The A Cappella Cookbook

Why Are We Doing This?

2012-01-29T13:46:00.000-08:00

Photograph: Christopher Thomond/Guardian

One of the more challenging things a musical director does is teaching non-professional singers to be expressive. We teach so many mechanical skills - the notes, the rhythms, the entrances and the lifts, how to form vowels with the lips, tongue and throat; the list goes on and on. If your choir is working on all of these things they will sound good, but maybe not great.

If your singers can also express emotion, something truly amazing can happen. Have you ever noticed how sometimes "magic" happens seemingly on its own, and you touch something beyond yourselves? Maybe the mood of the singers is right, the acoustics are particularly good, and the nuances become evident to the average singer so each can lend more attention to the emotional content of the material. We all love these moments. This is where you want to be every time you sing.

Get To the Point

A great choir is a bunch of regular people who master the little details regardless of the conditions and endeavor to "get to the point" every time they sing. They don't have to all be great divas. Your singers must realize their primary job is just this. They need to reach into the heart and soul of a piece and craft a sound that will project that core emotion into the heart of the listener. As a singer, you can't do it reliably by merely going with the flow or hiding in the ranks. You need to be the flow.

Yes, it is craft. Your singers should not be emoting, drawing pictures for the audience. Instead, they want to be mindful of the emotional center of the piece and employing the appropriate mechanics to express it. This cannot be done without conscious effort and practice. When you sing a sad piece 100 times, it will not make you feel sad anymore. Chances are good you'll be half asleep and forget to apply the technique needed to express the core emotion. And if you have let practice go by without working on this aspect - it's not generally going to happen spontaneously once you're in front of 100 people.

We have one song that's about fierce jealousy. At one rehearsal we spent some moments recalling expressions of this emotion we'd witnessed or experienced, and considered how it affected speech. The jealous or angry person puts a sharp edge on all consonants - he or she works the words much harder, actually turning them into weapons. If this aspect is missing from a song about jealousy, it simply won't do the job.

As an a cappella singer, you have nothing to inspire you but what you find within. There are no sad violins or grinding electric guitars to grease the skids for you. It all comes from inside. You are it.

A Case Study

I told this story before, but it's a good one: After one of our programs, a woman came up to me and complained about a song we'd sung, Monk's "Round Midnight". She really liked our show, but said we should never had sung that song, adding it was terrible that we'd done it. I thought we'd done a good job with it and had to ask her why she felt this way. She told me very clearly that it reminded her of her longing for her lost husband and had made her cry. Now I understood - our little arrow had hit the mark and opened her heart. This is so important, and by this I don't mean our mission is to bum people out. I mean to put them back in touch with themselves, so they can be human to others, so they can empathize with others and be better human beings in every part of their lives. With art and song, we have the power to do exactly this. It's huge!

Hit the Spot!

This is such an important aspect of what your choir is doing - in fact there's really no other good excuse for standing in front of an audience if you are not aiming for this. "Magic" will not happen for the audience just because you're covering a particular song. In fact, if your message does not "hit the spot", your audience will not experience "flow" - they will not forget themselves and arrive at a place where time no longer exists. This is the place where the whole world can be healed.

This is what you are doing.

Copyrighting Your Work

2011-09-15T13:41:00.000-07:00

In the past few months I copyrighted quite a number of my arrangements, 55 to be exact! Today, you can do this on the Internet by visiting http://www.copyright.gov/, and creating an account for yourself. Before you begin, prepare all of your music so you'll be ready to submit it at the end of the application process. I'll describe this further below.

You can copyright only the arrangement, declaring very clearly you take no credit for the melody or the lyrics. Through the process, the application forms make this all very clear. Be sure you are taking credit for original work on your end, not a recasting of someone else's work. If you adapt another person's work and change 20%, 30% or even 80% of it, it's really not original.

You'll need nothing more than PDF files of the sheet music. Be sure to include a copyright notice on the first page of every song before making your PDF files. Basically you sign up with copyright.gov and tell them what you want to copyright. If you have a number of songs, you can copyright a "book" for one low fee. You list all the songs in the book, and once the whole set is defined, make a payment using a credit card for the $35 handling fee, and upload each song at the end. Leave yourself plenty of time for this task, and don't worry too much about the sometimes cryptic questions. Humans receive and process all your information on the other end, and they're really quite good at figuring it all out.

Then what?

You wait. When you think you've waited enough, wait some more. There's a lot that has to go on on the Government side, and there is also a long queue of requests. So be patient and do not doubt. If something is screwy with your application, they will contact you and straighten it out. This is not like buying stuff at Amazon.com. In a few weeks or more, you'll receive confirmation by regular mail with your official copyright numbers for your stuff. It's not exactly suitable for framing, but it's pretty cool.

So what next?

More arranging and getting more of my stuff "out there". I am actively marketing my stuff to various choirs. This year, I expect to hear one of my new arrangements sung by the Society of Orpheus and Bacchus, and I am very excited about that! I sent it off speculatively to the new music director, Paul Leo, last spring, and he liked it a lot. We had a little discussion about arranging. He was looking ahead to his new role and wondering how he would rise to the occasion. As Orpheus, he is expected to introduce new, original material and keep the group moving forward creatively. Every director wants to contribute one or more new pieces of work, and they want them to become favorites for years to come.

Tools and Tricks

As I told Paul, I heard Deke Sharon is developing a book on a cappella arranging. I see there's another well reviewed book, "The Collegiate A Cappella Arranging Manual" by Anna Callahan. The Barbershop Harmony Society also publishes an incredible 450 page "Barbershop Arranging Manual" on the topic. References like these need to be within reach while you work.

But one of my main tools, as I told the new SOB director, is my MP3 player. First I hunt around for songs of interest to me. I suggest casting a wide net in the early stage. I buy a slew of versions of any interesting songs, and I load up my MP3 player with them. You can use your smart phone as I do (Palm Pre) or iPod or iPod Touch. It's great to have something pretty rugged, because the next step is to set aside a time to listen and for me that means while working out at the gym.

The goal is to play the list over and over, day in and day out, for 30-60 minutes a day while your mind has nothing else to do but let it sink in. When I was a student of Thich Nhat Hanh, I learned something called "deep listening", and this practice comes in handy here. You let the songs inhabit your mindspace, bounce around inside your subconscious, and eventually your ideas about how you "hear" each song begin to coalesce. Eventually, you can conceive your treatment of one of these songs from start to finish. This is not the same as knowing every note and rest; it is most likely a very broad brush conception with some parts in greater focus than others. But at some moment on the treadmill it will hit you as a complete concept after which you will find the momentum to direct 100% of your attention to realizing the concept with black dots, stems, rests and all sorts of other bits of ink on paper.

In Search Of...

2011-08-15T14:51:00.000-07:00

Restoring the musical archives of the Society of Orpheus and Bacchus has led me on a journey into the past, back to the earliest moments of the organization. Very little is known today by most alumni or current members. The mists of time have been cast over the events of nearly 75 years ago, as the story has been told and retold like a parlor game of Chinese Whispers.

We recently conducted an interview with our founder, Irving Walradt, class of 1941. Irving still has all his wits about him. The words he used were simple enough, but we did not grasp what he was saying. It was so different from the myth we'd created, so different from the projections of our reality that we could not hear his message.

History Made Every Day

After more research, more discussion, unearthing some photographs and a few more stories, the mist has begun to clear and now we're beginning to get it. Not all of us, mind you: We've told another story to ourselves for so long we may not be able to supplant the myth with the reality.

We have member rosters going back to the class of 1940, and we considered those men sang with the group in the year or so previous to graduating. In my day, we had an oral history that pinned the group's founding to 1939. Today, the group's oral history has backed that up to 1938. But Irving told us a story that made it look more like 1940, although he said there was an informal group singing with our name the previous year. But, he said they would never have endured without him founding the group to, in his words, "last forever".

Where Did We Begin?

So, what to make of this? Perhaps the group had been around as an informal organization when along comes our "founder" to establish some order that carries us to the present day. Isn't this just a man saying he added essential structure while clearly another kind of founding, of equal importance, had preceded his contribution? Didn't Irving just join those guys and augment what was already there? When was the moment of inception? Was there such a moment, or did we begin in a more organic and evolutionary way?

That's where we were after reading the extensive interview with Irving. After all, he told us the men we listed as our first members were singing together the previous year, but asserted it was he who had really founded the group. Reading his interview, we assumed that the group already existed in 1939, a story consistent with our shared myth, and along he comes, the first true Orpheus/Pitchpipe and sets a structure in place.

