Chapter Sixty Nine: Pearls Retreat!

This past weekend I got to get away with my girls. As busy as we are, setting aside some time to just enjoy each other's company is super important. So we headed out to Otter Lake in the Poconos to Katie's family's new trailer. Once all four of us were out there and all the stuff was brought in and the food unpacked we got down to some fun.

Friday night consisted of Dirty Board (a game that Katie's family picked up from another family out in the Poconos years ago - a combo of Trouble & Chinese Checkers), Trivial Pursuit (because it could be played while Sabrina stared cooking dinner), dinner (which was super yummy pork and delicious summer corn on the cob), then more game playing and bed. Once we were all in the back room we sang a little from our reclined positions, noted how weird it was to hear things like this (Bari top bunk, Lead lower bunk, Bass floor trundle, Tenor top bunk other side) and then promptly fell asleep.

Saturday was jam packed with awesome. We were up by nine-ish so we could eat, get dressed, and get to ceramics early enough to get four seats together. The morning walk around the lake to get to ceramics is always so peaceful and beautiful. Here is what we made:

I made painted the fairy, Sabrina the gnome, and Steph the baby Stella puppy. I can't share pictures of either of Katie's creations because they are presents for people, and I am no surprise-ruiner. Then it was time for a lovely walk back to the trailer for lunch and time to get water and gear up for our trip to Bushkill Falls.

I would like to start my story of Bushkill Falls by saying that it is a beautiful place and it was really a nice day to take the trip there. The second thing I would like to say is that I hate hiking. HATE it. The beauty of nature is beautiful and all but I will almost never go willingly hiking around to see it. There is pretty non-hiking nature and pictures from other people's hikes. But I digress. The first thing you do after you get your tickets is walk through a small diarama type room that shows the local wildlife.

This would be me, with my local wild life counter part. I would now like to commence with a pictorial narration of our time there. We walked the Red Trail.

We returned to the trailer sweaty and triumphant, and more than ready to jump into the pool. The coolness of the pool was, as we had hoped, the perfect thing after our hike. Then it was into the hot tub for a little while before heading back to start getting dinner ready.

Our lead is the grill master. So as she put the kabobs on we stayed outside with her and sang some tags. Dinner was amazing and the kabobs went perfectly with our vegetable packets, which had also been grilled. One of my favorite things about our retreats is the food planning and cooking. Sabrina and Katie take the lead on it and we always have such well rounded and straight up yummy food.

After dinner we decided we wanted to learn new tags. I brought the hand-out from the embellishments class Dale Syverson taught at the conference in Toronto. I had already shown the Rhapsody of New York tag to Katie, and in true tenor fashion she was salivating over that high note at the end. We picked it up with great success and after several times through, always tweaking to make it that much more fabulous, we were ready for another. The next was The Impossible Dream tag. We were loving how much movement and music there was in this tiny little tag. And also the fact that since it starts in a unison Sabrina can just start it anytime and we all jump on it. By this time it was about 11:00pm and quiet hours were upon us. We wanted to keep singing but we also wanted to go out to the fire and have s'mores. So Sabrina stepped outside and we closed the door and made sure all the windows were shut before we sang "a screamer of a tag." Sabrina, who was right outside on the deck, said that she could barely hear is. It was like someone was watching TV inside or something, and no one was going to even be that close so we could definitely get some late night singing done without disturbing anyone.

The rest of the evening was a blur of s'mores (which through the years I have found a way to make without the marshmallows thank god), singing softly around the campfire, and going back inside and singing through the tags as well as the uptune and ballad we're looking at. Although my favorite memory of the evening was probably when we decided to do a Cool Runnings version of one of our songs, which we actually made it all the way through, just before crumbling into a pile of hysterical laughter.

Sunday morning was breakfast, tagging, and some quartet planning. We talked about where we're all at vocally, what we want for ourselves individually and as a group, what we've all got going on personally this year, and how we can support each other in our goals. We also made the decision not to compete this year. Which involved some looks of surprise from my quartet-mates as I was ok with this choice. Between a wedding, two student teaching semesters, and a tenure year we've got tons going on. We want to improve, we want a larger repertoire, and we want to sing out more. But trying to get two songs we just finally nailed down ready for March would be pushing them too soon and making us more stressed and less fun. We'd rather work on our repertoire and kill it in the hospitality suites Saturday night at Regional. So that's exactly what we plan to do.

