The Orange Spiel Page 1 April 2014 - Singing Valentines ...€¦ · The Orange Spiel Page 1 April 2014 Volume 34 Issue 4 ... The Inner Smile 13 13 Signs You Are A Barbershopper

The Orange Spiel Page 1 April 2014

Volume 34 Issue 4 April 2014 We meet at 7:30 most Thursdays at Shepherd of the Woods, 7860 Southside Blvd, Jacksonville, FL Guests always welcome Call 355-SING No Experience Necessary

WHAT'S INSIDE Title Page Long Needed Update To The Pitch Pipe 1,5 Editorial 2 Big Orange Memory Book Part 1 3 How To Get Yourself To Practice 4-5 Free Your Voice 6 Free Singing Tips 6 Magic Choral Trick #297 7 Magic Choral Trick #291 7 Make Your Performances Better 8 Learning To Like Your Voice 9-10 Bar Notables 10 Barbershop History Quiz 1 10 The Problem With Excellence 11-12 Afterglow 12 The Inner Smile 13 13 Signs You Are A Barbershopper 13 Meet The Member 14 Barbershopper Of The Month 14 Quartet Corner 15 Chapter Member Stats 15 Board Minute Summary 16 Spring Convention News 16 Upcoming Schedules 17 Birthdays / Guests / New Members 17 Directing Team / Other Leaders 18 Chapter Officers / Music Team 19

LONG NEEDED UPDATE TO THE

UBIQUITOUS PITCHPIPE The ubiquitous pitch pipe, long a main-stay of those of us in the acapella trade, is finally receiving a major upgrade. There have been F-F models, more friendly to the male range. There have

been C-C mod-els, more friendly to the female range. There is even an A-A model, called a Japanese pipe, but probably made in China. There have been

black ones, white ones, blue ones, brown ones, and even red ones. There have been wind driven ones. There have been electronic ones. There have been cir-cular ones. There have been oblong ones. There have been rectangular ones. There

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The Orange Spiel is published monthly and is the official publication of the Jacksonville Big O Chapter of the Sunshine District of the Barbershop Harmony Society. The Jacksonville Big O Chapter is the home of the Big Orange Chorus. The chapter and chorus meet Thursday evenings at 7:30 pm at the Shepherd of the Woods, 7860 Southside Blvd. For more infor-mation vis it our website, ht tp: //www.bigorangechorus.com. Articles, information and ad-dress corrections may be sent to the editor:

EDITORIAL

by John Alexander For those dear readers who are unsure about the legitimacy of the lead article of this month’s edi-tion, allow me to point out that this month is April (fool). District contest is coming in only a few weeks. Are you the best you can be? Our annual show is coming only a few weeks later. We owe our paying customers quality entertain-ment. Are you prepared to give it to them? We’ve had some great guests, lately. Can you invite more? We need more growth. We keep saying that we need more gigs, but when we get one, it’s like pulling teeth to get people to commit to performing. Does anyone have any ideas about how we can be doing anything better? Have you made that suggestion to the board? What kind of chapter would my chapter be … if every member were just like me? I’ll try to come up with something other than plati-tudes next month...

2014 Board of Directors President: Dave Medvidofsky Program VP: Bill Vockell Music & Performance VP: Jason Lee VP Chapter Development: Terry Ezell Secretary: Daniel Proctor Treasurer: Cheryl Ezell Immediate Past President: Howdy Russell Members at Large: John Alexander Frank Nosalek Jeff Packer Dan Smith Mike Sobolewski Big O Bucks Coordinator: Mike Sobolewski Treasurer: Rick Morin

Committees Show Chairman: Dave Medvidofsky Chorus Manager: Ken Moyer Chorus Contact: Bill Vockell Webmaster: Frank Nosalek Youth In Harmony: Dave Parker George Breedon Music Team Music Director: Tony DeRosa Associate Director: George Gipp Assistant Director: Jason Lee Director Emeritus: Chuck Griffith Section Leaders: Terry Ezell Tenor Brad May Lead Jeff Packer Bari John Alexander Bass Dave Medvidofsky Bass

John Alexander, Editor 2429 Southern Links Dr Orange Park FL 32003 [email protected]

904-278-3987

For more detailed, timely information see my weekly publication: Orange Zest


T H I S S P A C E

A V A I L A B L E

Are you a member of the board? Chairman of a committee? Can you take a picture?

Do you have something to say?

Send your items to the Editor.

We need more stuff. By members. About members. About the chapter. About barbershop.

Of interest to the membership.

BIG ORANGE MEMORY BOOK

25 YEARS 1980-2005

PART 1 - GETTING STARTED submitted by Dave Parker

O n Halloween night, 1977, two barbershop singers met in a downtown Jacksonville bar after work and formulated the idea of a new barbershop chorus to be located in

the rapidly growing suburb of Orange Park. Al-though one of these men, Charlie Leech, moved away from Jacksonville a couple of years later, the other man became director and central sparkplug for the chorus. Over the next twelve months, Chuck Griffith held organizing meetings with inter-ested singers, including Sam Frankhouser, Tom Tierney, Wayne Brown, Charlie Leech, and others. They designated a new chapter that would (1) have reasonably stringent singing standards, (2) require all members to pass a singing audition, (3) be a consistent contest competitor, (4) perform fre-quently in the community, and (5) offer its members a well-rounded program encompassing the entire scope of the barbershop singing experience. The organizers vowed to recruit primarily in Orange Park and not infringe upon The Greater Jackson-ville Chapter recruiting area or recruit any of its members. The goal was to focus entirely on men new to the hobby and thereby introduce the joys of barbershop singing to increasing numbers of male singers. The first chapter meeting of the new Big Orange was held in a classroom of Orange Park High School in November 1978. Chuck remembers dis-playing an orange suit at that meeting as a “trademark” of the new chorus (later decorated with sequins as the “Orange Tux” which Big O sing-ers wore over the next fifteen years). Twenty-one men appeared at that first meeting as a result of advertising in Orange Park. Charlie Leech was auditioned as the first pre-charter member on De-cember 7, 1978, followed by Frank Scarvey and Al Rust. The next week, he auditioned Jim Gordon, Bill Brown, Cliff White, Ron Beasley, and Deane Moulter, all except Brown being new to barbershop-ping. Of the first thirty-eight men auditioned and passed for the chorus in 1978-79, twenty were new to bar-bershopping and twenty-one were under forty years of age. The majority of these men chartered with