It Didn't Happen Like You Said

But it turns out that's not what happened at all. Over the last few months I've been digging into the deep past, reading histories, pumping the alumni for stories and photos and generally shaking trees to see what fruit falls out of them. As part of that process, I wrote to Irving at his home to request any old photos he might have of himself or the group. For weeks I'd heard nothing.

A couple of weeks ago, I took a day off to visit New Haven and archive some Whiffenpoof music in the Whiff Alumni office in Mory's and met Barry McMurtrey, SOB alum of the class of 1988, for lunch. Barry works at Yale's Sterling Library. As we waited for our meal, Barry showed me the "oldest known photograph of the SOBs". It was extraordinary, of extremely high quality, with 4 guys looking very dapper, and quite hip, singing a song in the open sun next to a 50 pound bag of oranges hanging on a hook. Barry told me he'd been given the photograph by Bill Oler, founder of the modern Spizzwinks and class of 1945, whose elder brother Wesley appeared at far left in the photo. Bill Oler had told Barry it was the oldest known photograph of the Society of Orpheus and Bacchus and had been taken on the historic Glee Club trip to South America.

The photograph had a sort of cover page wrapped around it, printed with the words Yale Glee Club Spring Trip of 1940, and noted the names of the men in the photo, calling them the Orpheus and Bacchus Association, also abbreviated, "OBA". We both knew of the historic trip to South America, and here was a shot in some tropical climate with what must have been the original name of our group: the OBA rather than the SOBs.

Who Are These People?

In it we saw what we wanted to see: four of our guys, maybe the very first guys Irving had described, singing informally together before he came along, before the group's name was "improved". Barry promised to scan the photo and send it to me. But after I returned to Boston, he wrote me that the names of two of the men were not in our official roster and so he no longer knew what the picture represented. We were suddenly very confused. I mean, hadn't Irving joined these guys the following year and formalized the organization? Barry was asking the right question: How come we didn't know who these guys were?

The OBA Quartet

I convinced Barry to send me the photo so I could send it to Irving and ask him to explain things to us. Once I got it, I checked in Tim DeWerff's "Louder Yet the Chorus Raise", a history of the Yale Glee Club to see whether these names were in the rosters Tim included in the appendices. Sure enough, all four men appeared in the roster for 1940. I thought, "it's merely an oversight - just add the names to our roster and move on".

The next morning I was at the gym and ran into a friend of mine from Polymnia and we started talking. Somehow the conversation turned to his father and he mentioned he was reading his father's journal from his trip with the Yale Glee Club to South America in 1941. Wow, I said, I was just looking at a photo from that trip and probably your dad knew these guys! But something stirred in my brain - the photo was marked as 1940 and my friend had said 1941. When I got home I check in DeWerff's book once more and saw the SA tour was in the summer of 1941. These were two different trips!

What Year Is It?

Then I looked closely at the Glee Club rosters in DeWerffs appendix, listed neatly year by year: 1939, 1940, 1941... and noticed that any given name only appeared in one list. The veil was slowly lifting from my eyes as I realized the Glee Club was run like college sports in those days. There was a Freshman Glee Club, then the Apollo (Junior Varsity) Glee Club and finally the Varsity Glee Club. Basically you had to rise up in the system to make it into the Varsity Glee Club, typically as a senior. Aha! These guys were all class of 1940, and they were all in that list. Irving was class of 1941 and appeared in the next list. Slowly the fog lifts a bit more...

A few days later I received Irving's reply to my request for photos. It came in a large manila envelope and included a two page, typewritten letter and an 8x10 B&W photograph of 8 men in white tie and tails. In the letter, Irving repeats his founder's story again and describes the 8 men as the first SOBs. Those other guys before "us" might have been SOBs, but that stood for you-know-what. His group was made up of seniors, juniors and sophomores, and had received their name "Sons of Orpheus and Bacchus" from the great Marshall Bartholomew himself.

Dawn Over Marblehead

Now my eyes opened fully and the light came shooting in. For a year or maybe more a bunch of seniors in the Varsity Glee Club had formed a pickup group and had some fun singing on the Glee Club tours. Perhaps they operated under the working name of Orpheus and Bacchus Association, a name inspired by their love of drinking and singing or maybe had been loosely given them by Barty.

But these guys graduate each year and are gone. Maybe a new pickup group repeats the following year or maybe it fades into oblivion. That's how the OBA was working, and that's who is depicted in the photo Barry had gotten from Bill Oler.

But Irving is admitted the Varsity Glee Club in the fall of 1940, and because he was not tapped for the Whiffenpoofs, has decided to start his own a cappella group. He picks guys from the underclassmen in the Apollo Glee Club so they will have longevity, puts together some cool arrangements for them, among them "Pretty Girl" and "Old Gray Bonnet". Marshall Bartholomew is thrilled and dubs the group "Sons of Orpheus and Bacchus". It is an historic moment. Up until this time, the Whiffenpoofs and senior pickup groups like the OBA perform break out numbers or sing to entertain one another on Glee Club tours. Now an a cappella group including undergraduates is included in the fun. Barty often invited the SOBs to tour with the Glee Club for the rest of his tenure. And "Pretty Girl" is still sung to this day to close every SOB concert.

The first SOB's

Irving chooses his voices with care, but also sizes up his lieutenants and establishes a leadership succession. It turns out to be enough to last forever.

The Whiffenpoof Blue Book

One last note before I sign off. As you know, I do archive work for the Whiffenpoofs. Many years before I got involved, the first archivist for the Whiffenpoofs was the aforementioned Bill Oler, 1945. One of the things Bill did, in addition to re-founding the modern Spizzwinks, was gather up all the music the Whiffenpoofs were singing and put it together into a book that came to be known as the Whiffenpoof Blue Book (WBB). In the process, he consulted with his older brother Wesley, from the OBA, and probably got manuscripts from him as well. Wesley and Bill were not able to establish who had arranged many of the songs; sometimes Wesley was able to tell him. There are notes on several of the WBB manuscripts to substantiate what I'm saying. But to this day most are still "Arrangement: WBB" meaning, "we don't know", including such songs as "Pretty Girl" and "Old Gray Bonnet".

In the interview with Irving, we also collected some of the first songs sung by the SOBs, including Irving's arrangements of "Pretty Girl" and "Old Gray Bonnet" and added them to our archives. These two songs are also in the Whiffenpoof archives, part of the WBB. In a court of law, under oath, I'd have to testify Irving Walradt '41, could well deserve the credit for arranging both of them.

Blue of a Kind sings National Anthem at Fenway Park

2011-04-16T18:54:00.000-07:00

Here's the live video of the performance:

Arranging 101, Semester 2: A Case Study

2011-03-13T09:31:00.000-07:00

Back in 1954 or 1955, one of the great musical directors of the Society of Orpheus and Bacchus, whose first name is Pete, arranged a classic piece the group sang for the next 20 or 30 years. We're not sure whether Pete made a chart of the song - if he did it was lost well before 1958 when another great director, first name of Chan, was singing it. It appears to have been passed on entirely by oral tradition. I sang this song with the O's & B's in the early 70's and I could swear we had charts for it, but nobody has yet located a copy. I went looking for records of this arrangement recently, and luckily we found something.

It turns out one of the O's & B's from the 90's made a project after graduation to pull together the ragged archives and bring some order to the chaos. He noticed the music for this particular song was missing, and contacted Chan to ask him to work up a sketch. This sketch is what was found a few weeks ago, and was sent to me.

So What's the Song?

Oh, yeah - almost forgot.... The song is a medley of two great American classics. First, "Sweet Sue" by Will Harris and Victor Young. The second is "Honeysuckle Rose" by the great Fats Waller with lyrics by Andy Razaf. Pete found a way to combine these, creating a duet by combining the two songs at once, what is generally called a fugue. Fugues are never easy to construct, but they are absolutely delightful to the ear. So our lost piece is remarkable in this respect, making it even more worthy of attention.

Chan's sketch represents to a great extent how his group had learned the song via oral tradition. If you've sung in an informal group like the SOBs, you will know this means they singers have improvised their parts over the years. Often times, the original complicated ideas are lost. There are really two reasons why these things get munged. First, the more complicated ideas are often hard to sing. The singers struggle with these sections, get them wrong, and they end up turned to mud or into something that sounds more familiar to their ears. Second, they may get altered by design, to firm up the core of the original concept in a way the singers can latch onto. They get rearranged, sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse.