Before Sabrina had to leave we all went outside on the deck and rocked out the Rhapsody and Impossible Dream tags one last time before engaging in big ole group hug. Long story short, and in case you hadnt already noticed, I freaking love my quartet. Another weekend in the plus column.

Chapter Sixty Four: Musings on an Excellent Year

2010 was a supremely awesome year in barbershop for me personally. My first "real" quartet competed for the first time. I attended my first BHS and SAI International Conventions and saw champs crowned who I was totally pulling for -Storm Front in Philadelphia, PA and Maxx Factor in Seattle, WA respectively.  I choreographed for a youth harmony chorus, festival, and camp. And I got to hear live what I would consider two epic renditions of classic songs by outstanding quartets. I got to hear Panache sing Sweet Adeline and The New Tradition sing Smile (twice!).

It also made me want to make a list of what champion quartets I have seen live. Here's what I've got so far:

December 2007 - Vocal Spectrum (HCC's First Show)
March 2008 - The Buzz (Region 15 Contest)
July 2008 - Four Bettys, Rumors (IES)
March 2009 - Maxx Factor (before they were rock stars aka pre-SingOff, pre-Crowns)
May 2009 - The Buzz (HCC Annual Show)
October 2009 - OC Times (Brothers In Harmony Show)
May 2010 - Crossroads (HCC Annual Show)
July 2010 - Storm Front, Crossroads, OC Times, Max Q, Vocal Spectrum, Realtime, Happiness Emporium, The New Tradition (BHS International, Philly)
October 2010 - Maxx Factor, Four Bettys, Moxie Ladies, Spotlight, The Buzz, Panache, Zing!, Chicago Fire, Max Q (SAI International, Seattle)

Its a list that I can't wait to see grow and grow as the years go on and I'm lucky enough to go to more internationals :)

Chapter Sixty Three: Firemans Home

The Retired Fireman's Home gig is a Harmony Celebration rite of passage as far as I'm concerned. Its an annual chorus gig that is always lots of fun and is part of the yearly chorus calendar. I joked my tenor that now that she's sung at it the only thing she has left to do is compete with the chorus at regional and she's really in...well that and the blood oath, lol.

One of the reasons its such a big gig is that we sing two sets using all our chorus repertoire and feature chapter quartets as well. I remember the first time I sang at this gig there was nothing I wanted more than to be in a quartet that the chorus could count on to sing that day. This year I was in such a quartet :) We sang in both halves of the show and I was called upon to do some emcee work as well.

Its a gig that I always enjoy, but it was made even more exciting knowing that I could help my chapter fulfill the full time commitment of the gig with my quartet as well. Squee! :)

Chapter Fifty Eight: Pearls Coming Into Our Own

I love my quartet. I love singing with them. I love hanging out with them. I love that we are all truly the part we sing. Steph is a theory nut and music teacher, so hello baritone. Katie is the cute young blond with the high voice, so tenor in the house. Sabrina has this crystal-clear tone and scads of personality, my dear sweet lead. And I have more usable low notes than anyone else, am a harmony and rhythm nut, and think I'm the lead, so whats bass-ier than that.

What's been really great about over journey since our first contest is how well we are starting to gel on multiple levels. We've now been singing with each other long enough to know how everyone learns and what we need to "get" different things. We also found that its way more effective for us to sing for 45 minutes every week than a whole day once a month. We're starting to hit our rehearsal stride - learning what works for us.

After contest we decided to focus primarily on our uptune. We went through it to look for any notes that had migrated over time and to find places that were becoming easier to sing because our vocal production had improved. We found places to add in dynamic contrast and change the interpretation plan to make the song more our own. And we spent a lot of time dueting to really work on understanding how our parts fit with one another as well as to build confidence in singing them without all the other parts. The other great thing about all this duet work was again learning who really listens for what. Steph and Katie are the best at looking at the paper and telling you if you've sung a wrong note or not. Sabrina and I are great at listening for rhythms and interp. And all of us can catch each other when we fall out of producing our best sound or aren't matching up on our vowels.

For me the greatest part about all of the detail work we did on the uptune was that when we finally went to work on the ballad it was automatically singing at a higher level. All of the tuning our ears had been doing and working on better vocal production and breath support - it all transferred over. And yes there were still spots where we had to check for funny notes and we still had to really work out the interp plan, but we didn't have to go back to square one. It was so encouraging for us.

