Time For A Breather

The Holiday Rush is Over

Well, we got through another year's Christmas/Holiday season. In the month of December, I performed in two concerts with the Delaware Valley Choral Society, and four performances with the High Point Harmonizers. The Harmonizers had to cancel one of their gigs due to bad weather. Now we get to relax for a couple of weeks.

It's always a treat to do these jobs because of the happy audiences we get at this time of the year. They want to hear the old carols and Christmas songs, and we're happy to oblige. Though one of the places the Harmonizers sang we were just background music for people picking out toys for their kids.

That was at Project Self-Sufficiency. This is a terrific organization over in New Jersey that helps people, mostly single mothers, get on their feet so they can take care of their families without further assistance from anyone else. What better service could an organization provide? The occasion for us singing was kind of a "free store" where there were thousands of donated, new toys that qualifying families could come in and pick out for their children. There was a limit on how many toys they could take for each child, but it was a pretty generous limit - five toys per child, if I remember correctly. So we were far from the main event on this occasion. I think the only people who really took note of what we were doing were members of the Project staff. Still, we added to the holiday atmosphere, and that's what we had been invited to do.

After Project Self-Sufficiency, several of us went over to the Hampton Diner to have a bite. As we usually do, we sang a few songs before we left. We got a nice round of applause for each number from the other people eating in that particular room. For whatever reason, we always seem to sound really good in a diner or restaurant. Maybe it has to do with being more relaxed or something.

The Next Rush Begins Soon

I'll need to rest pretty quickly, it seems. Now that the holiday season is over, I get to put away all of the barbershop Christmas music, but I have to learn O Canada and have it memorized cold by January 6. Then I get to turn in all of my Delaware Valley music, but I have already received the music for the Spring concert, and we'll start working on that seriously on January 4.

While we are fairly far north in the USA, we never perform in Canada, so it does seem a little strange that we need to know their national anthem. The reason is that the Harmonizers have an opportunity to do a show at a minor league baseball park. This will be a paying gig, I believe, and will be wonderful publicity. The one basic requirement is that we be prepared to sing the national anthems of both the USA and Canada, as it's an international league. We will have to submit an audition video by January 15, so this has to come together Right Now.

The stuff for the Delaware Valley chorus looks seriously intimidating.The biggest, and baddest, piece of it is the "Mass in A-Flat Major" by Franz Schubert. I don't know how long it's supposed to run, but it looks like a solid half hour of singing, and none of it simple.

I'd better get busy.

The Problem With Christmas Concerts

It's the winter weather problem

I was expecting to go with the chorus to serenade some folks at a nursing home this past Wednesday. Then it started to snow. It wasn't really snowing that much at our house, nor was it snowing a lot near the nursing home. Unfortunately, it was snowing more near our director's house. Besides that, one of our best lead singers doesn't care to get out in bad weather, and neither do I. I will modestly allow that I'm one of our better bass singers.

I had been watching the weather reports and forecasts pretty closely because I drive for about 45 minutes to get to most of these Christmas gigs. If the weather gets nasty, I could be stranded a long way from home, and it doesn't have to get very nasty for that to happen. Our house is up in the mountains, such as the local mountains are. Even though I have a hard time calling them mountains - I've driven through the Rockies a few times - the hillsides are pretty steep and the roads are hard to get over if they're icy and snow-covered.

So on Wednesday afternoon I got the car out and made a run into town. We hadn't checked our post office box in a few days, so that provided a good reason to make the trip. That way I could check out the road conditions and make a decision about whether I would be able to get to the gig. I already knew that one of the other basses wouldn't be going due to illness, so this was a serious question.

Happily for me, the roads into town were perfectly clear. No problem. So I was thinking that I would be willing to give it a try that evening. Then my phone rang. When I answered, it was our director asking if I thought I'd be able to get to the nursing home that evening. After exchanging a couple of comments, it became apparent that she was just looking for a good reason to call off the performance. The roads near her were icy and dangerous to drive on, and she had found out that our wheel horse lead would probably not show up.

What could I do? I agreed with her. We have to have Fab singing lead if anyone is going to hear the melody properly, and I wasn't all that enthusiastic about taking a chance with the condition of the roads holding up.

We'll try it again this week. We're enjoying a warm spell right now, so travel shouldn't be a problem for anyone.

This means that I'll be doing one performance on Wednesday evening, another on Saturday morning, and a third one on Saturday evening. Then it will all be over.

By the time we're done, I'll be very happy to quit singing Christmas songs.

Christmas Singing

It's been too long...

since I posted anything here. First, I haven't established a good habit of posting - shame on me. Then, it got to be time to start working on Christmas music.

Besides singing in the barbershop chorus, I have also joined a community chorus, the Delaware Valley Choral Society. The DVCS started working on Christmas music in August. Seems way early, right? As it turns out, it may have been too late.