the chorus in March 1980, and twenty-eight in the first Big Orange Sunshine District (State of Florida) competition that May (achieving third place). The new chorus was such a young group that it did not lose one member to death during the first ten years. Of the first twenty-eight contest singers, fourteen are still involved in barbershopping and five are de-ceased. Many of these early members strongly influenced the future direction of the Big O, but probably none more than Craig Johnston, known for his ultra low bass voice. “Craig couldn’t sing harmony at all,” remembers Chuck, “but he could sing melody two octaves down. With those pipes, we’ll teach him harmony.” Craig became a quartet caliber bass singer and founder of the infamous comedy quartet, “The Grunnings.” More importantly, he was a tire-less and devoted leader of the Big O, serving in a number of officer positions until moving back to his hometown of Red Wing, Minnesota in 1993. Craig’s design and implementation of stage pres-ence plans had a direct impact on Big O success in the upcoming years.


HOW TO GET YOURSELF TO

PRACTICE WHEN YOU DON’T

FEEL LIKE IT by Dr. Noa Kageyama

from bulletproofmusician.com You know those days when you soooo do not want to practice? Where you sort of putz around the house looking for an excuse to do almost anything else? On the plus side, I suppose those are the days when the refrigerator gets cleaned out and the bathroom cabinets get organized, but those things don’t leave us feeling especially great about our-selves at the end of the day. Yes, that inner drive sure is nice when it’s there, on those days when we feel the motivation to develop our skills, learn new rep, or prepare for an upcom-ing performance or audition. And sure, there is something to be said for having a non-negotiable daily routine. Or suck-ing it up and just doing the work. But on days when our willpower is sapped, there’s another source of motivation that we might be able to tap into. It’s called the “resumptive drive.” Or the Zeigarnik effect (which I think sounds way cooler). What’s this all about?

Waiters and memory Bluma Zeigarnik described a phenomenon way back in 1927, in which she observed while sitting in a restaurant that waiters seemed to have a selec-tive memory. As in, they could remember compli-cated customers’ orders that hadn’t yet been filled, but once all the food had been served (or maybe when the bill was paid?), it’s as if the order was wiped from their memory. Back in her lab, she found that indeed, participants were much more likely to remember tasks they

started but didn’t finish, than tasks that were com-pleted (hence, the Zeigarnik effect). Another form of the Zeigarnik effect – and the one more relevant to what we’re talking about here – is the observation that people tend to be driven to re-sume tasks in which they were interuppted and un-able to finish.

The resumptive drive Researchers at Texas Christian University & Uni-versity of Rochester ran a study on this form of the Zeigarnik effect. Subjects were given eight minutes to shape an eight-cube, three-dimensional puzzle into five differ-ent forms. They were told to work as quickly as possible, and given three minutes to complete the first two puzzles as practice. Then they were given five minutes to solve the last three puzzles. The researchers deliberately made the second practice puzzle difficult – one that was unlikely to

be solved within the time avail-able. And just as they had hoped, only 6 of the 39 partici-pants solved the difficult puzzle. After their time was up, the par-ticipants had eight minutes of free time to do as they wished while the researcher running the experiment left the room to retrieve some questionnaires they accidentally forgot to bring, saying they would be back in “5

or 10 minutes.” This was all a ruse, of course, to see what the participants would do when left alone. Despite there being other things in the room to do (e.g. a TV, magazines, newspaper, etc.), 28 of the 39 participants (72%) resumed working on the puz-zles. But wait! That’s not the cool part.

The cool part What’s interesting, is that those who completed the challenging puzzle were far less likely to resume working on the puzzles in their free time than those

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The one-sentence summary “Do not wait to strike till the iron is hot; but make it hot by striking.” ~William B. Sprague (Continued from page 4)

who did not complete the puzzle. Of the six who completed the difficult puzzle, only one (17%) resumed working on the puzzles (and did so for one minute and 18 seconds). Of the 33 who did not complete the challenging puzzle, 27 (82%) resumed working on the puzzle, and on average, spent more than two and a half times as long (3:20) working on the puzzles. So, when interrupted in the middle of a task, not only were participants more motivated to resume working on that task, but they also continued work-ing on it for much longer.

Take action So how can we apply this finding to our practice motivation issue? There are a couple things you might try. One, many have found that simply getting started is 90% of the challenge (and yup, I totally made up that number…but you get the point). It’s like washing dishes. If I have a sink full of dirty dishes, and think about the sink of dishes, I’m likely to put it off. But if all I think about is washing one dish, or simply putting the silverware in the dish-washer, it often ends up being easier to just keep going than it is to stop and leave the task half-done. So instead of thinking about practicing for an hour, or having to work on 10 excerpts, or memorize a concerto, just tune your instrument. Or play a scale really slowly. Or set the timer for five minutes and pick one little thing to fix. And if at the end of five, you don’t feel like continuing, put your instrument away and try again later. Second, once you’ve played yourself into the mood to practice, try stopping in the middle of a task. Meaning, if you’re working on a tricky passage that has you stumped, test out a few solutions, but leave yourself a few possible solutions remaining before taking a practice break. See if that makes it easier, and more motivating, to pick back up when your practice break is over.