Next up for us is a very exciting spring. We have our first big gig singing at a wedding and contest two weeks later. Between the new a cappella arrangements for the wedding and continued work and coaching on the contest set we're going to be some very polished Pearls.

Fall Fun - Cultured Pearls at Steph's Bachelorette Party :)


Fall Fun - Cultured Pearls on Steph's Wedding Day

Chapter Fifty Four: That Thing Called Coning

On Saturday September 18th the Cultured Pearls had the honor of being coached by Ms Sharon Vitkovsky, baritone of the 1992 Queens of Harmony, City Lights. There were a good many things she worked with us on, but the thing that stuck with me more than anything was the concept of coning your own part.

If you are a barbershop singer you are probably more than familiar with the cone. The cool thing about the barbershop style is that when the bass sound is predominant it brings out the melody so that the listener hears everything (here comes the pun) in perfect harmony. That being said of the whole sound, for optimal singing it is also best that each singer "cones" her part - filling out with more sound when she is lower and not blasting when she's singing up higher. It has also been said that a good tenor is actually more like a volcano, sound bursting out through the high notes and not pinching them up . For this I have made a high-tech MS Paint version of the cone to give you a nifty visual - please hold your applause for my graphic design giftedness.

I had heard this term before, but had not really applied it to my quartet singing in any conscious way. What I found was that it made it easier to do my job and helped lock and ring the chords better. I also learned how to really support the sound when I got into my lower notes. I knew that pushing volume was not the same as giving more sound but I didn't always know how to open up my singing voice to achieve more resonance, and thusly more sound. (Thusly, don't I sound fancy...anyway.) I had been discovering through the awesome coaching the chorus had been getting, how to open up my sound and just how many dimensions it really had. The next step was getting all those places open so the sound could flow freely. When Sharon was coaching us I really started to feel and hear the difference when I did it "right."

But for me the really cool thing was after the coaching when I was listening to the recording I had made. I really heard, in our voices, that thing where the bass is the loudest but the lead is predominant - and its sooooo cool!

Chapter Fourty Four: Baby's First BHS International

Tomorrow I will depart for Philly with my trusty Lead and Partner-In-Crime, Sabrina. We will be taking part in our very first Men's International Convention and we couldn't be more excited. Thanks to the loving sponsorship of several ladies in our chorus we won't have to sleep on lobby couches. And in true Theatre Kid style, not only are we attending our first BHS Convention, but we're crewing an event - The World Harmony Jamboree.

I do, of course, plan to fully cover what are sure to be my fun-tastic experiences through the art of blogging. And will also be Tweeting like a fiend through as much of the convention as I can - because in my mind this is the kind of event that Twitter should really be used for. So to all you twittering barbershoppers, I'll see you at #bbshop :)

Philly Here I Come!

Chapter Fourty Three: Reality Bites

I have come to realize that I lack the solid skill set needed to be a supremely excellent quartet bass. I do not lack the enthusiasm or drive to get those skills and make them an all-the-time part of my bbshop performing life. But I have some work to do before I become actually as good as I sometimes think I am. So I made a list. Some of these I have begun to work on and some need some more serious work and attention. Here is my current list:

Cool Bass Thing........................................What I Need to do to make this better
Bass pick ups ...........................................better breath support
Counter rhythms........................................check. check. double check.
Crazy magic carpet/wall of sound.....................need more consistent vocal production & breath support
Fearless, pin-point accuracy...........................working on it
Love of the part and the style.........................check
Belief that I sing the melody...........................who else would be singing it?

I am Alexis, Bass-in-Progress :) hear me roar!
(and by roar of course I mean, take an accurate pitch, sing with forward resonance and tall full space, lift the ends of phrases into the next phrase, take an in-tempo breath, smile with my eyes, and sell the message of the song!)

*Author's Note*

It was my very fondest wish when starting this blog to be able to keep a chronological record of my super-sweet barbershop adventures. I wanted to post everything in order and take readers along my journey. The problem being that I started the blog after a lot of these events took place, so I find myself "back-logged." I go between writing about what just happened - with the excitement freshly in my mind as I type but then going back to fill in the space between where I last published and my most recent event so that I can "earn" the posting of it.

No more say I! I have many chapters written but unpublished because the connecting chapters are unfinished. But I am going to post them because what good are they if no one can read them, I mean really.

So here come the barrage of posts. Connect the dots as you may - and enjoy!