Just to complicate things, the DVCS also took on a second concert. This one was full of show tunes, opera, and Gilbert & Sullivan pieces, with featured professional soloists and an orchestra. That amounted to nearly an hour of singing, much like the Christmas program. As if that wasn't enough to overload my ability to learn music, the degree of difficulty was a lot higher than the barbershop music I've been working with for a couple of years.

So there's my mea culpa. I could have just said I've been busy, I guess.

The Various Performances

We got the extra concert done in the Masonic Temple in Scranton. We made various mistakes, but not all that many. Nobody seemed to notice, really, so that was good.

Then the Christmas stuff started.

We did the DVCS Christmas concert on November 30 and again on December 1. Seemed a little early to me, but I didn't make the schedule. We made more mistakes during these performances, but again nobody seemed to notice and we heard about how good it all was.

In the meantime, the barbershop chorus started its Christmas appearances. Now, we hadn't really rehearsed the Christmas music more than a couple of times. In years past, I've been accustomed to starting to work on the Christmas songs in October. This year, we didn't even look at them until the middle of November. Most of us were not entirely comfortable with singing these songs in public, but we managed.

First, we sang for the folks at an assisted living facility, and sounded pretty darned good. Still, "White Christmas" didn't work all that well for us. For some reason, that was the one song that we have been having problems with.

This past weekend, we did a show for the German Christmas Market in Sparta, NJ. Again, we sounded good, and struggled with "White Christmas" somewhat. People still told us that it was a good show, which is what really matters.

I'm looking forward to singing at another nursing home this evening, providing the roads aren't too bad because of the nor'easter that's spreading snow, sleet, and freezing rain around the area. 

Trying Times

We seem to be going through an "interesting" time in our chorus. For the first time in my experience, we don't have enough guys singing lead. Normally, there is no problem finding singers to take the lead part, as that's usually the melody. Because we sing largely old songs, most guys have at least heard them before and know how the melody goes. Easier than learning the harmony parts.

We used to have a good collection of leads, but one moved away, one took a new job and got really busy, one developed heavier family responsibilities, etc. Pretty soon, we only have two guys singing lead, plus one more who doesn't make it to rehearsal very often and is late when he does get there.

That's not to say that the lead singers we now have are bad - not at all. One guy is not a natural lead, but he does work pretty hard to getting it right and he shows up every week. The other guy also shows up consistently, and has a really good voice. Unfortunately, he doesn't open his mouth very much and doesn't produce much volume most of the time, though he can sing right out sometimes. The third guy, who only shows up sometimes, has a good voice, but can't produce much volume at all, so it doesn't make a lot of difference if he's singing or not.

This is all pretty frustrating. Basses like to be able to hear the lead so we can stay in proper harmony with them and can keep the rhythm of the music where it should be. When you can't hear then it's a lot harder to keep the chords ringing.

... And Another Thing

Then there are the videos I have been shooting. I decided to start shooting video of our rehearsals so we'd have a chance to see how we're doing and hear what kind of sound we make. I thought it would be good for me whether anyone else watches them or not.

After I get home from rehearsal on Wednesday evening, I copy the video from my camcorder to my PC. Then on Thursday I spend from six to ten hours editing. By late Thursday evening I start uploading the edited videos to YouTube. These are private - actually "Unlisted" according to YouTube - so that no one can see them unless they have a link, which I email to the chorus members.

I knew going in that it would take a while for the guys to start watching the videos, but it's still a little discouraging to put in so much work and find that only a couple of people are running them. Still, the fact that anyone is watching them is a good thing, and should help out the chorus. After all, if we're going to compete, and we are, then we need to have that more objective view of what we're doing.

An Inter-Chapter Sing

I didn't get home until almost 1:00 this morning, and it was worth every minute of missed sleep. The Montclair, NJ chapter of the Barbershop Harmony Society invited every chapter in the northern division of the Mid-Atlantic District to get together for some singing and getting acquainted. Glad they did!

I carpooled with four of the other guys from our chorus and got there right about 7:30, which was supposed to be when things were going to get started. The line to get in was out the door and getting longer by the minute. It took nearly 30 minutes to get my admission fee - pardon me, donation - collected and get my hand stamped. Walked inside and found that the hall was crowded and loud.

Of course, there had been quartets forming in the line while we were waiting to get in. Inside, there were more quartets being formed of guys from different chapters - usually three or four were singing at any given moment. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but it does raise the volume considerably. In a good way.

We found a table to congregate at and settled in. Rich showed up with a young man we had met at the state fair a couple of weeks ago. He's a bass, too, and we already have four basses, but he's a young guy and we could certainly use more young guys. Happily, he seemed to be favorably impressed with the quality of the music all through the evening.

There was certainly some good quality music being made, too. Both choruses and quartets made some sweet harmony, sang some rousing songs, and generally entertained well. We didn't do badly, ourselves.