HOW TO GET YOURSELF TO PRACTICE

(continued)

LONG NEEDED PITCHPIPE UPDATE

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have been long skinny ones. Some have fit our hands well. Some have fit our hands badly. But all have in-creased pitch in a clockwise manner.

This has been natural to the ma-jority of us that are right-handed. But what about our brothers in song that are s o u t h p a w s ? Their natural incli-nation would be for pitches to in-

crease in a counter-clockwise manner, would it not?

This reporter has discovered here-tofore unknown information that a

major supplier of pitch pipes will be introducing at the end of April, the first LEFT HANDED P I T C H P I P E ! Watch for it, coming to a store near you. It would be foolish to miss getting one.


FREE SINGING TIPS by Yvonne DeBandi

from a2z-singing-tips.com D = Diaphragmatic Support. De-velop the strength and coordination of the diaphragm and become a pro at controlling the speed of the airflow released, the quantity of the airflow released and the consistency of the airflow released.

FREE SINGING TIPS by Nicole LeGault

from a2z-singing-tips.com D is for Dynamics. Using dynamics is the art of raising and lowering the vol-ume of your voice to add texture and expression to the sound. This is also known as “color”. You will notice that in popular styles, the voice grows louder with higher notes, and softer with lower notes, with the exception of when falsetto is used.

FREE YOUR VOICE by John Newell, Lead, Realtime

from “Let It Out” Vocal Performance Coaching

Facebook page Consonants: articulate them WITH the continuous flow of breath, not against it, and extend the vowels on that flow of breath. ————— What is a 'full sound'? It does not necessarily mean louder or bigger. It means a healthy bal-ance of high, middle and low frequencies in the tone. The front nasal resonance provides the high frequencies while enhancing some middle ones. The raising of the soft palate provides the lower frequencies and enhances some middle ones. Too much of the former can result in a strident tone. Too much of the latter can result in a dark and unpleasant tone. ————— The mind is your greatest ally and enemy. It can make you inhibited, or afraid to make a mistake, or confined to one way of approaching your sing-ing. If your mind stops being afraid of mistakes or embarrassment or criticism, and is open to ex-ploring your own unique way of doing things out-side the conventional "rules", the freedom you feel makes you open to anything and flows into your singing. ————— We singers should remain humble and grounded. We gain more by thinking of ourselves as ser-vants of the audience. The day we forget that, and begin to regard the audience as serving us, is the day we need to give our heads a shake. ————— Whatever you do with your stance, keep your sternum up, as if it is buoyant. Feel broad across your clavicles and relax your abs. Keep the ster-num feeling buoyant when you feel like you are running out of breath. Your breathing, breath management and vocal freedom will be much better for it.

FREE SINGING TIPS by Mick Walsh

from a2z-singing-tips.com D. Diaphragm, diaphragm, diaphragm, diaphragm. (did I mention diaphragm?). To me the diaphragm is the most impor-tant muscle in singing. Find out where it is and how to control your airflow. In a very short space of time you can be-come a much better singer simply by learning to control your diaphragm.

FREE SINGING TIPS by Teri Danz

from a2z-singing-tips.com D= Drop Your Jaw -- Relaxing and drop-ping the jaw in (pop) singing is the key to reaching notes effortlessly, making range transitions and supporting the ends of your range.


MAGIC CHORAL TRICK #297

SHOW IT THEN

SING ABOUT IT by Janet Kidd

from betterchoirs.wordpress.com

G ot a new Presentation phrase from this month’s BHS Harmonizer maga-zine.

“Show it, then sing about it.” This is another way to describe ‘telegraphing’ – creating the next phrase’s emotion near the end of the phrase that’s being sung. This happens in normal conversation all the time: “I’m going to be driving all the kids to the movie on Saturday (insert shocked, surprised face here) Oh my goodness! I forgot that I have that gig! I won’t be able to drive them!” As the thought occurs, the face shows the shock – then we say what it is that we’ve just thought about. In order for a song to be believ-able, this process gets turned around a little. We need to establish the emotion of a phrase, then create that emotion for ourselves at the end, or just before the end of the previous phrase – as if that thought had just occurred to us. As a director, I’m used to constantly thinking a note or a phrase ahead – giving reminder cues to the chorus in time for the singers to see and react to them. But a singer’s brain is filled with so many other elements, that thinking ahead tends to get lost in the shuffle – especially if there’s a director out in front who’s handling that aspect. However, with drill, this too can become just another good singing habit. This could be rehearsed in the warm up on a vowel/technique exercise. Just before coming to the first breathing spot, a sign is held up (wistful, frightened, contented) and faces all change to-gether before the breath is even taken. The next phrase is sung with that emotion – until near the end, before the breath – when the next sign is held up. This may have to be done in slow motion for a while.

MAGIC CHORAL TRICK #291

TWO ELBOWED THINKER by Janet Kidd

from betterchoirs.wordpress.com

A number of years ago my husband asked me to sing the vocal line for one of his songs so he could record it.

We ran it a couple of times before re-cording it, and because I was feeling wretchedly unwell, I was sitting down and leaning forward with my elbows on my knees, reading the music which was on the seat of another chair fac-ing me – so my head wasn’t raised. This was such an effortless position in which to sing, that I stayed right there as we recorded the song. Tried this last night with my men’s Barbershop cho-rus – and the sound was rich and full, ringing, blended and effortless. I had them all sit in a circle, on chairs, and leaning forward – elbows on knees. I let them sing the song intro a few times them-selves – but the breaths were a bit slow, and the interpretation not as perky as I wanted it. So be-cause they still needed me to direct, and I didn’t want them raising their heads, I sat cross legged on the floor in the middle of the circle to direct. If and when we decide to make a CD, I think this is the way we’ll record it!!

