Sing-Off Redux: Nights 3 and 4

It ain't over yet! But Nights 3 & 4 are. What you are seeing is all over - it was all taped in August. But next week, it goes live. And what an amazing conclusion to Night 4! Really, it was the only possible conclusion, unless the judges had had mercy in the first segment of the show and refused to eliminate On the Rocks.

Those Rocks Would Not Quit
What happened here? On the Rocks turned in an amazing performance. I should also add, this group was nothing if not consistent. They stayed within themselves every time out. No matter what the demands, they delivered. IMO, we should have 5 groups in the final. These guys were funny, tight, strong and very entertaining. They got better each time and delivered 110%!

What About Groove For Thought, Bob?
I should have read my own tea leaves. They are a jazz group and that's not what Sony is going for here. Did they have a little stumble in episode 3? Maybe, but so did our darling Committed. Somebody had to go, and it was the jazz group.

How About Them Backbeats?
Wow! Real a cappella singing. Not the usual spitting into microphones - just singing. Wow! We love that, we really love that.

Who Will Win?
You got me. All these groups are amazing and I could listen to them all day long. As Ben might say, I could write 10 pages on each of them describing what every singing group should emulate. You decide!

What Happened to the Whiffenpoofs on NBC's Sing-Off?

Well, the answer is a lot. First, the guys got named to the collegiate super-group in May of 2010. Sometime around June, they were invited to be on the show because, after all, they are the oldest collegiate a cappella group and pretty much established the genre (strike 1, more later). They scrambled to deal with the legalities and contacted me for a referral to an entertainment lawyer, 'cuz after all, these guys are just students and artists.

Once the ball got rolling, they actually had to face the fact they had never sung together and had no repertoire (strike 2, still more later).

They decided to be themselves, pull out all the stops and be Choral, not struggle to learn how to beatbox and to present themselves with their usual with class and style. They would wear their signature white tie and tails, strut their stuff, lay claim to the high ground and make all of America drink the from goblet of high culture (strike 3).

Did they deliver on the goods? Absolutely! Did they knock socks off from Boston to Berkeley? You bet! Did they get eliminated? Yep, that too!

So What the Heck Happened?

When the guys contacted me, I had many colleagues tell me they should not do it. They should not go compete on a show where the style of a cappella has morphed into strict instrument imitation and beatboxing. When you close your eyes, many of today's groups sound like the original bands and the Whiffs just don't do that. They spin something Choral and hopefully ethereal with everything they do. In short, they don't dance, they don't beatbox, and they'll get eaten alive.

I didn't buy that. The new style is just a way to use the human body to do what we always wanted to do - the rockin' dance songs we all loved. Adapting a popular song to a cappella always posed a big challenge because the stretch from the band performance to the sung performance was usually too great. A song without the signature lead guitar solo or those cymbal crashes usually was just plain empty and hollow. So along came beatbox with the 80's hip-hop movement, bolstered by the vocal stylings of Bobby McFerrin. Soon this was integrated into street corner a cappella and eventually into much of the collegiate ranks. Did it come from the Whiffenpoofs line? No. The a cappella line is made of multiple paths and frequent splinterings from the main line, which is Barbershop. More on that another time.

But what did worry me was these guys would expose themselves to losing. How could a group with the cachet of the Whiffenpoofs go on a show where the Tufts Beezelbubs had gone to finals in 2009, and not win? This would damage their image!

Would their classic style hold up? I had no doubt it would, and it did. But in the second season, the stakes had been raised, and the show's agenda had hardened against them in ways subtle, but certain.

"Sing Off", the Greatest Show on Television!

What is the agenda of "Sing-Off"? Well, first it is to be the Greatest Show on Television. The judges have enunciated this phrase several times. A worthy goal, no doubt, and frankly to me it is just that.

It does just what the judges have said - it takes "raw talent" developed to a striking level, and puts it on display for all of America. Anyone who has ever been serenaded by a cappella singing knows just how exciting this genre is. It moves you to tears, to joy, to goosebumps born of deep emotion. Still, getting someone to go to a choral or a cappella performance is like dragging a mule out of the barn. Why? Well, it's personal. Yes, it's a close-encounter. It's not like watching Billy Joel on stage. It's very direct. It's in the body. Ok, so it's not a t-group, but it does have intimate characteristics that make people shy away, even though they all like singing.

Don't forget, the greatest show on television is in its second season. A lot of professional groups spent the last year setting their sights on it. The bar is higher than it was in 2009.

So, Tell Me About the Agenda

Simple. Read the tea leaves. Who are the sponsors? Who are the Producers? What is the Prize? Who are the judges? These things tell you everything about who wins and who loses. After all, every group is superb. They auditioned over 400 groups and selected the best 10. How bad can any individual group be? Every single one is good enough to entertain millions of people on national TV. So, start with the tea leaves and then break it down - it's all right in front of you.

These are the Judges:

• Nicole Scherzinger - Pop/R&B singer
• Ben Folds - Alternative/Pop Rock singer/songwriter
• Shawn Stockman - R&B singer

This is the Producer: Sony Pictures Television

This is the Prize: Cash + Epic Records/Sony Music Recording contract

What Do the Producers and Judges Want?