I'm not going to get into how singers wing it through these difficult sections. It's a complicated, non-directed, organic process that rarely produces a remarkable or stable result. But arrangers who introduce their work to singers and identify these sticky wickets need to react quickly to redesign them before they are transmogrified to perpetual mud.

Chan's sketch also represents an extension of the arrangement beyond the way it was sung by his group in 1958 or so, because Chan is always working on solving problems and he's always learning new tricks.

Restoring 101

If you have such a sketch and some old recordings, as I also did, you can begin the work of restoring a piece like Sweet Sue/Honeysuckle Rose, and begin to see all of these dynamics at work. You also a learn a little bit of history on the way. I have a 1954 recording with Pete and his group singing the song. I also have a 1961 recording of Chan and his guys singing a somewhat different rendition. In addition, I have my own experience singing it in 1970.

First, I started with Chan's sketch and punched it up to a full-fledged manuscript. Then I compared it very closely to the recording his group had made, looking for embellishments and changes he'd added due to his basic creative nature. Essentially, this turned the clock back from the 1990's back through 1970 when I sang the song, all the way back to 1958.

Then, I took that version and tried to line it up with the recording of Pete's group singing in 1954. I stripped away embellishments of a few years, reverse engineered a few things and arrived a very good guess at Pete's original construction. Yes, nothing more than a good guess, in spite of having a decent recording.

The Rosetta Stone?

You think it would be, but in truth, the 1954 recording is not the decoding ring we seek. Why? Because Pete was darn clever and the guys just could not sing what he'd put together. In the recording, they fudge the tricky parts, which come out like pure mud. Pete was not able to get these passages under control. Look, in those days the charts were all prepared by hand, and the singers' copies were also recopied by hand. True, Xerox copiers were invented in 1938, but not available for sale until 1958. So arrangers stuck to what they written and were not able to react quickly as one might do today.

So along comes Chan in the summer of 1958, and he transcribes pretty much the entire repertoire, including pieces only in the oral tradition. One reason he's able to do so is the College has copiers! Let's look at two of those tricky spots, and see what Chan was able to do to get the mud out of them in 1958.

Dissecting Clever Rearranging

There's nothing better than concrete examples! I'll be using examples set in the key of F below. Since the key signature is clipped from the images, don't forget the B is flat by default!

First, measure 41 and following, where the ensemble sings, "Don't buy sugar". You'll see first what Pete was trying to do, something I've guessed at from the muddy section of the recording. Reminder, we're in the key of B flat here:

You can see the progression he uses is:

F/C - Em7b5/D - Ddim7 - Adim/C.

This is my best guess, mind you because there is no manuscript, and the singers are winging it all over the map. Now, take a look at Chan's rework of this passage:

Chan takes this section, extracts the key voice leading ideas, alters them slightly to strengthen them and harden up the chords. What do I mean by hardening up the chords? Look at those chord names above and you'll see there are quite a few modifiers and qualifiers to express a couple of the chords. These are Chan's chords in the same passage:

F7/C - Cm7 - Ddim7 - F7

First of all, the simplification of the 2nd chord to Cm7 helps, and Chan gets that Pete's summation chord, the Adim/C is really an F7, so he firms that up. The sequence is cleaner, the voice lines less tricky and more definite. This makes it easier for the singers to audiate their lines, and to follow the less ambiguous chord progression. Take note of something interesting: on the piano, both passages sound almost equally good.

Just a couple of bars later, there's another muddy passage on the 1954 recording, at measure 46 and following, where the ensemble sings, "You're his sugar." This, is my best guess at Pete's 1954 version:

Note, we're still in B flat, and Pete's chord progression there is G - D7 - Edim7 - G7/D.

Now, look at Chan's rework of this passage to bring it into better focus:

Chan's chords are not that different: G - D7 - F#7 - G7. But the third chord is quite different and has less modifiers - it's less ambiguous and works to clarify the harmonic sequence. And the summation chord is a solid G7, with a real rather than an impled G, and without the 5th in the bass. The main thing it allows is for the bass line to trace the roots of more definitive chords as it ascends. This anchors the singers in the unfolding harmonics.

Again, notice that on the piano, both voicings sound almost equally good. Chan has grasped something about these two passage that solves the observed problems singing them.

Spiff it Up

So today you have a computer, rather than pencil and paper, and not only is it easy to make copies for your singers, it's also easy to rework a section that's too clever for words, and can't easily be sung. Take advantage of this technology and make your adjustments early on, before your singers turn things to mud and invent some less than acceptable accommodation that will never sound right.

Arranging 101?

2011-01-22T13:56:00.000-08:00

In the past couple of weeks, I had a lot of new work to look at and had the chance to reflect on what I've learned about voice arranging together with a couple of other arrangers who have been doing this for years and years. Here are some of the key points we touched on, a sort of Arranging 101.

Hobo Nickel of a Barbershopper

It's not about the talent of the arranger

Your whole job is to create an experience for an audience. They need to be thrilled, overjoyed, psyched up, get goose bumps, laugh, cry.... If you want to dazzle them with your musical prowess, they may be impressed, but not moved. This is not what you want. If you impress them intellectually, they will say, "Well that was interesting," and you'll be lucky if that's the worst thing they say. But when you've touched them emotionally, they will never forget you.

Don't over complicate things

When you have developed a new piece of work, always make several passes over it to reduce complexity and bring out the core idea single-mindedly. The core of what you are trying to express should always be your main focus. A song has one point, one message and it must be relentless to drive that home.

Chords with lots of voice splits hitting the 6, 9, 11 and 13 will sound really cool on the piano, but often don't have the same effect when sung. Use discretion to simplify and abbreviate. What are the essential colors you want and how can you get that with the least divisi? I've said this before, when you thin the ranks with a lot of splits, there is often a weakening of the overall effect and a muddiness can result. Use fewer arrows, and put more wood behind each.

Beware of over-ornamenting. If the baritones are singing a different figure every time through the verse, the overall orchestration better be be significantly different each time. Variations that change without great effect don't get noticed. In fact, if they are too subtle, your singers won't even remember them.

Use ornaments and cliches always, but with discretion. Let them stand out so as to have a powerful effect. Just as with singing loudly - the audience won't even notice your forte unless you've given them real pianissimo. Ornaments must pop out of an un-ornamented background.

Ring the chords

Barbershop arrangers follow rules to get their chords to "ring". Pay attention to these rules and use the technique to your advantage. There's nothing better than the magic of overtones creating phantom voices that expand your sound. A chord with root, fifth, octave and mediant above (1-5-8-10) will produce a phantom note another octave above the 8 being sung. It's magical.

Last week, Blue of a Kind was rehearsing an old Barbershop number, "Kentucky Babe". It's a classic arrangement originally performed by The Chordettes, and arranged by my great hero and sometime mentor, the late Walter Latzko. We were working on "singing on the breath", producing a well supported pianissimo and matching our vowels with one another. As we did, another voice was suddenly in the air. You would swear that one of the guys was pretending to be a soprano. We fooled around holding some of the chords and dropping out one or two of the sections to hear the phantom voice disappear. This is a wonderful effect, and it has the power to touch the audience emotionally. Use it.

Lead the voices

Vocal orchestrations should be singable. Each line can offer a sort of sub-melody, and go somewhere - create tensions and resolve them, leading from point A to point B. Some arrangements have voices plugging holes in chord progressions and can present big challenges for singers. The lack of fluidity will be evident. Yes, sometimes you want this, but by and large, this is not what you're looking for.

I always feel each voice part should be singing their own little song. Make a duet between the melody and another voice part. Then make another duet with the melody and still another voice part. Now put all three together. Then work with that, iron out the difficulties and see where it leads you. The bass should touch often on the root and the fifth, but also let it walk from here to there the way bass players in bands and orchestras do, creating another duet, and counterpoint against the melody. If a line seems too angular, spend some time making the dots connect here and there, smoothing it out, and see what happens.

Each part does not have to be too complicated, but when you put them together the interweaving can be quite delightful. This is what you're going for.

Save the best for last

Keep your best and coolest doo-dads for the last verse, for the conclusion. Barbershoppers always have these mind-blowing tags to accomplish the coup de grâce. The conclusion is the summation, the defining moment when you and the audience must be on the same page, and you've driven your arrow straight through their heart. Competitive barbershopping can take this to an extreme where they show off how long the tenor can hold a note without turning blue. Audiences love that! Here's my pal Danny Fong doing a cool song with a classic example of what I'm talking about:

How does he do that? And doesn't it do something to you?