(The above photo was taken just after we’d finished the exercise, so not everyone visible in the photo is still in position – but you get the idea)


MAKE YOUR

PERFORMANCES BETTER by Joe Grimme

from cardinaldistrict.org

E ither as a quartet or a chorus, we are always striving to make our performances better, of a higher quality, and more enjoyable for both the audience and the performers. There are

several ways to do this… the first is to practice as of-ten as you can, but that can even lead to some is-sues… So, here are ten things you can do, both in preparation for a sing-out and in considering a sing-out…

10.) Make sure the performance is a good fit for your group

Take the venue and the audience demographic into account when making this decision. If you are being asked to perform at a church but have no gospel pieces in your repertoire, you may want to reconsider the gig. Have they had you multiple times and want you again, but you don’t have any new material yet… consider postponing the gig until you have a few new pieces.

9.) For Choruses, never sing in public without risers…

In fact, don’t even practice without them. Directors al-ways hound on practicing like you will perform and this should be true in every aspect of the performance. Coaches will even tell you that if you plan to have cos-tumes, you should practice in those. Without being in “Performance Mode” we risk the performance becom-ing a “Gang Sing” which will impress no one… Singing quality will be effected as well when the guys are not “In the Zone”…

8.) Choruses, make sure a majority of the guys can be there – Quartets, make sure all your guys can be there…

Nothing can effect your performance more than miss-ing guys from the risers. Becoming accustomed to hearing a certain singer beside you can make you sing a certain way. This will be dramatically altered, as will the sound of the entire ensemble, if you have key members not present. Quartets – if you have to have a sub, make sure it is someone you can trust to work with your sound, not against it. If you have the chance to rehearse with them prior to the event, do it – multi-ple times…

7.) Don’t take gigs where the audience has come to do something other than listen to you

We have such a need and want to perform that often we take gigs where we are not the point of the event. If the audience has the opportunity to “check out” when you are singing if something is not going well, they will do so. Malls, fairs, mar-kets, “strolling gigs”…these will always leave you feeling like you sang just ok and not feel great about a well done performance.

6.) Leave some of your material at home

Some songs we do are ones that we do for our-selves or for other barbershoppers – consider leaving those song in the rehearsal room for cer-tain events. Contest sets that require a lot of schtick or specific costuming or props do not make good pieces for a community sing-out. Sing the popular songs, the ones they will know or at least might be familiar with, and that will make your per-formance more attractive for the audience. Even if some of these songs are sung well, if the audience cannot connect with it, it won’t matter.

5.) Rehearse everything for the performance in order

This includes all of your songs, with emcee work and quartets, and entrances and exits. Doing all of it will get your guys used to the amount of time they need to be on risers, which songs comes next, and how long the quartet songs are. This will also clue you in to anything that may not be work-ing well, for one reason or another, and gives you time to fix it before taking the stage. Professional-ism is a key to all of this – I know we are an ama-teur organization and amateur singers but that doesn’t mean we cant take pride in it and make it the best it can be.

4.) Segue for sing-outs are important

Do not wait for applause to die before approaching the microphone. You need to be ready to go the moment the applause wavers to keep the audi-ence interested and wondering what is coming next. However, keep these short and directed at the audience, not the chorus. If you happen to have a chorus where guys might like to shout out from the plead with them not to this as it shows a real lack of professionalism. Practice your segues before hand, because even if you think you are very good at coming up with these in the heat of the moment, the audience can tell that you are making it up…

3.) If using an emcee for your big show, get a pro-fessional…


LEARNING TO LIKE

YOUR VOICE by Susan Govali

from singingfromthecenter.com

L iking your voice will im-prove your voice overnight. Learning to like your voice

is vitally important and usually at the bottom of the singing “to do” list, es-pecially when we’re first learning and there’s so much to think about. It’s often easier said than done, especially initially when we’re judg-ing every note. However, it’s so important because: If you’re judging your performance, an audience can hear it: every thought can be heard when sing-ing, which is why it can be so challenging. Judging your voice takes you out of the song and the moment, and so out of your body and back into your head or across the other side of the Universe. Judging your voice makes you tense up your body and thus your vocal cords, strangling the note and performance. It’s often the basis of stage fright and performance anxiety. First and foremost, we need to enjoy singing and connect with the story of the song. It’s basic truth. If we’re focusing on the story, i.e. its basic emotion, and not our shortcomings when performing it (real or imagined), this helps enormously. Also, if you’re feeling good, no matter the genre of song, it’s hard to tense up. And balance is key when singing, men-tally, emotionally and physically. I mentioned that a relaxed diaphragm is key (check out the article How To Breathe Properly). The feel-ing of smiling as we breathe in, relaxing the dia-phragm and body so we can use its core energy. The same rules apply to liking your voice as they do to singing in general. We need to get out of the mind and into the body, i.e. stay in the present. So when you’re practicing, start to program “feeling good” as you breathe in, aka the “smiling” dia-phragm. It’s hard to get tense when you’re feeling good, especially if your diaphragm is smiling! Once again, programming the subconscious to change the path of how it used to do it, to a new way that