Simple. They want to find a sweetheart a cappella group to sell a lot of records. A group that connects with the masses of folks willing to buy tunes for their iPods. Do they care if its beatbox or not? No, they really don't. They are looking for charisma, authenticity, connection, quality and street appeal. You will find this stated over and over in the judges responses to the performances. They are very focused. Does quality come first? Yes, but don't forget quality is made of all the the above components, so yes, it does.

Do the Whiffs have a 'tude?

Yes, and why shouldn't they? They forked off Barbershop in 1909 and started a gigantic experimentation with vocal harmonization that has evolved to this day, to this competition. Are they responsible for all of it? No. Do they think they are? Yes. Well, did they really start it? Yes, but although they have been a driving force, they are not the pioneers of everything in the movement. Hmm, so when they talk about who they are they ruffle feathers, don't they? Listen to Shawn Stockman's comments after their first song "Grace Kelly", on episode 1. In addition to saying how the dynamics were "like drama", because their dynamics were refreshingly more pronounced than the other groups so far, and saying they were "off the hook", which they were, he also mock-thanked them for inventing a cappella because "none of us would be here today" without them. Yes, the Whiffs have a 'tude, and their pedestal is high. You can cast a stone or two and watch them fall. It's fun, like bowling. Strike 1.

Are the Whiffs a true Super-Group?

Yes and no. Like The Backbeats, they are formed of the best of the best. Hand-selected from the junior class among the large and talented singing community at Yale, these kids have been rehearsing 6 days a week and singing for money since freshman year. Some of these guys came to Yale expressly to sing with the Whiffenpoofs and launch a career in entertainment. Is everyone a superstar? Well, a lot of them are, but some guys are just really good ensemble singers. But the fact remains, they only had a handful of weeks to learn a pile of music and to gel with one another. The Backbeats did the same thing. Both groups did it very, very well. In August, The Whiffenpoofs are not yet a true super-group; they are just getting started. Put 'em back in the oven. Strike 2.

Do the Whiffs have 'Street Appeal'?

No. They are very intelligent wiseacres who love to play with words, and with the artsy, silly side of your brain. They love high art, sophistication, Broadway and the better things in life like wearing white tie and tails. This is who they are. They are children of Cole Porter. This is not a bad thing, but on Sing-Off, it's strike 3. Where's my bowling ball?

Did the Whiffs Deliver?

Oh yes, they did! They hit it out of the park with both performances. I thought their "losing" performance was stunning. Don't forget, all groups are competing at the highest possible level. Did The Whiffenpoofs "sing down their noses", as Ben Folds said? No, they did not. They pulled out all the stops and delivered on what they do. It was a little high brow, but it totally blew the roof off. They melted Nicole's heart. If they had not been so good, they would have been slotted in the show's first half and would easily have survived until episode 3. But consider strikes 1, 2 and 3 above. They have a 'tude, they didn't have time to find themselves and they are not, and never will be, "street".

So, Who Will Win?

Stop it! Everyone wants to know that, but everyone already knows the answer: Committed. Why? They got it all. They have no 'tude - they are who they are - a bunch of gospel singers who just love to sing and express from the heart. They are well experienced singing together - each guy knows where he fits and how to contribute to the whole. They are not trying to figure out who should sing lead or what styles or combinations will work. Finally, they got street appeal. They sing right to you and me, about things that touch everyone's heart. They are not playing with words, making jokes or trying to impress. There is no hidden agenda. They are authentic. Listen to the judges. This is it!

Who are the runner ups?

Why do you always ask such tough questions? There are several groups who are poised to knock it out of the park, and some of them have never done a lick of beatbox. See, it's not about that - it's about connection, authenticity and communicating feelings directly from the songwriter to the audience, like a bolt of lightning. Listen to the judges. They are telling you everything!

But these are my favorites:

Groove For Thought - I am a sucker for killin' jazz chords and these cats are smooth.

Street Corner Symphony - These guys really rock my world with their feel for the songs.

Jerry Lawson and the Talk of the Town - Classic, they stand and deliver the genuine article.

More Lessons from the World of Sport

Last week following the NE Patriots' win over the Baltimore Ravens, during the post-game Q&A, I was struck by several of Coach Bellicheck's responses. The man doesn't have a lot of patience for things that don't win football games. Sometimes he speaks a truth so plainly, it sounds harsh. Here is an excerpt from the Q&A that struck me:

Q: When you evaluate Deion Branch’s array of skills, what do you think are the best two or three?

BB: He can get open and catch the ball. Don’t make it too complicated.

What a gift of cutting right to the core! Don't make it too complicated. We all know a cappella singing is a lot like NFL football, isn't it?

Don't Make It Too Complicated: A Page From Bellicheck's Playbook

As musical directors, we coach our singers to produce better vowels, a beautiful blend, a sound that resonates and rings in the hall. We teach them to breathe from down low, support with abdominal muscles, hold the jaw this way, only use the tongue to make this sound, squeeze this, yawn, lift this, stretch that and so on. When considering how to raise the bar in your choir, remember the simplicity of Bellicheck's genius. Don't make it too complicated! A singer has to take a breath and make a good sound. Sure, a zillion components go into making that sound a good one, but everyone fundamentally knows how to do it. Your job is to draw that out without over-complicating it.