Reserve your best ornaments, rhythmic figures whatever for the summation. Don't tip your hand too early in a piece. If you have a great ornament that appears repeatedly, create a reduced variant to use in verse 1 and 2, and then pull out the stops in verse 3. Put that key change before the final verse and push your listeners over the edge. Drive your point home and don't be afraid to go all out.

Practice, practice, practice!

I have a friend, one of my mentors and also a favorite voice arranger, who recently described his learning process doing voice orchestration. He likens it to the Elliot Wave principal used to predict market movements. Stocks tend to follow a pattern of 5 distinct phases: Up 1, down 2; up 3, down 4; and then up 5 before reversing the trend. As my friend points out, learning processes follow a similar progression. Here's how he described it:

"You start out and develop an increasingly more complicated skill set, but then have to step back and find you've gone off on too many tangents. You then take what you have and simplify by cutting out what doesn't seem to work. You find that you've cut out some chaff, but still aren't anywhere near an ability to really create something great, so you start to experiment once again. This also produces extraneous stuff which has to be 'dumbed down', but by now, after you do that, you've reached a point where you can tie everything together and add what else you need while sanding the edges. In the process, you develop your own style, much of which is 'borrowed' from the work of others that you have learned from along the way, but hopefully full of some stuff that is your very own."

You can't go through this process without trial and error, without repetition, evaluation and reevaluation, and giving it time to develop. Basically, it's practice, practice, practice!

Note: This blog is published on The A Cappella Cookbook. Click the link to visit the source of all this madness and fun.

De Wind Blow Ober Mah Shoulder

2011-01-09T07:53:00.000-08:00

There may be some good copies of this arrangement "out there". Maybe they will now turn up, but some friends have asked to see what I'm dealing with. A picture is worth a thousand words, so check out a copy just below. You'll see why I passed over this manuscript in 1971, and why I waited almost 5 years before trying to figure it out. Luckily, it's a simple song and I have sung dozens of Bartholomew arrangements of sea chanties and spirituals.

As you can see, this is one of those manuscripts that looked a lot like spots on a Jersey cow. Oftentimes, I can find coherent lyrics published in other sources, but not so here. With some squinting, I was able to decipher the lyrics:

A dark cloud a-risin';

Poor sinner begin to tremble.

Massa Jesus come from Galilee,

De wind blow ober mah shoulder.

Oh come mah lovin' brother/sister,

An' let's go down to Jordan.

Take up your cross an' 'ny yo'-self,

An' join de band ob de Angels.

In case you're wondering, that's "... your cross and deny yourself". If anyone knows this song or has other copies of it, please let me know. I think it's probably quite old.

Coded Messages in Spirituals?

There is some scholarship saying spirituals carry a coded message underneath the outward religious message. The message details the path of escape to the North, here coded as the River Jordan. Slaves could safely sing these songs publicly, broadcasting the message and the roadmap among the community. The band of Angels might be the folks helping escapees make the journey. If this song carries such a message, the ominous dark clouds, the Massa Jesus and the wind coming over the shoulder might represent the danger behind as one takes flight, adding quite an unexpected dimension. If you have any thoughts on that, please share them.

The Joys of Restoration

2011-01-07T19:02:00.000-08:00

Every once in a while, something really amazing happens. I engrave a lot of old music that's been kept in moldering folders, shoeboxes and the like. It's music that's been passed on for ages. Some of it is too old to sing today, some of it is racist and doesn't deserve to be sung by anyone, and some of it is downright historical, but much of it is nearly unintelligible. And the facts about who created it and when are lost. That's where I come in.

What's In the Shoebox?

Several weeks ago I acquired a new shoebox-worth from someone's attic. One of the SOB alums from the class of 1951 did some digging and found some sheet music going back over 60 years. When I say sheet music, I am talking about hand-copied manuscripts that had been xerox copied numerous times and then have sat in someone's attic for 50+ years. This is not the stuff you buy from Hal Leonard or SheetMusic.com.

You look at this music and the staff lines are all but missing. Sharps cannot be distinguished from flats or naturals. Sometimes it looks more like spots on a cow than actual music. Over the past 6 years I have learned a lot of tricks to restore music like this, and find out who created it.

Today, I worked on a song I had seen in the SOB shoebox in 1971 called, "De Wind Blow Ober Mah Shoulder". The manuscript had a frightening appearance even then - the scrawl of the copyist gave me the shakes, and the breakdown caused by xeroxing only added to the overall creepiness. Trying to parse the notes was nigh unto impossible, so I turned the page and moved on to the next song. In 1971, this piece had already become inaccessible.

Now I approach a scan from someone else's shoebox of the same old song. In the meantime, I have engraved hundreds of other songs in poor condition going back 40, 50 and 60 years or more. I might not want to consider singing this song, but I want to know how it sounded and preserve that for future generations.

Old Songs: Some Better Left Dead

Among the recent find, one of the racist songs was attributed to someone named Goodale, but I could find no mention of him in the SOB records. We also got a couple of arrangements done by Horace Taft, an SOB musical director from class of 1950. Taft had been tapped by the Whiffenpoofs and turned them down. He'd also been on the Manhattan Project before returning to Yale, and was Dean of Davenport College when I was a freshman, although we did not meet. Taft was classmates with other musical geniuses at Yale, including Herb Payson and Edwin Wolff. These guys were among the most prolific arrangers and directors the Yale a cappella groups have ever seen, and their music is still performed down to this day.

One of the Taft songs had his name on it, and the other did not. But it had his signature all over every measure of the music. After going through hundreds of songs note for note, you get so you can recognize the marks of the arranger. But I ramble. But why? Because the interconnections are what I am really talking about. That's why I could recognize the second song as another Taft arrangement.

Ok, back to ground. "De Wind Blow Ober Mah Shoulder". I decided to search the Web using plain English. Bingo - I found the song.

De Wind Blow Ober Mah Shoulder: Found!

Ok, I found it, but this is a song that is nearly lost to the whole world. I found exactly one reference to the song, but it was enough. It was sung at The Orpheus Club of Philadelphia in 2009 to honor Bruce Eglinton Montgomery, director of the Penn Glee Club starting in 1956 who had passed on in 2008, and a counterpart and friend of Marshall Bartholomew of the Yale Glee Club. In his early days at Yale Bartholomew, also known as 'Barty", had visited a lot of chapels in the South looking for spirituals and gospel music, and had collected one song that was a favorite of Montgomery's, and you've guessed which one, haven't you? It's about the wind blowing....

This manuscript was copied by Robert F. "Missing" Link into a handmade songbook called "Songfest", which somehow ended up in the SOB archives many years before I went to Yale. A similar songbook was assembled by Bill Oler, also an SOB, for the Whiffenpoofs that has come to be known as "The Whiffenpoof Blue Book". Many songs from both books are in both repertoires of the two groups, and many are also in the "Songs of Yale".

In the top, right corner of this manuscript is a notation, "arr. by Barty", which we could not read very clearly and up until today had thought said 'Borty'. Today, the light came on and now we know whence this song came. So I share it with you.

Armed with this realization, I scoured my "Songs of Yale" books (various editions), but did not find the song published in any. However, I did find documentation of previous Yale Glee Club directors, and Barty's predecessor was one G. Frank Goodale. Remember the racist song I mentioned earlier? This is the Goodale who arranged it. It is a meaningless camp song, the equivalent of "One little, two little, three little Indians", and appeared in "Songs of Yale" in 1906, called "Three Little Darkies". The title is the worst part of it, so if you read that and survived, you're good. But the good news is we got the song nailed down right to the attribution, because of interconnections. It may not be worth singing anymore, but it's worth documenting.

Getting Over the Shivers

This song that gave me the shivers in 1971 is important in its own way. It's a song you won't find anywhere - it's one of those songs that is not sung by anyone anymore and it's pretty much dead and gone. But I restored it today and heard it and it is beautiful!

Sing-Off Redux: Nights 3 and 4

2010-12-15T19:20:00.000-08:00

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?

2010-12-10T18:45:00.000-08:00

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

2010-10-24T08:41:00.000-07:00

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

2010-10-10T11:44:00.000-07:00

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?

2010-08-29T05:39:00.000-07:00

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

2010-08-11T17:50:00.000-07:00

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!

2010-08-08T09:25:00.000-07:00

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

2010-04-26T14:48:00.000-07:00

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!

2010-04-18T11:33:00.000-07:00

"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!

2010-04-10T14:38:00.000-07:00

"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

2010-04-04T17:55:00.000-07:00

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

2010-03-28T19:16:00.000-07:00

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!

2010-03-21T19:32:00.000-07:00

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?

2010-03-11T18:33:00.000-08:00

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!

