Pretty Organized Crime is one answer. BellaMafia is a women's a cappella group from Bowdoin College in Brunswick Maine. The founding members are still in the group and the repertoire has been laboriously built over the past 2 years by some very talented musicians. If you haven't heard of this group yet, you will soon. They lay down some very well crafted tunes and the group is chock full of some impressive vocalists.
Eric and I recorded them on campus a couple weeks ago. They had reserved a space for us to work in, because they could not all make the trek to Boston to Chillhouse Studios. Actually, they had reserved two spaces and we scoped them out. We went with the Chapel, because the acoustics were wonderful for the singers, and the natural reverb was just about dead solid perfect.
In the weeks before we made the trip, BellaMafia had done their homework. As Eric set up the hardware in the Chapel I got to hear them warm up. They struck me like athletes ready to run the race and break a course record. They were just ready to go!
Over the next couple days, these beauties put in two 7 hour sessions to record their complete repertoire - 2 years of work they'd never sung all at once before. Up until this point, they had worked up 2-3 numbers at a time for a cappella festivals and competitions, but never performed a whole show themselves. When you're just getting started, this is the way it works. It's amazing the courage and fortitude it takes to bootstrap a full-fledged group. And these women have to make their grades, too! Bowdoin is a serious place.
For two days, we worked laying down the background singing with the vocal percusssion. Each song took about 30 minutes, what with several takes, monitoring the takes, making adjustments and trying to get the best overall performance. Every song got the right amount of attention, to good effect. Without the soloists, the architecture of the song was not always clear, so a whiteboard was sometimes used to sketch out the lyrical roadmap. A couple of times, a laptop on a stool with lyrics downloaded fresh off the 'Net and pasted into MS Word with a large font size was used. This could be scrolled as the song was sung by the woman who was perc'ing. Now that's multi-tasking!
Solo callbacks ended each day. Well, let's say the second shift began with solo callbacks. Every song had at least one solo and many had several solos and duets, some also had rap parts. There was serious work to do. Tirelessly, Eric worked with each singer helping them get their best performance without pushing them to exhaustion.
Two long days of work, all while preparing for final exams. Eric and I packed up the gear late on Sunday, after backing up the whole thing to external hard disk. The project can't help but be a success based on what we heard - mixing and mastering will definitely take it to the next level. Once the product is complete, if BellaMafia makes some samples available, I'll put some pointers to where you can have a listen.
One more thing I'll say about this group of women. Like all the groups I've met, they are diverse personalities, but closely bonded through the joy of singing together. They are a tribe. Something else about them I found remarkable and I mentioned it to Eric while driving back to Boston. Fourteen plus hours of hard work, lots of boredom and frustration, criticism from each other, from their leaders, from me and from Eric and we heard not even one snappy remark. Just lots of good hard work, laughs and a few catnaps in the pews.
Who is BellaMafia? They're a bunch of amazing young women. Once their CD is ready, you'll find out the rest of the answer.
Bob
Visit us at http://www.acappellanation.com