Chapter Twenty Nine: Week O' Barbershop - Day 1

Every year my office has a dinner to thank the principals and cooperating teachers who take student teachers into their school and into their classrooms. It is both a nice way to thank them for helping us to prepare the teachers of tomorrow and chance to get to actually meet these wonderful educators who we hear so much about, but don't often get to meet. I like this event because I get design the invitations and get to do the flower arrangements every year - just a little creative fun.

This year's dinner was particularly exciting because my quartet, the Cultured Pearls, was going to perform! I had wanted the girls to come and sing last year, but scheduling didn't allow this to happen. But this year I put it on our calendar nice and early - so it was the first gig to kick off our "Week O' Barbershop." It was also our first paid gig! We 'sang for our supper'!

Once everyone had their food Gail introduced us. It was a very nice introduction because 3/4 of us are Manhattanville Alum's and all of us are involved in education in one way or another. We sang 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin' Groovy), A Dream Is a Wish Your Heart Makes, and One Fine Day. One of our fantastic field supervisors, Prof. Gomez, even got a video of us on her nifty Flip that she uses to record her student teachers when she goes to do observations.

Our next stop was over to the music building. But on the way we stopped to take a picture or two under the beautiful flowering trees we have at the top of the quad. After that it off to see if we could catch the Cherry's. Mark Cherry and Beverly Meyer direct the Mville Musical, direct the Quintessentials (the elite pop vocal ensemble), and also teach Cabaret Performance workshop and other close harmony groups on campus. In short, they are the people who taught me to turn my diphthongs and sing with my chin down. They also taught me how to develop patter for musical sets and that the use my head voice is a beautiful thing. Sabrina and Stephanie and I were very privileged to work with them during our time as undergrads. So needless to say, we very much wanted to show off our super sweet quartet for them.

This was especially true for me because I was a girl who had trouble holding her on vocal line in college. In vocal ensembles I either sang Alto II or Tenor. I could learn and follow the line and sing it confidently from any standing position in the group. But when I was the only person in the group responsible for that part, I had trouble. It wasn't until I joined our college a cappella group, Manhattanville Sound, that I could truly hold my part. And what part was I singing might you ask...why bass of course.

But back to the Cherry's. We were thrilled to finally be able to show that what we've been up to. We found them over in Pius X, the performance auditorium in the music building. We hopped up on the stage, they took their seats in the audience and we sang the same three song set for them. They were smiling and clapping! It was so nice to be able to give that performance back to them. In the middle of two of the songs we stopped to introduce our tenor, who they'd never met. I told the story of how we told her we were "Cherry trained" that means we all turn our diphthongs together :)

After that we all had to run off to our different worlds. SQ had to get back to Jersey. Katie had to go to the library and finish a paper. And Sabrina and I were off to thesis tech to see a show that we wouldn't otherwise get to see because we'd be at regional in Philly. A most wonderful Day 1 of our Week O' Barbershop.

Chapter Twenty Five: Voices of Awesome

Let me first start off by saying, if you have not had the opportunity to see the Voices of Gotham you should really make a point of doing so. I assure you, you will not regret it. But lets not get too ahead of myself.

The day after my fantastic barbershop-encrusted birthday festivities I had another bbshop packed day. The day began with a meeting at Mary Jo's. This meeting was between the Regional Convention Committee (RCC) and the HCC Convention Committee. As the CAC (competition assisting chorus) we have lots of fun duties and this meeting was to get us acquainted with all of them and with our personal counterpart on the RCC. It was a very productive meeting, and as always it was delightful to get to see Sweet Ads who we don't run into every week because they're off with their own choruses.

No sooner was the meeting over but I was in the car with the lovely Ms. Sharon Tindle and and delightful Ms. Marianne Glennon on our way into Manhattan. That evening the chorus had a gig singing at the Barclay Hotel. We met up in a room off the main lobby and were provided with tea, coffee, water and some delightful snacks. After Scott warmed us up and determined a good standing order for our sound it was off to the lobby to start singing. For our first set we sang on the carpet in the middle of the room facing the Christmas Tree. For our second set we decided to move our location we weren't competing as much with the noise from the bar right behind us. So we moved to the other side of the lobby onto the tile facing the entrance. It was great and we even got some of our audience to come and sing with us.