2010-03-09T19:51:00.001-08:00

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.

Paradox Rock

2010-02-28T11:52:00.000-08:00

Paradox Rock: Ain't That Peculiar?

I earned last week off, but I did some regrouping and have been listening and working on new sketches. There's a lot of stuff in development, so I expect to keep producing for a while yet. This week, I took another great Motown song to completion.

Composed by Smokey Robinson and fellow Miracles members, Ain't That Peculiar was Marvin Gaye's second million seller in 1965. Gaye recorded it backed by a band called The Funk Brothers along with vocalists known as The Andantes. The lyrics speak eloquently about jealousy inflaming passion - a paradox. Originally recorded on the Tamla label, it's has been covered by Japan, The Jackson 5 and quite a few other artists. Although Michael Jackson is the "King of Pop", Marvin Gaye will ever remain the "Prince of Motown", a land where Smokey Robinson is the undisputed king.

Turning Rock into A Cappella

As an a cappella arrangement, Ain't That Peculiar presents a number of challenges. Your audience won't be dancing - they'll be "all ears." You have to avoid getting stuck in a cozy rock groove that goes nowhere. You have to invent ways to keep the interest high. I decided to use lots of variation and some playful vocalese that allowed me to introduce familiar musical figures such as those laid down by The Funk Brothers who backed Gaye in 1965.

Vocalese To the Rescue

You can see some of these tricks in the final measures. I used The Funk Brothers familiar introductory figure to close a song that normally ends in fade out, employing vocalese and some crunchy harmonics to conclude with a punctuation mark.

Still a Week Ahead!

2010-02-15T10:43:00.000-08:00

Completed: "A Groovy Kind of Love"

What is a groovy kind of love? Have you ever had it? Sunday, I began planning my work for the coming weeks, loading up my MP3 player with stuff to listen to. I'm getting over a bout of illness and this was my first day upright since last Thursday, but a new arrangement fell in my lap before the day was through. Sometimes you just see something all at once. So I stay ahead of the curve and I'm still entitled to a week off. I might need it!

A Groovy Kind of Love was written by Toni Wine and Carole Bayer Sager. The delightful melody is based heavily on the Rondo movement of Sonatina in G major, op. 36 no. 5 by classical composer, Muzio Clementi, which means it's got "class". The pop song was composed in all of 20 minutes, although Mr. Clementi probably labored a bit longer on his bit of work. Still, sometimes great stuff emerges all at once. In 1965, this song rocked the US as part of the British Invasion when it reached #2 on the pop charts in a cover by The Mindbenders. A cover by Phil Collins took it to #1 in 1988. It's about the joys of physical love:

"When you're close to me, I can feel your heart beat,

I can hear you breath-ing in my ear."

Bubble-gum Pop and the Joys of Love

On the surface, the song is about young love. The Mindbenders' 1965 cover was true bubble-gum pop from the era of Peace and Love, but the Phil Collins version displays a stunning reverence for this tender and powerful expression, taking the song to another level entirely. If you've known a connection that fulfilled completely, you know it's definitely a lot more than "groovy". Phil Collins' cover definitely achieves success taking the song to a higher level.

What can a song like this do in performance? It has the potential to awaken some very powerful emotions. Allow me to digress for a moment.

Touching the Fire

A couple of years ago, we performed another song about love (and loss) at one of our gigs. A woman came up to me afterward telling me it was terrible and we should never have sung it. The song had no foul language, the performance had gone pretty well so I was pretty curious why she was so upset. She confided that it reminded her of her lost husband and it had awakened her pain. While she thought our singing this song was unforgivable, it's really one of the reasons we perform songs with emotional content. We touch memories so folks reconnect with their memories and with profound love. The process refreshes us all in ways impossible to fathom. This is hot stuff!

We're looking forward to sharing "A Groovy Kind of Love" with our audiences. Here's a snippet where you see I have the background patter echoing a text from an earlier verse. It's a mechanism I've been exploring lately layering several texts to more deeply underscore the emotional content:

Keeping the Pace!

2010-02-07T14:19:00.000-08:00

OK, Two Cans a Week. Take Next Week Off!

Well, dang if I didn't complete two new arrangements this week! I've been listening to these songs and letting them soak in for a while now, so by the time I approached them my mental sketches were quite well developed. I knew how I was going to voice or vocally orchestra large stretches of them. Sure, there were some surprises and things to work out, and there were new ideas that just popped out as I handled certain sequences. Both these songs came from an era where part singing was predominant.

Maybe I get a "bye" week, but I'll be using the time to chart out new projects for the future. Here's a peek at some sections of the pieces.

I'll Be Doggone

Marvin Gaye made a big hit with this song in 1965, his first million seller. This Smokey Robinson composition was a great platform for Gaye to wail. While it really rocks - it presents an interesting challenge to an arranger. It sits in the same harmonic place for long stretches. It makes great dance music, but you need a lot of ideas to spice up a song that begins with 8 measures of A, followed by another 8 measures of A. Here is a small section from my arrangement:

I Love You, Gypsy Woman

Earlier in the week, I finished an Impressions song by the great Curtis Mayfield. This was another tune that fairly fell into place after a lot of listening, because it lent itself so easily to a cappella. The song reached #20 on the Hit Parade in 1962 and has been covered by Carlos Santana and Jimi Hendrix, among others. It has tremendous energy propelling it from start to finish. Mayfield had given it a very vocal treatment in 1962 that helped make it easy to translate to a cappella. You'll see in this snippet, as in the previous one, the use of patter for the ensemble to avoid using too many nonsense sounds, creating more of a vocal texture.

I think both these numbers will be a lot of fun for Blue of a Kind to sing. If you'd be interested in previewing any of these arrangements for your singing group, let me know.

What's It All About, Alfie?

2010-01-29T18:23:00.000-08:00

What are you talking about?

Many of you probably don't know what the heck I'm talking about. What is a musical or choral arrangement? Arrangements are the backbone of the a cappella world. Typically these groups "cover" songs and rarely compose new material. The songs they cover have orchestral or rock band treatments and someone has to score them for human voices. It's hard to imagine how to pull off "Stairway To Heaven" without electric guitars and drums, but choral arrangers solve problems like that. Few people really grasp the concept of "arranging", unless they've sung in an a cappella group or have played with a jazz band or small orchestra.

Bach and Handel composed choral works. They wrote out every note for every part and that's something everyone basically understands. I guess a lot of people figure that's how all music finds its genesis - that these choral treatments spring fully grown out of the hands of the composer. Or maybe they are "traditional", like hymns in the book at church. They evolved from folks just singing them and eventually writing them down. Well, these are some of the ways these works got to be, so y'all are not that far off the mark.

But when I speak about arranging music, a lot of my friends listen, raise their eyebrows and secretly wonder what I'm talking about. So I know a lot of people don't know what it is.

This is what I'm talking about

On YouTube, I found the perfect way to show you. There are singers around the globe posting videos of themselves singing all the parts of a cappella arrangements, and they call it "Multitrack Acapella" and "Barbershop Multitrack". If you see some of these videos, it makes the pieces and parts of an a cappella arrangement graphically clear. Try plugging in those as search terms into YouTube and you'll strike the mother load.

I'm working with a couple of these multi-trackers. What they are able to do is a testament to their talents, which are myriad, but also to the enabling technologies of audio recording on personal computers and the power of the Internet community. These artists work in their dorm rooms, at home and sometimes in a good bathroom (you sing in the shower, right?) to produce videos that attract hundreds of thousands, even millions of fans.

Take a look for yourself

I've worked with two wonderful artists who excel at this work. We've never met, but we've joined through the Internet to complete several projects, establishing a simple, web-based working relationship. One is Danny Fong and the other is Jean-Baptiste Craipeau.

Danny Fong:

See more at Danny's YouTube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/daniscool99

Jean-Baptiste Craipeau:

See more at JB's YouTube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/jibcraip

Shahdaroba is completed!

I still need a little cleanup on the document, but this weeks work is basically finished. Would you like a peek at it? Here's page 2, where I had some fun:

You can see some of the things I mentioned in my tip sheet employed here. Chords-chords-chords, using cliches like the bell chords in mm. 17 and 18. They sound really cool and then there's a glissando in mm. 21-22. See the little counter melodies here and there? And that bass line.... Let your singers do some fun stuff.

I finished on Friday so I get the weekend off!

Just One Can a Day, That's All We Ask!