Out of all the choruses from all over northern New Jersey and southeastern New York (including a chorus from the Big City and one from Long Island), we were the only chorus that actually had choreography as part of our singing. Not that everybody else just stood up like a bunch of fence posts. Most of them were clearly alive and put good facial expressions in to their performances. Still, nobody else moved from their initial positions, nor did they use their hands and arms in a coordinated manner. I was disappointed, as I had hoped to see what other choruses looked like doing their moves. Turned out they didn't really have any moves. ;-)

The only real downer about the evening was that they had said they were going to teach some tags, and that didn't happen. They did say that more people showed up than they had expected, and there were more choruses and quartets that wanted to perform than expected. Probably that made things run later than planned, though they shut down about 10:30 rather than at the announced 11:00.

In spite of the early end to the evening, my ride stuck around for longer than some of us wanted. Still, we got away eventually. Some of us did feel the need to load up on the chocolate covered strawberries that were sitting on the buffet tables. We heard the announcement saying that everybody should help with the excess of goodies, so we acted. I acted in a pretty small way, as neither my sweetie nor I need to scarf up a lot of sugar. Fred was able to make up for any shortcoming of mine, though, so it all worked out.

Other than a delay on the interstate on the way home, that trip went smoothly, and I finally got to get to bed. The only problem with that end of the evening was that I had to get up this morning. Maybe an afternoon nap will compensate for that. We'll see.

Rehearsal, July 30, 2014

But I Know How To Sing On Pitch!

We didn't have a really big crowd last night, and we didn't do a great amount of singing. Still got some interesting lessons about how well we sing.

We started out by singing The Old Songs. Easy, right? After all, we sing that one almost as often as Keep The Whole World Singing. We all have that one down solid. Well, we thought we did.

After we ran through it one time, the director (actually the assistant director, as the regular director is at Harmony University this week) asked for the pitch to be blown again. Ouch! We were 'way below the proper pitch. How did that happen?

So we had another run at it. Same result. Hmm...

Then we went to work. Turns out that many of us seem to have developed some bad habits. The leads weren't really getting up to the right pitch in the first phrase. Then the basses were letting their pitch sag, as basses often do. Then the baritones and tenors didn't have any choice but to slide down with us.

After going over the proper pitch several times, some of us started hearing what we were doing. Some of us didn't. This made the resulting sound seriously bad. Happily, the director stayed with it until we got a lot better. Whew!

Then we spent most of the rest of the evening working on getting up to the correct pitch on a couple of other songs - mostly the Armed Forces Medley. We've been letting the pitch slide so much that the bass solo on the Marine Hymn gets so low that we can't really sing it right. After a half hour or so, we were doing better.

We were sent home with the admonition to work on getting what we sing up to the actual pitch of the music.

I love a capella singing, but it's too easy to get lazy and lose your pitch. We're really going to have to work on it. I found an application called "Canta" that allows you to see what you're singing in relation to the actual notes, but it won't run on our Windows 7 laptop. I'll have to see what else I can find and report on that next time.

What  I Learned About Barbershop

I wasn't sure what I was getting into when I joined the Joplin barbershop chorus. I was hoping that I'd get to sing some of that barbershop harmony, of course, but didn't know how this was going to work.

When I walked in, I was greeted by several of the members, as normally happens when a new guy shows up. When it was time for rehearsal to begin, they put me right up on the risers with the chorus with a guest folder in my hands and I sang along as best I could. So the lesson was that anyone can walk right in and start singing with the chorus - at least with many of the choruses.

There are chapters of the Society (The Society for the Preservation and Encouragement of Barber Shop Quartet Singing in America, Inc. - really) that only admit new members after they pass an audition. These are mostly the top ranked choruses, as far as I know, and you could understand that they wouldn't want to have anyone join in that would threaten their ability to excel in competition. Other choruses don't care at all about competition, but are more social groups. And then there are chapters that do compete, but still allow anyone to join who wants to be a member. Some people just like a challenge, I guess.

Education is available - sometimes mandatory

Right from that first evening, my education began. Now, I'd been singing as a performer for a lot of years, but this group needed for me to know a lot more about singing than anybody else had ever required. What was presented wasn't in highly technical language, either, but the director and vocal coach told us what they wanted and how to produce it. I will say that knowing a bit about music theory - like being able to read music and knowing what sharps and flats are - was handy, but it wasn't really necessary.

I found that every rehearsal provided me an opportunity to learn more about music in general, vocal production, and singing in harmony.

Barbershoppers are kind of particular about how you produce a singing voice, or rather what kind of sound comes out of you. The good thing is that they will help you learn how to produce the appropriate kind of sound for barbershop harmony.

Then there were lessons on how to stand. You can't just slump and slouch on the risers! If you did, you wouldn't be able to breathe properly or produce a good vocal quality.

There's more, but it's getting late. The important thing is that these lessons come at a pretty slow pace. It's not all dumped on you at one time. Little by little, you become a better singer who knows more about what he's doing. That's not a bad thing.