Whistle part – composer’s note: be careful not to whistle one octave higher than notated.
3. m. 277: Whistle makes its sound possible to sustain on the high C or high high C note.
4. m. 292-303: One quarter-tone is applied (One quarter-tone higher than C note.) to reach the extremely disharmonic effort.
5. m. 315: Hand tremolo: Singers should do it as fast as possible.