2010-01-25T19:45:00.000-08:00

Getting To Production Level

For the past couple of months, I have set a goal for myself to arrange new pieces at a production pace. While there's no pressing need for new choral works, we are always happy to hear a song done in a new way. As I've said before, music is one of those endeavors that's got the power to effect big change and it's created out of nothing but ideas and emotion. Maybe it's the Boy Scout in me that gets a big kick out of making a bonfire out of two sticks....

Anyway, after studying this craft most of my adult life, one way or another, I'm beginning to want to take it to the next level and start selling my work. The music we're singing in Blue of a Kind is having an ever stronger impact on our audiences and the guys are telling me they're grooving on it. So, I'm thinking of the next level and I'm pretty sure the next level involves establishing a higher level of production.

Yeh, It's Work

Production is something we think about at work, or at least our managers and executives force us to think about it. After many years in the workplace, you start to get the notion ingrained that to produce you lean into your task, you take it on with a gusto and never let it loom large and intimidate you. You break big jobs down into small pieces, address things in stages to achieve your goal. The longer you're in a production environment, the more you habituate to this process.

I work at Palm now, and every product demands the utmost attention to quality and every worker owns that to a very large degree. The many pieces and parts of the things we make require planning, communication and teamwork. Complicated components have to be cranked out on a deadline and be nearly flawless.

Arranging music is not always that complicated, but let's not underestimate the difficulties. When you start from note #1 of a new song, or try to arrange your first piece, the experience is much like trying to climb Mt. Everest in flip-flops. But like every great journey, it begins with a single step and is completed literally one step at a time, just like those gargantuan projects we do at Palm.

Just One Can a Day....

Remember that Diamond Nut commercial from a few years back, "Just one can a day, that's all we ask?" For the last couple months, I've been testing myself with a high production schedule to put all my years of learning and experience to the test. Some songwriters have put themselves out there with a the "One song a day" challenge and at least one, Jonathan Coulton, has taken it to the next level in the process. While I'm not ready to publicly declare I'm arranging a song a week, I will admit that's how I'm currently working.

Besides, these things take time...

In my defense, I'm hiring out singers to lay down part-predominant Learning Tracks of my songs. Yes, I am planning to sell for real. The singers take weeks to complete their work. I really have nothing to show without giving away the store. Besides, I might want a week off!

Which brings me to my point

You can chip away at pretty much everything with the right tools and some idea about where to apply them. Like many things, the more you have it in your hands, the more your skills develop. All this work has hardened up my approach and I thought I'd develop and share a tip sheet with you, in case you're thinking about how to do this, or want a look inside some else's head who is doing the same thing you are. If you want to give me some knocks, make some comments, offer other suggestions - well maybe this will open the door for you!

My Arranging Tipsheet:

1) Listen, listen, listen

There's a lot of treatments out there of whatever song you're thinking of arranging. Make sure you're familiar with as many treatments as possible. Listen to these and let your mind wander. Let some ideas develop and make sketches of sections of the song to lay down these ideas. Spend time getting these right. Sing each part and consider how it will work in the mouthes of men and women. Some of these pieces will become building blocks of your big idea and if they're shaky, you'll spend a lot of time fixing things later in the project. Sometimes a single idea will form the entire basis of your arrangement.

2) Develop an idea and a plan

a) Why are you thinking of singing this song before audiences? What are you hoping to impart? Is it joy, sorrow, laughter, inspiration? Figure out what is the point and let it permeate your thinking as you develop your plan. If you don't know the point of it all, chances are your arrangement won't strike a chord with your audience.

b) Structure, structure, structure

Arrangements are constructs built of members, smaller parts, sequences and musical figures. Continue to make or develop your sketches as your ideas evolve. Every song has a beginning, middle and end. The end has to evoke something - the thing you're going for. How are you going to get there and will you actually arrive? Will there be a magical moment? You build it to it, piece by piece. Make the pieces hang together and develop your idea. You don't have to do all 17 verses of a song to achieve your effect.

3) Stay within the lines.

a) Like orchestral instruments, singers have their limits. Working with music software, it's possible to make a violin play notes it's just not possible for a violinist to play. It's the same with the human voice. Watch out that your great ideas don't have the first tenors singing high C's and C#'s because it sounds really cool on your synth. Few tenors can do anything up there. Basses sound amazing on a low D, but don't make them sing too many of them or they'll lose their voices. Singers need to move through their ranges or they tighten up. Try to avoid keeping any voice in the pessagio for too long. Know where these limits are for each voice.

b) Repetitive figures and variation are something you should pay attention to. Singers hang their hats on repetitive figures. They want to learn a rhythmic pattern and apply it over and over. If you vary it every time they'll struggle to master the piece. The same is true for melodic figures. But pattern changes (variations) are what add interest to a piece. Use variation to enhance the desired emotional effect, so use it always and use it tactically. Then your singers will hang their hat on both the repetitions and the variations that evoke your emotional goal.

4) Go outside the lines

Great arrangements go to extremes, one way or another. Spend some time trying things you have not tried before. Study other arrangements and see what cliches you might be able to incorporate into your work to expand your expressive power. Once you try something new, it becomes a new trick in your book.

5) Chords, chords, chords

a) Make beautiful chords and be very concerned about developing rich, colorful harmonics. Experiment adding or shifting the chord colors in your musical sketches and see what effects these have on you. Rich chords will move audiences very deeply.

b) Be a minimalist. You don't always need 9 notes in a chord to evoke the color you want. Typically, you have 4 instruments or voices to work with. If you divide your forces, do so to a purpose.

6) Lead your voice lines

Singers sing vocal lines that are "led" well better than jumpy lines where they have to plug holes in your chords. Pay attention to the line that each voice sings. Make adaptations to the lines to lead them better through your beautiful chords. Ultimately, your chords-chords-chords become woven melodies.

7) Counter melodies

In your listening, pay attention to the counter melodies and echoed melodies. You'll hear them in the backing band or orchestra and sometimes among the backing vocalists. Weave these kind of delicious elements among your chords. Liberate voices from the job of occupying a note in a chord and let them sing these small melodic figures.

8) Where the basses go, so goes the world

The bottom is the foundation. Make it the most interesting and dynamic voice line you possibly can. It's amazing how little your audiences remember about the bass line, despite the profound effect it has on them. Why? It's the root of the emotional part of their experience. Their intellectual attention is on the melody and the lyrics. But if you want to grab them at their core and make them laugh, cry and scream - develop the coolest bass lines you can!

Thanks for reading

Before I sign off, I'm copying here a list of songs I've completed since the first week of November, 2009. They're all TTBB a cappella with the exception of Botch-A-Me which is SATB with piano accompaniment.

Unchain My Heart

Hit the Road, Jack

Wild Ox Moan

I Can't Go Home

People Get Ready

Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye

Save the Last Dance For Me

Talking About My Baby

That's the Way Love Is

Baby I Need Your Loving

Botch-A-Me

Blue Bayou

Love Hurts

Let me know if your group might be interested in previewing one of these.

2009-12-19T17:55:00.000-08:00

The Mayor's Emergency Fund Telethon

Let me tell you a story about the Mayor's Emergency Fund Telethon in Melrose, MA. Blue of a Kind were invited to repeat our appearance which was quite successful last year. In 2008, we sang a holiday song and a blues number, and we met the incoming pledges dollar-for-dollar while we sang. Well, a telethon is a wild and woolly thing so every dollar was matched. Why shouldn't that be that case?

This year, we decided to put up 50 of the "To the Sky" CDs as a challenge and give them away to the first 50 callers who pledged $50 or more. We knew that the offer would be taken and matched either during our singing, or soon thereafter.

What is it like being Super Stars?

The local cable station was a little reluctant to go with the offer. They thought we might not push out all 50, or we might cheapen the value of our brand. But I figured we'd raise $2500 for families in need in all of about 5 minutes if they'd go with it. So we stood our ground. It was a 50-50-50 deal - 50 CDs for the first 50 folks to pledge $50.

We sang our first song - "O Come All Ye Faithful" and it was warm and lovely, powerful and rich. The guys were in good form and terribly psyched about raising serious money with our 50-50-50 deal. After the 1st song, the MC announced there had been a single pledge against our offer. Oops...

Cut to commercial...

The station cut to some pre-recorded material. After a minute and a half, we were live again, and apparently the phones had been ringing. Real time is sometimes a bit slow... folks have to rise from chairs, relieve themselves, collect the phone, dial, talk... The Mayor was all excited about the "TOTE" board and directed us to the video screen for the current total cash raised. Well, a couple of grand had come in in about 3 minutes. Wow!