We need to recognize that fundamental truth as we coach our singers. Making a beautiful sound involves getting out of the way and allowing the body do what it was born to do. At some level, our body knows how to do it without any thinking at all.

A Cappella Singing and MLB Baseball: "We Have Eliminated Thinking!"

Remember the 2004 Red Sox? How did they overcome such a huge deficit and overcome a superior opponent? I recall it was Johnny Damon who answered the question: "We have eliminated thinking!" That team found a way to get thinking out of the way and became an irresistible force.

A couple of weeks ago, Blue of a Kind was working on a piece with quite a bit of sparse, syncopated, percussive entrances. The guys were coming in near the off-beat point, but with a pronounced staggered effect. Each "bop" sounded like "b-b-b-bop" and the effect was killing the song. For weeks, we had drilled the rhythm, talking it through while tapping the tempo. We ran it dozens of times in slow motion and fast motion. The guys listened to learning track files countless times between rehearsals, but when the moment came to sing it, all we got was "b-b-b-bop".

Becoming An Irresistible Force

I could see everyone was trying very hard to get it right. Their eyes seemed to be picturing the sheet music and trying to figure exactly where the "bop" was. Sometimes we get too tied to those black notes on the white page! I decided the only way to make this work was by eliminating all that thinking and get it down to something which had to be in their bones already. I told them they all knew exactly where the entrances were and asked everyone to close their eyes and sing as they felt it. Guess what? They nailed every single entrance! The song took on a new life, one that was totally irresistible. This is what you want!

You Already Know How To Do It

I had a voice coach who used to say, "If you can talk, you can sing." Singing is nothing more than talking with a little more time spent on the vowels. Many of us probably engage more natural singing skills calling our kids to dinner than in choir practice. When we sing, we get concerned about how it sounds in our head, we apply tension in our vocal apparatus trying to adjust what we hear hoping to diminish our sense of feeling exposed or not sounding good enough. The result is a twisted and distorted sound. It just ain't natural! We need to impart tips and tricks that enable our singers to do what they already know how to do!

Society of Orpheus and Bacchus mini-reunion

This past weekend, 25 alums of the Society of Orpheus and Bacchus gathered on hallowed soil in New Haven to sing, eat, drink, play some golf and reconnect with each other. We swapped stories, met spouses, had laughs and we sang. Oddly, we had done virtually none of this for the last 35 years or so. A few years ago, the group held a reunion to celebrate its 70th anniversary. A few of us looked around the room and noticed how there were almost no attendees who had graduated before the mid '70's. And we planned to do something about it.

I spoke to several of "missing" guys and many said they'd never return. They had seen the group at one time or another 10, 20 or 30 years ago and decided they did not belong with these people. The identification vectors had been broken. Some didn't like the performance values of the group. Some found the humor offensive. Some observed the kids were not "like us". And some found they couldn't sing the old songs with these guys. The music had changed. There were new songs, of course. But many of the old songs had been reworked and the guys could not close their eyes and sing them from beginning to end. There were too many speed bumps!

One of my old pals known affectionately as Kow decided to forge ahead and plan an event just for this lost generation. Maybe we couldn't reach back to the 40's and 50's, but at least we might collect the guys we knew, sing the old songs as we had learned them and through that reestablish a connection with the group.

We cloistered ourselves at first - sang together with restored musical arrangements, something I have been working on the past several years. We were able to interest several of the group's most significant arrangers to come and conduct "master class" rehearsals with the guys. You see me pictured above at the new Mory's with two of my great heros, Dave Bass and Chan Everett who ran these rehearsals. We dined together, swapped tales and songs and even entertained the patrons at Mory's as we used to as undergraduates. Cups were passed. Some magic began to kick in.

Singing as One

We had a more in-depth master class rehearsal the second day and really started to sing like something of a unit. Dynamics were happening, the chords were truing up, the sound was producing goose bumps. At dinner that evening, we sang between courses and this time the songs sounded more solid, more developed. We even tried a few songs we had not rehearsed and pulled off at least one song I did not dream possible. We were singing again!

Reconnecting

Then we took our stuff to meet the young men of the current group. We met at the SOB house where many of them live, circled up in the backyard, eyeballed each other for a bit and then started swapping tunes. Eventually, we sang some together. The young men met some of their idols and legends of the past. They got to shake hands with some of the best arrangers and most clever jokers of the groups history and hear some songs they did not know existed. The old guys got regaled by some stunning voices singing both old songs and new, and suddenly it all seemed really cool. We met a couple of the guys we'll be seeing on TV this fall on the next NBC "Sing Off" series. We had Sam Weisman, producer of that show singing baritone on our team. These guys are stars, but first of all they are just good kids who love to sing, just like us. We all realized how much singing connected us to good friends and fun, making it possible to handle the stress of Yale and the demands of life. We all felt like we belonged together. We found the connection to the living tradition that had been broken for many of us.

Botch-A-Me, why don't ya?