works better. As you get used to relaxing your dia-phragm as you breathe in, get used to enjoying your voice as you use that breath to sing. Stay in the mo-ment and enjoy the feeling of singing. The voice is a muscle, if you’re doing it right, then you’re develop-ing your vocal strength and control the more you so. So your voice is going to sound better and better the more you sing and the more you practice. The worst thing you can do is to judge that practice, since you’re merely hindering your vocal development. However, there’s a difference between not judging ourselves, being forgiving of the mistakes etc we make as we’re learning, and pretending that we sound amazing when we know there’s still a long way to go. I’ve had a lot of students mention that they don’t want to be that person who sings with to-tal confidence and is simply making an ass of them selves. However, very few singers are totally confi-dent initially, you’re not alone. In fact, my personal experience is that stage fright and judging what we’re doing is the most common hindrance when singing. We all suffer from it in one way or another. Which is where the craft comes in. Building confi-dence over time as your skill level increases. So there will have to be a few leaps of faith (check out the Article: Stage Fright if this is your particular bug bear). As your voice gets stronger and you gain more control, so does your confidence and it’s eas-ier to like your voice because it’ll feel and sound “right”. So just as we’re changing the path of the note physically, we can do the same thing with liking the voice. And as far as the judgments go, try to be forgiving. Tell your subconscious to “put it in a box and you’ll deal with it later”. And the dealing with it later is when you’re practicing the song. Look at that difficult line or passage. Very often it’s simply a breathing issue (check out the article How To Breathe Prop-erly), or misplaced vowels, or posture. It can help to consciously check in, initially, and pat your self on the back when you do something right. Also, try to connect with the story of the song, the emotion. Read the lyrics out loud and consider what they mean to you. Try to resonate as you read them, like a poem. What’s the basic emotion of the song? Then sing the song with the same emotion. Think that emotion as you breathe in to the diaphragm. When you are really in the moment and sing the song (and this may only happen occasionally, espe-cially at first), even if the technique might not all be in place yet, the feeling will be there. And that’s what an audience wants to hear. Not over-emotional,



hammy stuff (well, not always). But something that truly resonates. So you have to “be in your own space” and not be worried about them to be able to do it (see Stage Fright). You’ll know if you’re getting it right, because not only will it sound right to you and feel right, but you’ll start getting positive feed-back, in whatever form. What’s great about the singing experience is being able to do it at your own pace. Don’t put yourself into a challenging position re. your performance un-til you’ve checked your reality and feel ready (once again, see Stage Fright). No two singers are the same, so you might be in a band, or be a serious musician who’s musically trained and wants to learn to sing, or be in a choir or choral group, or want to be able to speak publicly, or sing karaoke confidently (harder to say than to write) or in a show the list goes on and on. As a rule of thumb, get to a point where you know at least one song really well, that’s sung by the original singer in a key that works for you. You can sit in with bands with this song, because if it’s in your genre and well known, they’ll probably know it. If you can, and if it’s relevant, get the sheet music. There are lots of great sites out there where you can change the key of the song online and then print it out (either type in the title of the song in google or http://www.sheetmusicdirect.com/ is a good one. Download the “Sibelius Scorch” and then you can preview the song and even change the key. Just click “up” and “down” on the music symbol. Play along with the demo to try out the key. This helps if you have an audition or want to play the song either on your own or with a band. You don’t have to buy the whole book of songs and it’s a few bucks). When it feels right and opportunity comes around, sing the song as much as you can. Add to your repertoire as you go along. And when you’ve sung the song many times, it won’t be such a big deal. You might get bits wrong here and there, but you know you’ve done it right many times before, so you’re more forgiving of yourself and your performance. And the more you do it, and get used to doing it, and enjoy doing it, and stay in the moment, the more you like your voice.

BAR NOTABLES submitted by Frank Nosalek

C , E-flat and G go into a bar. The bartender says, "sorry, but we don't serve minors." So E-flat leaves, and C and G have an open fifth between them. After a few

drinks, the fifth is diminished and G is out flat. F comes in and tries to augment the situation, but is not sharp enough. D comes in and heads for the bathroom saying, "Excuse me. I'll just be a second." Then A comes in, but the bartender is not convinced that this rela-tive of C is not a minor. Then the bartender notices B-flat hiding at the end of the bar and says, "Get out! You're the seventh minor I've found in this bar tonight." E-Flat comes back the next night in a three-piece suit with nicely shined shoes. The bartender says, "you're looking sharp tonight. Come on in, this could be a major development." Sure enough, E-flat soon takes off his suit and everything else, and is au natural. Eventually C sobers up and realizes in horror that he's under a rest. C is brought to trial, found guilty of contributing to the diminution of a minor, and is sentenced to 10 years of D.S. without Coda at an upscale correctional facility.

LEARNING TO LIKE YOUR VOICE

(continued)

BARBERSHOP HISTORY

QUIZ 1 by Mark Axelrod

1- Where does the term barbershop harmony come from? 2- What were barbershop's two major showcases from the 1880's through the 1930's? 3- What caused barbershop's demise as a major form of popular music? 4- Why was barbershop harmony important to George Burns, Bing Crosby and Al Jolson? 5- What was the influence of Black Americans in barbershop's formative days?

Answers on page 12


THE PROBLEM WITH

EXCELLENCE by Deke Sharon

from casa.org

A lthough I don't know that it's necessarily a trend, I'm see-ing the word excellence ap-pear more and more in vocal

circles. In one case, when writing liner notes, I'm asked if I can change a phrase about interconnectivity to one about pursuit of excellence. In another case, in an online discussion, the con-cept of excellence is a given, as though compe-tence is rare and excellence the eternal goal. In yet another, I increasingly hear and read opin-ions about which groups excel beyond the others, as if there's a fixed supply of excellence and it is perpetually being redistributed between groups. And then there are the posts with group's score cards from competitions, discussions of points earned and lost, comparisons of categories and abilities. Now, let me make something clear: I am not against excellence. No one is. And I believe one's own ongoing journey toward improvement should be applauded and rewarded. However, excellence has a close friend that is al-most always tagging along, uninvited and ruining the party: judgement. "Wait, how can judgement be bad?" you're thinking. "We all judge every day, and without some determi-nation from time to time, we will have no measure of anything!" Fair enough, but the perpetual judgement that comes with the determined, ongoing pursuit of ex-cellence can be debilitating. Just ask a critic. I'm going to assume you're like most people when you eat. You choose food you generally like, and enjoy it. From time to time something crosses your palate that is especially tasty or disagreeable, and you make note of it. The rest of the time you're fo-