They held us on stage to sing a few more songs. We sang a Hunnukah number, "Hanerot Hallalu" to reach out to our Jewish neighbors and friends. It was equally warm and lovely, and the "TOTE" numbers continued to soar. We nailed a blues number just to add to the joy of the season, "The Tears Came Rollin' Down" and the pledges kept coming in.

They held us longer, introduced guests to stand in front of us, asked us for an encore. The dollars continued to pour in.

What is it really like to be Super Stars?

Yes, I ask the question again. My blue guys know what it's like - they got to be Super Stars tonight. You don't get to do this without sticking your necks out, putting in lots of hard work and having Faith. I had hoped to raise $2500 for the cause in a few minutes of singing. It turns out in all of about 8 minutes, we raised nearly double that. Lots of hard work to create music and fun turned into some powerful relief for families who desperately need some help. My guys know what it's like to be Super Stars. Blue of a Kind were champions tonight.

The Party's Over: A New Century Begins!

2009-10-04T14:17:00.000-07:00

What a weekend! Don Gooding's presentation on the history of college a cappella was a perfect way to begin the weekend. He traced the explosion of college a cappella, which grew slowly and steadily its first 70 years with Yale singing serving as the birthplace and pantheon. The slow burn has turned into something of a wildfire the last 20--30 years, as the seeds were planted by Yalies and children of Yalies across the country. In 1919 there were 3 collegiate a cappella groups while today there are in excess of 1700! Most of that growth has taken place since the 1980's.

The Marathon Concert

The Woolsey hall concert saw group after group perform into the wee hours. In some ways it seemed not entirely fair to the 2009 and 2010 Whiffenpoof groups to be left to cap the show when many of the audience had not enough stamina to stay past midnight. But the parade of groups was amazing - guys stood up with their brothers and delivered their best all night long.

Record Turnout

Of the 800 or so living Whiffenpoofs, somewhere around 600 attended the weekend. Everyone was on hand for the Saturday dinner, ceremonial awards, singing and merry making. I was honored for the work preserving the almighty songbook and was publicly reminded there are only 534 more songs to engrave. I guess I have a ways to go for the Yale Medal or even the Whiffenpoof Cup. Truly it was an immense honor. A special quartet was composed for the occasion with a verse about Charlie Buck and Bob Birge and me - the songbook team. I still want that medal - I figure with something like that a fellow could wear it under his shirt. Then, if and when Mory's reopens, a fellow could open his shirt and get a free drink or two for himself and his buddies. Seems like a reasonable plan, doesn't it?

As the dinner proceeded, conductor emeritus, Sgt. Burke led us in song, but apparently there was not enough public singing. Guys stood on chairs and directed songs with their comrades, songs that swept over the hall like firestorms. Groups formed and serenaded others. Speeches were made and there was much that had to be said, but heck, why don't we just sing some more???

Meeting "The Man"

As the dinner wound down, I walked to the other end of the Commons in search of Lewis Girdler, class of 1961, who is one of the most important musical forces in Whiffdom, and in collegiate a cappella. I've mentioned him before in this blog talking about engraving music from his Bakers Dozen days as well as his seminal influence on a cappella singing. This man changed the sound and direction of this style of music in his 4 years at Yale and probably contributed to the aforementioned explosion of collegiate a cappella singing more than any other individual. His ability to architect an arrangement is legendary, but he is also known for innovation. He may be the father of vocal instrumentation so prevalent in today's a cappella since he invented the "faux string bass" that changed the character of a cappella forever. It was an idea that was "in the air" - groups were toying with some way to create an instrumented sound to express the jazzy music they loved, but it was Lew that pushed it past the tipping point and changed the sound in a way akin to dropping a lit match on gasoline.

Lewis and I have written emails over the past couple of years, exchanged CDs and such, but we had never met. I found the tables where the '60's folks were dining and began asking if anyone knew where Lewis Girdler was. Why yes, he's right here! Suddenly I was shaking his hand and looking him in the eye. I even met his lovely wife and daughter. We talked briefly and I probably blathered what a great fan I am, but at least we connected.

Lewis has arranged two new songs for the Whiffenpoofs in the past year and he's going to send them to me for engraving. Hmmm, I guess that makes it 536 songs and counting.... Clearly my work will never end as long as my eyesight holds up. But I look forward to seeing these pieces.

Here's a YouTube taste of what it was like that night in the cavernous Freshman Commons, singing the Whiffenpoof Song to conclude the festivities:

"Too Young To Say Goodbye"

On other fronts: we truly launched Jeff Klitz's stunning "Too Young To Say Goodbye". I can't say enough about this lovely composition that has a power over any old Whiff to evoke the magic bond we all share with our fellow songsters. One thing I would like to point out about this lovely arrangement - it is as harmonically rich as anything in the repertoire - plenty of color in the chords and as lovely as any of the best arrangements in our book. But there is not a single voice split. I discussed this with my '73 classmates at some length. Klitz stuck to the close harmony of our core tradition and made a song that was melodic, modern and colorful, yet completely rooted in plain old 4 part harmonizing. It's a song that's purely 21st Century, but one that is singable and will remain a joy to sing with one's buddies when coming together for reunions.

"I'll Be Seeing You"

Another stunning arrangement was introduced to everyone was one of the arrangements that stunned me when I was engraving song after song over the last two years. I wrote to Chuck Buck at the time, saying how I liked this particular piece and he replied, "Yeh, I thought you'd like that one". It's Chris Beck's, "I'll Be Seeing You". Again, this is a piece of great emotional power due in no small part to the wonderfully intense color of the chords. Here again is a piece that succeeds because the arranger is crafty enough to evoke a full color spectrum with four voices. Chris and Jeff know they don't have to spell out an entire jazz chord, splitting their voices into 6, 7 or 8 parts. One arrangement in the Whiff book actually has 9 parts divided up among 14 men. This thins the sound and without the best acoustical setting produces a muddy effect that audiences don't really appreciate, particularly in a room like Woolsey Hall. And when such songs are sung badly, they are absolutely horrid. Beck achieved a masterstroke in this arrangement. Yes, he does split the Tenor 2's in 2 measures, to great effect. These create brief , irresistible explosions applied at the very peak of the song's emotional climax.

Another striking thing about both these arrangements is they get it done in just 2 or 3 pages. In a matter of a couple of minutes, these songs introduce themselves to the audience, ingratiate themselves with a wonderful, colorful close harmony, achieve an unspeakable emotional peak and leave one feeling changed and refreshed. Some a cappella arrangements take dozens of pages to achieve anything at all and oftentimes, they never achieve anything beyond reproducing a cover of a song the singers happen to love. Many times, the audience has to devote a great deal of attention to songs they may not even know, often wondering whether they left the oven on back home. We have to remember we sing for the audience, not for ourselves. Like a team of Navy Seals, we have to insert ourselves into an alien environment, do surgical/emotional damage and get the heck out. It's why the SOBs are good - they care more about your arrest record than your vocal range!

The Return of the King

Back in 1972, my band of songsters were a rowdy lot. We defied tradition, we turned down a White House invitation, and we deposed our pitchpipe. Yes, we took a straw poll and informed him he had a vote of no confidence and asked him to step down. Why he didn't quit, I'll never know, but the man had more guts than most men you'll ever meet. He was quite well suited to the task and actually did a lot of great work with us. But like I say, we were a bunch of renegades. There were a lot of forces at work in our College and in the wider world - pressures for change and relevancy - pressures to reinvent the old-fashioned bastions of Yale and male a cappella singing. Jeff represented something of the old school and several of us hungered to create the new school. So we deposed him. When we were young and stupid we were young and stupid....

Had Jeff not had the aforementioned character and fortitude, our group would certainly have imploded. Despite our rash action, Jeff sang well with us all year and saved our group. But he has felt alienated from us ever since and has not attended reunions. The power vacuum allowed me to enjoy the prestige of becoming pitchpipe these last 10 years, once I began attending regularly myself. It was a job I loved, and after regaining practice with Blue of a Kind, I felt I brought some great experience to bear.

We've always tried to engage Jeff to "reune" with us. We missed his jolly companionship as much as his lovely voice. I'd spoken with him on several occasions in the past, even tried to round him up physically 10 years ago, but he always said he would never return.

Something softened in him for this 100th celebration and he let me and a few others know he was planning to attend. But he was very concerned how the guys would accept him. He totally deferred to me as the working pitchpipe of our group, but I suggested he take the job back. In truth, I really did not want to give up the glory and the fun. I really did not insist on driving this course of action until I spoke with our legendary Irish tenor, and Nadir, Jerry Kelley. I called Jerry simply to see if he would attend the big shindig. Jerry told me he was not healthy enough to make the trip to New Haven and he's actually outlived his doctor's prediction by 10 years at this point. So now I'm talking to a dying man and one of his wishes, he tells me, is to get Jeff back in the pitchpipe position. It took me a few days stewing on that conversation before I could put my ego aside and decide to insist Jeff retake the position of musical director of our band of songsters.