Just a quick note: the video of Botch-A-Me's first performance is posted on YouTube and you can check it out:

Dayna Brown did a a phenomenal job on the solo and director Murray Kidd and Polymnia made this a great experience. I had fun taking the cornball "Tony came from Italy..." intro and accompanying the soloist with male a cappella, then introducing the women's voices in the last few measures before verse 1 begins. The break section took a more modern turn than in the days when Rosemary Clooney sang this number. Hope you like it!

Bob

The Salem Antique & Classic Boat Festival

Blue of a Kind will be singing outdoors at this festival above in Salem MA on August 29 from 12 to 1 pm. Singing in the open air is always exhausting. The wind is blowing, birds are flying by, children run around, women smile and mosquitos and flies dive bomb the baritones. There is no end to distraction! In addition, your sound flies out into space. It has nothing to bounce off and you can't hear anybody else. You easily can't sing as one. Tuning, matching vowels and dynamics, even staying on the same verse together all become much more difficult.

Electronics to the rescue! In this case, you want a sound system to amplify you for the benefit of the audience as much as for yourselves! What kinds of equipment does your group have for outdoor gigs? We'd like to hear.

Blue of a Kind has kept it simple. We typically sing indoors and enjoy decent and sometimes superb acoustics. Sometimes the venues are large, and the house will provide an array of microphones and a sound engineer to amplify the whole group.

For a bunch of guys who don't rehearse with any electronics, learning how to balance the sound can be tricky. If you've sung with a microphone, you know a few things - how to avoid popping, how to lay back so you don't overwhelm the audience with your voice and how to produce a sound that is basically in a balance with the rest of the ensemble.

Blue of a Kind is working with a simple system these days for outdoor work. We have sung on floats in parades several times with this setup, and it has the advantage of being powered entirely by batteries. It's portable and does the job surprisingly well.

The core of the system is a Boss digital recording system that can mix several microphones and the monitor can be jacked into a separate amplification system, in our case the Roland Cube Street. This gives us a little something to listen to as well as projecting our sound a bit more to the audience. The same system can record the performance. Blue of a Kind uses these recordings the same way football teams use game tapes.

We're looking at better sound systems to manage indoor and outdoor performance situations. The requirements are pretty much the same. First and foremost, the system must be portable. We don't want to lug a ton of stuff around - we're a cappella and we travel light! Battery power is a plus factor as is the ability to make field recordings.

Field Recordings

These became really important early in our development. Here's why:

First of all, the group generally takes away a single impression from any given performance. If it is successful overall, the blemishes are utterly forgotten, except by the director! As director, trying to make a lesson out of a successful performance often falls on deaf ears. So early on, I decided the guys needed to have a listen to each show with some objectivity in order to take ownership of the issues that arose in performance.

So field recordings became the "tail of the tape"; the recordings don't lie. You can still tell whether the audience digs it, but your emotions and nervous energy are gone now. You can listen coldly and hear exactly what you did or did not do. You can ask yourself whether it moves you. You can talk about it as a group, press rewind and hear it again.

Sometimes those field recordings are dead solid perfect. You can use them on your next CD as we did on To the Sky. It was not only a good performance; we had used a top-notch digital recorder to capture it.

How is your group handling concert recordings?

The App Store: Tools for the Singer and for the Director

You know I work for Palm. OK, we're HP now. We "Palmers" all love gadgets and especially Apps. Apple made Apps the next best thing to sliced bread, and Palm has The App Catalog. We're making the world a easier place to live using the smart phone in your pocket. Hey, we're carrying these tiny computer/communicators, so of course it's really cool if they can tell us when the moon is full or help us find a restaurant.

As a musical director, I'm finding Palm Apps now like Pitchpipe, Metronome and other basic tools I use for singing. My dream is to be able to create and assemble songlists for concerts, and to tap each song in the list to hear the starting pitches, maybe the first bar or two in the correct tempo. Right now, I carry a real pitchpipe and a set of note cards with handwritten information. I might have to write this app myself.

If you know of any great Apps out there for any phone, post a comment here.

A New Season Begins!

Well, it's been a great summer. There are still a few weeks to go and lots of sailing ahead so I am not calling it quits yet! However I am thinking about the coming year. Blue of a Kind just started preparing for the coming season. Like a professional sports team, a choir has to return to camp and reconnect with how they do what they do. Choirs like us also have to begin learning their Holiday music long before the snow starts flying. There's work to do!!

How I Spent My Summer Vacation

The summer began with a 10 day trip to Cuba to sing with the Yale Alumni Chorus. It was the experience of a lifetime. Many non-US travelers have enjoyed visiting Cuba since 1980, but for US citizens you need to jump through a lot of hoops to do it legally. Luckily, YAC managed all this hard work for us, and the choir only had to sing and prepare to share friendship.

We have a phenomenal group of singers of all ages, and one of the best directors you could ever sing under, Jeffrey Douma. The singers work independently to learn the music for months. They gather for a couple of regional rehearsals under Jeff to put it all together. Once in Cuba, we rehearsed a couple of times a day for the first few days to get the spit and polish we needed. After Jeffrey shapes the output of 200+ voices, the results can be quite intoxicating! We were able to sing joint concerts in Matanzas and Havana with professional choirs and perform at a very exceptional level.

The Cuban people were thrilled that we wanted to come sing for them, put all our hearts and souls into it, and meet them as friends. It was a wonderful experience and we made many friends.