cused on food as nourishment and pleasure. As you should be. But what if you were a food critic, not only of res-taurant meals, but of everything that passes your lips? Judging every plate, every bite, every ingredi-ent. You disassemble and reassemble dishes in your mind, comparing to past meals, considering, measuring, assessing. Everything needs a score in your mind, everything needs to be ranked and cri-tiqued. Food would no longer become a pleasure for you, except in the rarest of cases when everything was perfect. The rest of the time you would be chasing the memories you have of past perfect meals that frankly were likely not perfect, but since you were not judging then you let it all wash over you in the moment. Or imagine you're a movie critic. Try watching the next movie you see with a critical eye, disassem-bling each scene, shot, line of dialog. I'll bet it will be the rare movie that is able to sweep you away. Instead, you'll be trapped in your left brain, looking for flaws, considering how everything can be im-proved, where the director and cinematographer and editor and actors went wrong. Now, let's return to a cappella. Remember that first concert you saw? The first group you sang with? Your first standing ovation, encore, solo? Of course you do, because you weren't actively judging back then, you were simply experiencing. However, if you find yourself deeply entrenched in a cappella circles yet only appreciative of an in-creasingly small group of recordings and groups, I posit that you're caught in this cycle of excellence and judgement. You love a cappella, yet you find yourself loving it less often and less powerfully. Only the very best will impress you, and even then it's a rarity. I'm reminded of an expression I heard long ago, I'm not sure where: "You can be right or you can be happy." At the time the comment was regarding communi-cation, emphasizing that you can focus on winning an argument ("being the one judged 'right'), or you can realize that the point of communication is to better understand and be understood, and there need not only be a winner and loser. To find greater understanding is the higher goal and greater good


You have achieved success when you don’t know if what you are doing is work or play...


(when possible, of course). As an a cappella singer/director/arranger/producer/what have you, you're acutely aware of the building blocks and elements that comprise a recording or performance. And you are welcome at all times to focus on the precision and effectiveness of all of them. You are always welcome to be a critic. And you will always be right, since there's no accounting for taste, by which I mean there's no way for you to be proven wrong, since only you are able to deter-mine what you like. There is no absolute arbiter of musical quality, no giant score card in the sky, so if you say something isn't good, you're right, it isn't good. But do you want to be right all of the time, or do you want to be happy? Don't you want to be able to sit down to a big plate of a cappella and enjoy it the way you did when you first started? You can. You simply need to stop obsessing about excel-lence. Stop patting yourself on the back, impressed that you can hear every flaw, because you're then focusing on every imperfection and not allowing yourself to simply experience the music that's being shared with you. Stop comparing this group to that group, this arrangement to that arrangement, as if a cappella is a checklist. It isn't... unless you want it to be, and then Voila! It is. Everything in the world is imperfect. You can choose to see the imperfections or look for the beauty in all things - people, places, food, movies, and a cappella. I'm not saying you'll stop judging - that would be impossible - but your judgement will be far more passive, and you'll be able to see the forest instead of the broken limbs on every tree. I'm not saying you'll immediately love every piece of music you hear, but you will be able to enjoy far more than you did. You can be right, or you can be happy.

THE PROBLEM WITH EXCELLENCE

(continued) AFTERGLOW

by Brian Lynch

from barbershophq.com

A dmit it: you’re addicted to afterglow. First comes the “official” afterglow, with a few bevvies and a few more songs from the evening’s performers. Then comes the

“real” afterglow, with a lot more singing. Then the “after-afterglow,” when you repair to some hospital-ity rooms or lounges for a cozier party. Then, at last, the “glimmer,” when it’s down to you and a se-lect, rotating cast of guys who defy good sense, schedules, and thoughts of work next week, to eke out another try at that bizarro double-quartet Sadly, though, in most towns the bar closes down at 1:00 or 2:00 or 3:00 am, just when that pick-up tag quartet is just getting really good. Not in Vegas, baby. It never closes. Keep singing. You can always find someplace to stay “hydrated.”

BARBERSHOP HISTORY

ANSWERS 1 by Mark Axelrod

Answers to this month's history quiz: 1- Barbershops, first in England, then here, were places of extemporaneous, amateur music making since Elizabethan times. A song written in 1910 and entitled [Mister Jefferson Lord] "Play That Barber-shop Chord" iced the cake. 2- Minstrel shows in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and, thereafter, vaudeville. 3- Radio, more so than any other factor. For the first time in human history, radio brought affordable and widely available entertainment into almost every home. This led to the rapid demise of vaude-ville shows, barbershop's most important venue during the first third of the twentieth century. 4- They began their show biz careers as profes-sional barbershop quartet singers. 5- The influence was immense, but this is a give-a-way to all of you scholars who read the lengthy arti-cle on the history of barbershop harmony in the cur-rent issue (August 2001) of the Harmonizer.


THE INNER SMILE by Debra Lynn

from belcantobuzz.wordpress.com

R ecently, I have been listening to a lot of singers, from a va-riety of genres. If you have had any training at all, you

have heard the importance of lifting the soft palate. Sometimes there is confusion around what that means and also what that is specifically going to do for your sound. I usually identify the area in question by directing a person to press their tongue up against the roof of the mouth, right behind the front teeth. We feel a hard surface. If we walk the tongue back, to the place we used to goof around and make clucking sounds as kids, you will feel a softer, spongier area. This is the portion of the mechanism that needs to lift, in order to create optimal resonance inside the mouth. Now in choral and operatic technique, lifting the soft palate is often described by imagining an egg back there in the mouth, or a small pear. In either case, it is a round shape, that when you try it and then speak a sentence, you will notice an affect to your voice. This is akin to speaking like Sean Connery or Julia Childs. Some singers of note, like Renee Fleming, speak of an inner smile. I like this image for a couple of im-portant reasons. Sustaining that egg feeling throughout an entire phrase, while singing, is virtu-ally impossible, once you start articulation. How-ever, if we imagine an inner smile, a “Cheshire Cat” grin, if you will, in the back of the throat, with the points of the smile connecting at the height of the ears. That lateral, engaged feeling, lifts up the ceil-ing of your mouth in a way that can be sustained through entire phrases. This continuous engagement will of course need to be refreshed at each inhalation, but when done consistently, offers us a new level of vocal control, where the challenges of the English language be-come easier to handle. I often say that this back lift, particularly combined with my forward lift, will keep the weight of the voice at bay as we maneuver through passaggios (transitions) and give the ap-pearance of one voice vs. three.

