Hi Ralph,
Thanks for the kind words
We had our first real rehearsal tonight, and it all went pretty well. I've got things set up where I'm running the whole thing - narration and the music - off my laptop hooked up to the sound system. I have a second monitor which duplicates my laptop monitor, and it's turned towards the kids. So, they can see the narration (if they need it - I'm encouraging them to memorize) and the songs as they play on Composer. I formatted a "Lyrics" part for each that has oversized lyrics along with the notes and I'm getting everything off the screen that is possible (eg. not showing Palettes and such) so that only the pertinent stuff shows.
Even though the kids weren't familiar at all with the music (they'd only heard it once a couple weeks ago) they were singing along fairly well with this set up. Having the lyrics and notes highlight as it plays is a great way to help them learn it, and to keep everyone together
I have some tweaking of the instruments to do while going through the sound system at church. I had things sounding pretty good here at home through my headphones, but there were a couple of violin parts at church tonight that sounded sort of like one of the camels had trodden on Herod's cat's tail
I'll probably work around those peculiarities of that sound system this weekend.
ttfn,
Sherry