Summer Arranging

I also did more arranging this summer, focusing on classics from the American Songbook, and produced these new works for men:

Getting Some Fun Out Of Life

Lil' Darlin'

I Hadn't Anyone Till You

And I reworked a couple of SATB arrangements for men. These two were taken from the YAC Cantemos! repertoire:

El Bodeguero

MLK

Topics for the Coming Year

What shall we talk about this season? I'm developing an agenda for Blue of a Kind so we can continue developing and having fun. I have also developed a list of blog topics for the coming season. Last year, I got into a groove of producing an arrangement a week for 6 months and wrote about each one. This took me on a very single-minded journey which was quite productive, but requiring many hours of work before I wrote the first word of my blog entry. It also changed the course of this discussion, which is aimed at all things a cappella, rather than arranging tips and techniques.

If these are of interest (or not) I hope you'll post a comment with your thoughts:

• Becoming a better ensemble singer
• Developing a structure to support learning and development
• Section leadership, rehearsals
• Personal practice time
• Amazing singing - CDs, groups, new releases
• Your voice - approaches to producing better sound\
• Choral vocal production
• Balancing chords
• Consistent tone
• Singing parts as lines
• Vowels
• Forte consonants
• Romancing the lyric
• Singing softly


• Singing in tune
• Going flat
• Going sharp


• Ensemble singing topics
• Singing on auto-pilot: eye contact and engagement
• Dynamics
• Color
• Legatto, staccato, marcato...
• Exact attack and exact pitch
• Releases
• Shouting, bellowing
• Trusting your sound


• Performing
• Movement in performance
• Dealing with nerves in performance
• Translating rehearsal success into standing ovations


• Marketing, Increasing audience, getting more gigs - web, local media, PR
• Music selection
• Ordering songs in performance or on your CD
• Working with Finale, Sibelius
• Tips and techniques
• Archival concerns


• The joys of directing
• Rehearsal strategies
• Vocal Percussion and imitating bands
• Arranging music - tips and techniques

And What Else?

Do you have any other ideas or things you'd like to hear about or discuss? Post a comment and let me know!

Being With You

Smokey Robinson's "Being With You" spent five weeks at number one on the Hot Soul Singles chart during the Spring of 1981 and reached number two on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, his highest charting solo hit on the pop charts. The song was a number one hit in the UK for two weeks in June 1981, becoming Robinson's second UK #1 single and his first as a solo artist. It would mark his last appearance at the top of the UK Singles Chart.

Tortured Soloist

It's another delightful love song where the poor tenor is tortured about his love for a woman who probably isn't worth it. Nothing like a little drama to make a hit song! This allowed a few openings for the patter to take a slightly different perspective than the tortured soloist, but I avoided going so far as to break the drama entirely.

A Simple Variation

You'll see below I pass the patter back and forth between sections that alternate singing "oo" or "ah". This creates a lovely continuity suggestive of strings while the movement of the line between voice parts adds variation and interest. then all parts join to emphasize the concluding thought of each verse:

Closing Shop For Now

It has been a great project these last 6 months arranging a song a week. Now I got to put it aside and devote myself to my day job, prepare for the trip to sing in Cuba, and kick back a little to enjoy summer. There may be a few more songs over the next few months, but not at the weekly pace. I potted the tomato plants for the deck and mulched the strawberry patch. The sailing club opens next week.

Setting this goal for myself was quite productive. Each week the list grew and grew. Like a lot of things in this world, it was a series of tiny steps: a measure or two at a time, an idea that hits you at the gym solves a problem and suddenly a song lurches forward towards completion. The weeks go by, and by Friday sometimes the weeks' song is finished and sometimes you're just getting started. But by Sunday night, it has to be finished, so make it happen and eventually the songs just start stacking up.

And here is the stack of work since November:

A Groovy Kind of Love

Ain't Nothing Like the Real Thing

Ain't That Peculiar?

Baby, I Need Your Lovin'

Being With You

Blue Bayou

Botch-A-Me

Cruisin'

Gypsy Woman

Hit the Road, Jack

I Can't Get Next To You

Love Hurts

Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye

Nowhere To Run

People Get Ready

Shahdaroba

Talking About My Baby

That's the Way Love Is

There Is Nothin' Like a Dame

Tracks of My Tears

Unchain My Heart

Wild Ox Moan

You Are Everything

You Don't Know Me

You're All I Need to Get By

These are all men's a cappella with the exception of "Botch-A-Me", which is SATB with jazz band. That piece is my third commission for Polymnia Choral Society and will be premiered in their final concert of the 2010 season.

I will be happy to send samples to anyone who wants to consider one of these for their ensemble. Just drop me a note.

Bob

Cruise With Me Baby!

"Cruisin'" is a 1979 single written, produced, and recorded by William "Smokey" Robinson for Motown Records' Tamla label. One of Robinson's most successful singles outside of his work with The Miracles, "Cruisin'" peaked at number-four on the Billboard Hot 100.