Try breathing into that smile every time you sing a phrase and feel the difference in the brilliance, resonance and quality of your sound. An outer smile is good for the world, an inner smile is good for your consistent, in tune, resonant, singing re-sults!

13 SIGNS YOU ARE A

BARBERSHOPPER posted by Becca Grimmer

from barbershophq.com

W e asked our Facebook friends to help us to answer this: You know you’re a bar-bershopper if _________. We had a overwhelming 152 (and counting) re-

sponses, so we decided to feature some of them here. 1. You attempt to blow a pitch on an Oreo cookie. 2. Your family vacations revolve around conven-

tions. 3. A perfect 4-part harmonic moment sends your

spirit soaring like nothing else ever could. 4. Your boss called you out for wearing your con-

test attire to work. 5. You have (at least) 3 best friends. 6. Your “inner music judge” comes out when lis-

tening to the radio. 7. Your license plate represents. 8. You harmonize with the ambient noise around

you. 9. You know the words to more songs from the

early 1900s than from the 2010s. 10. You plan pregnancies around District and Inter-

national events. 11. You already know who’s singing at your fu-

neral. 12. You are willing to spend 7 days away from your

family, hearkening back to your college days, sleeping in dorm rooms, so that you can learn more about a passion that gives you zero finan-cial benefit!

13. You have a “barbershop section” in your closet that consists mostly of costumes and sequin vests.


MEET THE MEMBER BARBERSHOPPER OF THE MONTH

Rob Banks I was born in Wurtsmith AFB, MI in 1965 and have been bar-bershopping since 2011. I am married and have three step-children and eight grandchildren. Schools attended include Wright State University. I've lived in Newfoundland, Canada, Newark, Ohio, and Day-ton, Ohio. Other places I’ve visited include England, Italy, and the Caribbean. My musical background includes lots of different types and sizes of ensembles - large choirs to quartets singing any-thing from major classical works to vocal jazz. Profession-ally, I am a software developer, and have been a staff ac-countant, and a sales/service representative. I served for eight years in the Ohio Air Guard, reaching the rank of ser-geant. When I'm not singing, I like to read, work in theater, play all different types of games, and watch college football (go Blue!). Besides singing, I’m really good at word games and puzzles, and trouble-shooting interface issues at work. The thing I’m most proud of is my family. My most embar-rassing moment is, I can’t think of one that I’m willing to share. The wildest thing I’ve ever done: I’m not really a ‘wild’ kind of person. Wait - I think I went commando one day in college. If you had asked me, "Is the movie ever as good as the book?" I’d have answered, “Not any movie I’ve seen.”

Encore listing

No new bios received

Don Hartsfield

Congratulations and a tip of the Big O hat to our latest Barbershopper of the Month, Don Hartsfield. Don loves singing. He is also a tireless worker for the chapter. He works Big O Bucks events, helps with the risers, and can be found pretty much anywhere there is a need. We could use more men like Don. This month, Don is being honored for his efforts, above and beyond, as the primary assistant in last month’s successful Sing-ing Valentine program. He spent many hours for several days before the event helping to coordinate orders, payments, quartet assignments, and routing to en-sure the deliveries happened at the times allotted. He even got to enjoy delivering some in a quartet. Don was unanimously chosen by the Board of Directors as the Big Orange Cho-rus Barbershopper of the Month. Congratulations Don!


COMING DUE MEMBERS

T he following members are coming due in the next 30 days. Robert Breedon Bo Dennis

Brett Flowers Greg Flowers Ken Moyer Frank Nosalek Gary Raulerson Tim Walton Andrew Wheeler

QUARTET CORNER by John Alexander

No news from our chapter quartets. What is YOUR quartet doing? Don’t have one? Find three other guys and start one! Can’t find a match? Drop me a line and I’ll run a list of guys looking to quartet up here in the bulletin. It’s one of those really fun things that you don’t fully under-stand until you’ve done it… It’s not too early to be thinking about Valentine’s Day quartets for next year. It’s a lot of fun and we always need more quartets (we have to cut off sales when the quartets are maxed out). It’s only two easy polecats. Learn more than one part and you’ll be more in demand. Form a quartet early and have a different song in your quiver (like Caro-line, changing the lyrics to say Valentine).

CHAPTER MEMBER STATS

T he following are our current membership statistics:

Regular Members (RG) 56 Life Members (LF) 1 Youth Members (Y2) 4 Senior Members (SN) 8 Senior 50-Year (S5) 5 Senior Legacy (SL) 9 Total Membership 83

PAST DUE MEMBERS

T he following members are listed separately on the BHS website as past due. They vary from 1 days overdue to 178 days overdue. They will automatically be removed from the

society roll at 180 days overdue. Rob Banks George Breedon Mike Delker Mark Flowers Jonathan Hall Ryan Henry David Holzworth Jerry Johnson Joe Murrell Mark Roblez Howdy Russell III Bob Squires Brian Weber


BOARD MINUTE SUMMARY

by Daniel Proctor

No input received from last month’s board meeting.