When all was said and done we headed back to our little side room to gather our things. Sabrina and I announced that we would be journeying downtown to the Voices of Gotham Show if anyone would care to join us. As it happens our friend Steffi already had tickets and was headed that way, so we traveled to the show with her and her friend. When we got to the show Sabrina and I still had to buy our tickets so Steffi and her friend went in to get seats. When we walked into the church to see where they had gone we found them -- right in the front row. This was particularly amusing to Sabrina and I because we didn't even decide we were going to try and go to the VoG show until later after my birthday party, and even then it was under the condition that we could make it there in time after our gig at the Barclay. So despite all that we went, and got front row seats - sweet deal.

The show opened with a Christmas song staged as snowball fight! It was fantastic; they used the chairs as snow banks to hide behind, they threw and reacted to invisible snowballs and made excellent use of frozen images versus moving through the action. It set the stage for the whole concert and had the audience ready and waiting for more.

I'm not sure that I could pick a favorite song but I could certainly do personal highlights. For me they would be Waltz of the Sugarplumb Fairy, Brown Eyed Girl and Loch Lomond. Waltz is my long time favorite piece in the Nutcracker so that automatically places it in my heart. I enjoyed the choice of having the chorus behind us and the lights out. I cant lie though, there was a big part of me waiting for some delightfully farcical men in tutus type dancing, but alas there was none. Brown Eyed Girl featured three fantastic and completely different soloists. It was sung and staged as an exciting men's college a cappella group would do it, and that's exactly why I loved it. Loch Lomond - where do I even start? Their director, the accomplished and very friendly Mr. Larry Bomback sang the solo because due to a cold, the planned soloist was out of commission for the evening. It began with the quartet onstage and then added in quartet by quartet and they had some of the guys still up in the loft so it felt like the sound was coming from all around you. And the coolest part, ugh the COOLEST part? That would have the be the last time through when all the men are singing like bagpipes and the sound is just vibrating off of every surface in the place and you get covered in goosebumps. Mmmh Loch Lomond - such a meep worthy song.

So we're sitting in our sweet front row seats with Steffi and Neal and the gang. We're enjoying the show and all of the fantastic chapter quartets. And then we get to enjoy, for the second night in a row, the fantastic visual and vocal stylings of 'Round Midnight. Besides just enjoying these guys perform I think my favorite part would have to be when they walked out to the thunderous applause of the audience and were waving hello and they saw us camped out there in the front row and gave us that look like "Well hello, haven't we seen you somewhere before?" Tehe.

When the show was over we got to run around a little bit and say hello to friends. There were several Hickory Tree ladies there, including our friend Carolyn Schmidt and her lovely daughter Andrea. While we didn't have time to sing a tag with them before they had to scoot out to catch their bus/train, it was nice to finally meet Andrea who we had heard lots about.

In our post-show milling around we had to make sure we went up to say hi to Larry and tell him how much we enjoyed the show. (Especially because we were reading his bio and saw he went to Haverford and said to ourselves "Was he a Humtone?" - the answer of course being, yes.) We got to talking about how great the staging was, and he said it was their goal that no two songs should look alike. Well I say he achieved it. My sentence to sum up the show would be"The chorus is dynamic and their staging is as engaging as it is refreshing." Brava Gentlemen!

We headed to the back of the church to say our hello's the rest of the 'RM gentlemen and congratulate then on (another) show well done. We were very sad to have to turn down their invitations to come to the after glo, but we still had to catch a train back up town, drive to Mawah to get my car, and then head home to Purchase to sleep before getting up early the next day to drive to South Jersey and go caroling with ladies from our chorus. The allure of handsome men singing is very strong, so even though we didn't go to the glo we consoled ourselves with the knowledge that we had been invited with great joy by a group of guys we enjoy and respect.

The next day, despite a distinct lack of sleep and some of the grossest rain I've ever seen, Sabrina and I journeyed to south Jersey to sing at the Shoppes at Crosskey. Well the shoppes were a strip mall and the octet went from store to store to spread holiday harmony and get in out of the rain. One of my favorite memories from the day was in a store where they only wanted a small quartet and this group sang.

Our last stops were to the two resteraunts in the plaza. At the last one we were informed by the owner that she had been really excited for us to come sing today because she had this big holiday party booked. The party however, was booked for the wrong location and while she was still quite happy to have us there she was bummed that she didnt have a larger crowd for us to sing to. We happily sang for the few tables in the dining area and then sat down for complimentary bread and tea. We were water logged but in good spirits. As Jeannie put it "we all put in our 500% today."