Bob Dylan once said of "Smokey" Robinson, that he is "America's greatest living poet." Regarding his nickname, "Smokey" Robinson tells the story that, when he was a boy, his Uncle Claude christened him Smokey Joe, which the young William, a Western-movie enthusiast, at first assumed to be "his cowboy name for me". Some time later, he learned the deeper significance of his nickname: It derived from smokey, a pejorative term for dark-skinned blacks. "I'm doing this," his uncle told the light-skinned boy, "so you won't ever forget that you're black."

Smokey's easy poetry shines in Cruisin':

The music is playin' for love,

cruisin' is made for love,

I love it when we're cruisin' together.

Some Diggity, Regular Patter

Cruisin' is one of those songs that's totally mellow and echoes the whole grove of the theme. Sometimes it's intentionally not clear whether the song is really about driving with your girlfriend or something much more intimate. This song really gets hot. I applied just a little diggity, as you'll see below, and really simple patter. There's no clever dialog between the ensemble and the soloist. This mood is not to be broken - there is some serious love-making going on here and you gotta just stay out of the way! So it's chords, chords, chords, structure, layers, supportive patter and just a little diggity to achieve the charm of Robinson's lovely song:

Hey, How Did You Do It?

I spent the week in California on business and had no time to work on this or any other music. I have a stretch of hard work ahead at Palm, and this song plus my next were pretty nearly completed before I left. Yes, I've been working ahead of the pace again. It looks as if I'll take a pause starting next week at the six month mark of this project.

With luck, I'll finish Being With You by next week.

Nowhere To Run, Baby!

"Nowhere to Run" is a 1965 pop single by Martha & the Vandellas for the Gordy (Motown) label and is one of the group's signature songs. The song, written and produced by Motown's main production team of Holland-Dozier-Holland, depicts the story of a woman trapped in a bad relationship with a man she cannot help but love. Holand-Dozier-Holland and the Funk Brothers band gave the song a large, hard-driving instrumentation sound similar of the sound of prior "Dancing In The Street" with snow chains used as percussion alongside the tambourine and drums.

This version was ranked #358 on Rolling Stone's list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.

The record's brass-heavy arrangement and chorus of "nowhere to run to, baby/nowhere to hide" have made the song a popular one at sporting events, whether played in its original version or reinterpreted by a marching band. The song has also been seen as one of the songs played heavy by troops during the Vietnam War and has since been a title and inspiration in TV shows such as Quantum Leap and Murphy Brown.

This is a song that really rocks, and should be an enormous amount of fun for an a cappella group. The trick with a piece like this is to expand the groove and use variation to create tension and energy without a brass section, drums and snow chains. You got to use the forces you have and do it vocally!

Silence is Golden

It's as taught in Zen - things are made of their opposites. Music is made up of silence just as it is made out of sounds. Negative space makes the positive space more powerful and impressive, and that's what we're going for with Nowhere To Run. I create silence and hushed intensity to allow headroom for the big stuff, making it seem even bigger. For example, when I have the upper voices hit some of their chords like brass hits, they explode out of this quieter space driving the intensity higher.

Another Problem

The song is a dance song. It does not need to go anywhere. It starts at Defcon 7 or 8 and stays there start to finish. As I've said before, your audience probably won't be dancing - they will be all ears and all the dancing will probably be in their mind's eye. If verse 1, verse 2 and verse 3 are all the same, they will begin wondering if they left the oven on back home. You don't want them drifting off like that! You gotta develop things and vary them without breaking the driving force concept of the piece.

To do this, I broke down one verse into a taut duet with the soloist against the tenor 2's. This diminishes the volume in a way that draws in the listener to something even more intense than staying at full overdrive. The bass line continues underneath keeping up the rhythmic underpinnings, making the verse a kind of trio. You'll see this below. Hmm, more silence to create space and tension....

What Else?

Well, I try to develop patter instead of nonsense sounds imitating guitars, drums and instruments. Don't get me wrong, I love the chung-chung and beatbox stuff. But when I have the opportunity for voices to sing, and can weave a vocal texture that stimulates the mind, it's just a lot a fun! My basses are always ribbing me about the stupid sounds I make them sing, so I try to give them more words to contribute something greater to the whole. Basses can really add a whole other dimension singing words.

Patter usually echoes the lyrics and sentiments of the solo line. One thing I often do is use patter is to create tensions against the main lyric. You know the tenor is always wailing on about how "She left me" and "What will I do without her", "Can I get her back", and all that stuff we love in pop songs.

I found when I give my backup voices a position of their own and a perspective that is other than that of the soloist, it creates drama, and sometimes it creates comedic tension and hilarity. It's perfect, for example, when the tenor is wondering what went wrong and the basses, with their low tones, become the natural voice of reason and authority. They adopt a position of telling it "like it is", saying things like "I told you so" and "It's just wrong" and "If I were you, this is what I'd do".

In Nowhere To Run, I let the basses be this third person witness to the "trapped" soloist, and you can see how this creates so much drama and fun, adding another dimension to the overall expression. I let them become quite outrageous.

As I drive to the finish with the final verse, I break it down once again, and use the layering technique to build the energy back to climax. This is driven further underneath with the basses' patter becoming wilder and more insistent so the climax reaches a dizzying point, ending with a big "brass" hit on a really dirty chord by all voices. The silence afterwards is deafening!