Sunshine District, Barbershop Harmony Society

2014 Spring Convention

Join us for a weekend of song and fellowship at the Orlando Airport Marriott, May 2-4 Friday, May 2 - International Quartet Preliminary Semifinals

and District Seniors Quartet Contest Saturday, May 3 - District Chorus Contest, VLQ Contest, and

International Quartet Preliminary Finals

All events Early Bird pricing ($45) ends April 6th

Regular price $65 ends April 27th. Late and on-site price $75 Student tickets are valid for ages 25 and under ONLY

Online sales end May 1st at 11:30 pm

Single event tickets are not valid for competitors. Each competitor must purchase an all events registration. Early Bird regidtrations will be printed and ready upon arrival. Some

regular price and all late registrations may need to be printed on site. Please be prepared to have your ticket code scanned in exchange for a badge. Badges are required for entrance

to the auditorium and to enter the contest loop.

You may register and book your $99/night room at the Orlando Airport Marriott here: www.sunshinedistrict.org/events/conventions

For updates and more information, please visit SunshineDistrict.org


REHEARSAL SCHEDULE Thu 03 Apr Shepherd of the Woods Thu 10 Apr Shepherd of the Woods Thu 17 Apr Board Meeting Thu 17 Apr Shepherd of the Woods Thu 24 Apr Shepherd of the Woods Thu 01 May Shepherd of the Woods Thu 08 May Shepherd of the Woods Thu 15 May Board Meeting Thu 15 May Shepherd of the Woods Thu 22 May Shepherd of the Woods Thu 29 May Shepherd of the Woods Thu 05 Jun Shepherd of the Woods Thu 12 Jun Shepherd of the Woods Thu 19 Jun Board Meeting Thu 19 Jun Shepherd of the Woods Thu 26 Jun Shepherd of the Woods

DISTRICT SCHEDULE 2 May - 4 May Spring Convention 10 Oct - 12 Oct Fall Convention

BIRTHDAYS Tom Dames 01 April Charlie Young 18 April Craig Johnston 23 April John Pennington 23 April Rick Chapman 25 April Steve Cragg 27 April Charlie Barbarisi 28 April Howdy Russell 28 April Chuck Steiner 30 April

PERFORMANCE SCHEDULE Sat 03 May Spring Contest Sun 01 Jun Annual Show (3pm TUC) Sat 11 Oct Fall Contest Sat 20 Dec Christmas Show (7pm Fla Th)

NEWEST MEMBERS Chris Carlson March Walter Krumpka March David Walker December George Gipp September Bob Hodges September Jason Lee September

RECENT GUESTS Jason Bode Ralph Byrd Keatin Cecrle Tyler Conley Clay Harland Kenneth Harland Scott Jurrens Les Parkinson Betty Messler Gary Morgan Bill Mullen Joe Plumlee Jesse Sukeforth Laurie Smith

WELCOME

{ Big O Buck$ }

BIG O BUCKS SCHEDULE Thu 03 Apr Disney On Ice Sat 05 Apr Disney On Ice (3) Fri 11 Apr Sharks v Tampa Bay Sat 12 Apr Guns ‘n’ Hoses Sat 19 Apr Legends Football League Sat 26 Apr Sharks v Portland Sat 03 May Sharks v Arizona Fri 09 May Reebok Crossfit Games Sat 10 May Reebok Crossfit Games Sun 11 May Reebok Crossfit Games Wed 14 May Cher Sat 17 May Sharks v Orlando Sat 31 May Legends Football League Sat 07 Jun Sharks v Spokane Sat 14 Jun Florida Country Superfest Sun 15 Jun Florida Country Superfest Sat 28 Jun Sharks v Pittsburgh Sat 12 Jul Sharks v New Orleans


EDITOR’S NOTE

Article and column submissions are solicited. Help make this a better bulletin. Send me stuff!

The deadline for May is 26 April. Items without a byline are from the Editor.

The Orange Spiel

John Alexander, Editor 2429 Southern Links Dr Orange Park FL 32003

Back issues are available online at:

www.bigorangechorus.com/newsarchive.htm More specific and timely performance information

is in my weekly sheet, Orange Zest.

DIRECTING TEAM

Tony DeRosa Front Line Director

Chuck Griffith Director Emeritus

Jason Lee Assistant Director

OTHER CHAPTER LEADERS

Bill Vockell Performance Coordinator

Ken Moyer Chorus Manager

George Breedon Membership Team Youth In Harmony

Dave Parker Youth In Harmony Grants Team

Mike Sobolewski Big O Bucks Coordinator

John Alexander Bulletin Editor

Rick Morin Big O Bucks Treasurer

Please dispose of this paper properly!

Share it with your wife or significant other.

Dave Medvidofsky Show

Chairman

George Gipp Associate Director


2014 BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Dave Medvidofsky President

Terry Ezell VP Chapter Development

Cheryl Ezell Chapter Treasurer

Daniel Proctor Chapter Secretary

Mike Sobolewski At Large

Frank Nosalek At Large

John Alexander At Large

Bill Vockell

Program VP

MUSIC TEAM

Jason Lee VP Music & Performance

Mike Sobolewski Presentation Coordinator

Dave Medvidofsky Bass

Asst Sec Ldr

John Alexander Bass Sec Ldr

Imagine 80 men on the risers

Be a singer-bringer

Jeff Packer Bari

Sec Ldr

Daniel Proctor Learning Materials

Coordinator

Brad May Lead Sec Ldr

Terry Ezell Tenor Sec Ldr

Dan Smith At Large

Howdy Russell Past

President

Jeff Packer At Large

Jason Lee VP Music & Performance

John Alexander, Editor

2429 Southern Links Dr

Orange Park FL 32003

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Documents

The Orange Spiel Page 1 April 2014 - Singing Valentines ...€¦ · The Orange Spiel Page 1 April 2014 Volume 34 Issue 4 ... The Inner Smile 13 13 Signs You Are A Barbershopper