Next week: Cruisin'

You're All I Need To Get By

This weeks contribution is a wonderful song about just plain good love. Whew! Enough about broken hearts, lost love and all that! No sorrow nor blues here, but rather just plain tons of good vibes:

"Like an eagle protects his nest, for you I'll do my best,

Stand by you like a tree, dare anybody to try and move me."

The Composers

Written by real-life couple Nickolas Ashford & Valerie Simpson, You're All I Need To Get By became one of the few Motown recordings of the 1960s that was not recorded with the familiar "Motown sound". Instead, it had a more soulful and gospel-oriented theme surrounding it that was influenced by the writers, who also sang the background vocals on the original recording.

The Covers

That first recording by Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell peaked at number 7 on the Billboard Hot 100 and number 1 on Billboard's Hot R&B/Soul Singles chart for five weeks, becoming one of the longest-running number one R&B hits of 1968 and the most successful duet recording of Marvin Gaye's entire career. Other covers:

Dionne Warwick 1969

Diana Ross 1970

Aretha Franklin 1971

Michael McDonald 2004

Structure, structure, structure....

And chords, and counter melodies. This arrangement pulls a lot of my tip sheet together in one place. You see some of the counter melodies here in the bass line, giving it interest but also adding interplay against the main melody. Delightful chords, with well-led voice lines lend a smooth sound bringing out wonderful colors. Notice the bass line variation - 4 measures one way, and then 4 measures another way.

There are always several things going on, changing in a fluid manner but held together by structure, structure, structure. The basses exhibit a bit of fun diggity here and there. Meanwhile, their patter progresses - what I need, what I want, all, I, need....

It was a big holiday week and I got to share it across several traditions. Hope you enjoyed it and I hope the creek near you is subsiding....

Next week: Nowhere To Run

You Are Everything

I had a lot of fun this week arranging You Are Everything, a soul song written by Thom Bell and Linda Creed. Originally recorded by the Philadelphia soul group The Stylistics, it was released in 1971 as a single produced by Bell. This version became a Top 10 hit for the group, peaking at #9 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. The first significant cover was by one-time Motown singing duo, Diana Ross & Marvin Gaye.

The Composers

Thom Bell is a Jamaican born, American, Grammy Award-winning songwriter and producer, best known as one of the creators of the Philadelphia style of soul music in the 1970s. He moved to Philadelphia as a child, he was classically trained and became a leading force in soul music working first with The Delfonics and later The Stylistics. Linda Creed was a Grammy Award-winning American singer-songwriter who teamed up with Thom Bell to produce some of the most successful Philadelphia soul groups of the 1970s. Her career was launched in 1970 when singer Dusty Springfield recorded her song Free Girl. Her career ended early due to breast cancer and she died shortly before Whitney Houston took her last hit, Greatest Love of All to number one on the billboard chart in 1986. In 1992, she was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame.

What's It All About, Bobby?

The song is about the saddest love of all: lost love. The song is arguably one of the most powerful torch songs ever written. This duo had a touch. Michael McDonald covered the song on his CD, Motown, reasserting its classic and enduring quality.

The song is verse, chorus, verse, chorus. It's all over in little over 2 minutes but like a secret weapon, it invades your heart inflicting terrible damage before you realize what happened. The song changes key every time you blink; the harmonic prowess is impressive. This gives an arranger a lot to play with. There are color shifts and modulations - things are very fluid, all aimed at milking the tear ducts. It's the kind of song audiences just love and you can score big by just delighting in the craft of the composition.

Bringing Out the Power of the Song: Layers

As an arranger, you highlight the emotional message and draw it out. I begin this arrangement with the solo singing against the bare bass line and a hummed baritone line, tracing a wonderful harmony, much as I might use cellos if I had them. Then I add in the 2nd tenors, allowing the harmonic vistas open some more. Before the verse completes, I bring in the 1st tenors with a brief melodic motif as they join the party. As these layers are added, the verse seems to unfold panoramically, much as the lyric unfolds the emotional pain of the narrator:

Today I saw somebody, who looked just like you.

She walked like you do, I thought it was you.

And then she turned a corner. I called out your name.

I felt so ashamed, 'cause it wasn't you, wasn't you.

At this point, your audience is hooked - the eyes begin to well up and it's "all over but the crying". This is what you want. Get in, do your damage and they will love you for it!

More Layers

In the snippet below, you'll see the things I talk about in my tip sheet: structure, chords, use of melodic motifs, great bass line. But here I also employ layers to augment the emotional impact. With an orchestra, you bring different instruments to bear, playing them off one another and perhaps adding them atop one another, deepening the impact as the various sections are added. It's the same with choral arranging. As the climax of the song arrives, I employ layers to play voices against one another harmonically and to progressively get all voices enunciating the main lyric together:

How can I forget when each face that I see brings back memories of being with you?

Oh, baby, I just can't go on living life as I do, comparing each one with you.

'Cause they just won't do. They're not you, no baby!

and the emotional climax is driven home delicately but relentlessly. Believe me, the audience will take notice although they probably won't notice the mechanism:

Psychedelic Soul!

I Can't Get Next To You

Composed by Norman Jesse Whitfield and Barrett Strong for the Temptations on the Gordy label, I Can't Get Next To You became a number one hit in 1969 on the Billboard chart. This song heralded the beginning of "psychedelic soul". Strong was the first hit maker on Berry Gordy's Motown label, with the song "Money (That's What I Want)". The single was the second of the Temptations' four number-one hits on the United States pop charts, and was also one of the best-selling singles the group released. ABC, a song released in the following year by fellow Motown act The Jackson Five, uses the same bridge section, featuring identifiable use of the stated "ya!" as well as the percussion.

A bluesier, slow burn version was recorded the following year by Al Green. The theme of the song, how having all the powers in the world means nothing if a man cannot impress the woman he loves is very similar to the lyrics of Ira Gershwin's 1935 standard "I Can't Get Started With You".

I started the bluesy Al Green version, favoring the jazzier improv section to build the harmonics for my backing ensemble. After pecolating along for verses 1 and two in this delicious funk, my arrangement suddenly breaks into quick time, playing on the Temptations' "Chick-a-booms" before flying off into urgent psychedelia, letting soloists trade 8's to the finish.

Here you can see the Al Green style intro, where I let pairs of voices trade triplet figures before letting the lower voices settle into a swing framework and the upper voices draw out those jazzy colors I mentioned earlier.

Sailing, Summer, Fun

The sailing season is starting soon in Boston. I completed a lot of work since November and might finish another work or two in the coming weeks, but I'm planning to stand down for a time, consolidate and develop my new work, and do a little sailing. Learning track files are in progress for the new work, and I'm beginning to market the songs to a cappella bands, men's choirs and the wider world. There's a lot of work to be done and the task is shifting a bit for the time being. I met a local choir director today looking to start a men's a cappella group and number one on her list was Motown. We talked. I think I'll be busy.

How About the Real Thing, Bob?

One of my friends wrote me about the video clip I posted last week of Ain't Nothing Like the Real Thing, asking me, "Where's the singing?" You can't blame her - my blogs are all about singing and she did not understand that the ink is barely dry on the pages of my new arrangement. It takes a long time to teach new music to humans and have the singing come out beautifully. In Blue of a Kind, some of the songs we've learned took many months before they were ready for "prime time".

Bring On the Ringers

So I have taken to hiring professionals to sing my new works. Yes, these guys are top notch, but still these pieces have many parts, many variations, many lyrics and even ringers take time to produce a fair rendition. They are students with a schedule of classes, exams and etc., not to mention lives of their own and they are cutting their teeth on new works. In any case, I have started hiring these guys to do the groundwork and speed things up for another group of men with lives, Blue of a Kind.

So Where Is the Real Thing, Bob?

Right here. I did this arrangement back in November. It starts out based on the classic Drifters cover, and switches over to a Brazilian Samba treatment you may have heard by Michael Buble. As the tempo heats up, the backup lyrics spin progressively further out of control. I decided to ask Jean-Baptiste Craipeau in France to record the learning tracks. Life happened. Exams came and went, JB got the chance to work on it. And now here it is - 30 seconds of it anyway. Have a listen, and get a sense of what it is we're doing. D2 - this is for you!

Taking This Week Off

I've got another piece nearly completed and I'm the boss. This weekend is a choral festival and I won't have the usual amount of time to complete. I'm preparing to go to Cuba with the Yale Alumni Chorus in June/July. This weekend is my first set of rehearsals with them and we have a performance on Sunday. My next work will be I Can't Get Next To You.

Ain't Nothing Like the Real Thing, Baby!

This weeks entry is a song composed by Nickolas Ashford and Valerie Simpson, who also composed "Let's Go Get Stoned", "Ain't No Mountain High Enough", "You're All I Need To Get By", and "Reach Out and Touch (Somebody's Hand)". Clearly, this is one of the great song writing teams of all time. It was originally recorded by Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell in 1968 and reached #8 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and #1 on the Hot Soul Singles chart.

A Song With A History

The song has been covered many times since the first release. Here's a little history:

1969 Diana Ross and the Supremes with The Temptations

1970 The Supremes & The Four Tops

1972 The Jackson 5

1974 Aretha Franklin

1976 Donnie & Marie Osmond

1993 Elton John & Marcella Detroit

1994 Gladys Knight & Vince Gill

2003 Michael McDonald

2007 Boyz II Men

What's Good About This Song for A Cappella?

Everything! First, it's beloved for generations. Next, it's a well crafted composition, with a great lyric. It moves through a lot of stuff - a rather busy piece of solo work - with mountains of harmonic interest. The song is often a boy/girl duet but Michael McDonald proved works fine as a male solo with some harmonizing on the chorus.

Plus, the contrapuntal melodies and patter just flow like honey. You can fit lyrics to the bass line like no tomorrow, and echo effectively with the other voices, as I did here in the C section:

Have A Listen

This week I figured out how to install Windows Movie Maker and make a video so you can hear the whole thing. It's piano and saxophone - simple MP3 output from Finale, hooked up with a picture to make it a movie. Hey, whatever works!

P.S. This blog is posted at http://acappellanation.blogspot.com. The embedded video/music player does not show up in Facebook, and possibly some other sites subscribed to the blog. Click the link to the blog if you want to listen.