I wrote Jeff and told him he had to do it. When he balked at this, I wrote emails to several key players and asked them to accept Jeff back as pitchpipe. I actually told them, "you're good with this, right?" - and to a man they all said yes. This is a good bunch of guys, even if they were once such rebels. Encouraged, Jeff wrote to each guy and engaged discussion on his own. The process was a great healing as he reconnected with all his brothers. It took a couple months, but Jeff became convinced it would work. I began yielding the responsibility and the authority to him.

The Big Show

Jeff decided to sing 2 classic Dick Gregory arrangements - these suited our double quartet and highlighted some of our best solo talent. Popeye Seligman has a lovely tenor voice that had never been featured at one of these events, and Jeff wanted to right that wrong. I backed Jeff up with sheet music and MIDI files for the guys in the weeks ahead. Last Friday, they showed up ready to play. Jeff walked in with a solid rehearsal plan and things came together right from the start.

At the Big Show, the "Parade of Whiff Groups", we were lined up to sing after a rather spectacular group. They ended their set to screams and standing ovations with the unforgettable "Midnight Train To Georgia". My heart was in my throat as we marched onstage. It was the quintessential "tough act to follow". I could just smell "train wreck". Scarlet Ribbons has a delicate character, and a case of group nerves can just kill it. You die in the intro, and it can begin a cascade effect that permeates the whole performance. Your ego flags, and you might not recover for the next song. As we took our positions, I could just about taste it.

But Jeff took it in stride with great aplomb, introduced our set with a charming hook to reengage the audience, and once my voice showed up halfway through the first measure, I knew we were locked and loaded for success. Popeye strutted his best stuff on the solo and it was smooth and warm. The ensemble never hiccuped. We had a well oiled machine and didn't sound like a bunch of geezers without enough air. Then we strutted out the now retired chestnut, Maggie Blues and ended with a bit of a bang. Solid, solid and fun.

SOBs in the Mix

Several SOBs made substantial contributions to the success of this celebration. I'm proud that this otherwise nefarious Yale group is also a magnet for men of character, fortitude and the willingness to knuckle down and contribute time, hard work and expertise to honor, preserve and celebrate this tradition we all love. Many of us love to stand on the stage and sing, make a beautiful noise, hear the applause and be rock stars. This alone has tremendous merit and benefits the whole world, just because we're brave enough to make merry in a world that is nearly always gone completely mad. But several other SOBs were among the Centennial Awards and I feel I should mention them as well. Barry McMurtrey, '89 did most of the reunion planning and logistics. He organized a library exhibit of Whiff memorabilia that was beyond amazing. Yale Sterling Library now has a fabulous exhibition of Whiffenpoof history because of Barry. That is only the tip of what he did. Anything that happened this past weekend would not have happened had it not been for Barry. Make that the whole Centennial Year!

Lisle Leete, '81, as I mentioned before, produced a set of part-predominant practice CDs for Whiffs of all ages, so they can easily learn all the "Common Songs" we'll henceforth be able to sing whenever we come together. I mentioned the story of this amazing project in my last blog entry, and an article is being discussed now for the Yale Alumni Magazine. I will continue to push Lisle to write something for one of the prominent recording trade journals.

What guys like these do for the benefit of the SOBs as well as the Whiffenpoofs is immeasurable. They set a model of service that should be passed on for the next hundred years.

Three Years From Now

We get to do it again. We have big plans. We have recovered another lamb. We have a few other lost lambs to gather back into the fold. We're thinking of introducing a new, original arrangement to add some sparkle. In the meantime, we're discussing a plan to visit Jerry Kelley to sing with him again, if he'll have us. We're bothers. We'll always be brothers. It's something about the magic of the singing.

The Final Exam

2009-09-21T19:22:00.000-07:00

The Century Project closes in on the final exam

Finally, the big day comes. The final 100th anniversary concert looms large now on the horizon. How many men will attend? OMG, the attendance should be staggering. Men, wives, kids, girlfriends, friends, musicians, lovers of song.... The call has gone out. The Friday night concert is going to be the biggest audience I've ever sung for - Woolsey hall will be be packed to the gills! That's a couple thousand or more! Group after group will perform from through the years. At some point during the weekend, the full assembly of Whiffenpoof alumnae will regale the attendees with 15 or so songs - a chorus numbering maybe a couple hundred amazing voices!

The Big Unveiling

The 100th songbook is totally virtual and will be unveiled at this time. The 15 or so "Common Songs" from this book, the Songs of Yale and a few others classics will be "taught" to the surviving members over the next few weeks by a project whose scope is amazing and I want to talk about it. It's a story of an Internet project and a collaboration on a scale that boggles the mind. If it comes in on time, several hundred guys will be singing a bunch of new and old material together - guys from the last 50+ years of the Whiffenpoofs who have never sung together - all singing some songs they know and some songs they have never sung before.

I will touch on this process, but I suspect there will be other articles written describing it in more detail.

The Virtual Songbook

The 100 songs of the Virtual Songbook are at the core of the work. The project to produce this book spans a couple years with 4-5 men working to engrave 100 songs forming the top 100 songs of the group. There are many more songs that need remembering, but these 100 were chosen as the most momentous and representative of the group's history. Now that we're virtual, they are just the first 100 in the Virtual Songbook.

Then a few other songs are added from the Songs of Yale, from Marshall Bartholomew's other published work, and a song composed expressly for this anniversary.

The Big Collaboration - singing with the big boys from the last 50 years

The output from Finale was used to generate MIDI files that were sent to recording engineer wizard, Lisle Leete who was a Whiffenpoof in 1981 (and also an SOB, like me). He took these raw tracks, massaged tempi and fermati to make a pleasing and less mechanical performance, mapped the voices to pleasant instruments, and added a click track. These files were output to MP3 format as guide files for singers. Then, Whiffenpoofs of all ages were enlisted to take these guide files, sing along with them on home recording systems and produce WAV files using whatever recording software they had at hand, usually free software like Audacity.

The guys posted these individual track recordings, where they sounded a little like lost souls singing in a subway station, to a web site and the recording engineer collected them. He performed enhancements on the tracks - pitch correction, adding body, extending notes to eliminate ugly breaths, and made audio files of a virtual Whiffenpoof quartet/quintet/sextet that actually sounds like something. From there, he made what are called "part-predominant" tracks so each guy can listen to his part a little bit louder than the others, and learn the correct notes with the correct lyrics and a reasonably good tempo.

All this was done in a matter of months, and all by people who probably have never met one another. And now, hopefully they all will!

The Big Concert

When is the concert? Friday, October 2. New Haven, CT. Woolsey Hall. 7:30 pm or 8 pm or whenever they get it going on. It's going to roll on and on, so people will be allowed to come and go like some hippy festival.

Whiffenpoof Centenary Songbook Project completed

2009-07-03T17:18:00.000-07:00

Over the last year and a half, a small team of us has been assembling a songbook representing a selection of the most cherished 100 songs of the 100 year history of the Yale Whiffenpoofs. A couple of years ago, I had a wealth of experience typesetting songs for Blue of a Kind using Passport Encore, and I submitted some samples to audition for the job.

The Whiffenpoof Alumni Board told me they were making a hardcover edition for the Centenary celebration, which is in full swing at this moment. They also asked me how much remuneration I would require, suggesting that "none" would be the right answer. They would buy the Finale software I needed, and I hunted down a discount price. Due to the educational and historical significance of the project, I only had to submit a letter describing the project to gain the hefty discount. Sweet!

Then, I had to transfer my skills to Finale, whose typesetting paradigm was completely different from what I knew. The initial learning curve was quite steep, and working with other engravers using a rigid style sheet also added to the startup time.

This week we finished our 100 songs, typeset, proofed, edited, proofed again, edited again and etc. At times during the course of the project, an earlier manuscript was uncovered so some songs were completely redone. Every song was also proofed audibly to make sure our eyes were not fooling us.

And now the Songbook goes virtual

The Board has decided now to produce only a virtual songbook - there will not be any hardcover edition. Apparently the cost of the publishing made some Board members blanch. Throwing all the files on a web site will save a fortune.

I am not going linger over my disappointment, but let me say briefly that while a virtual songbook where members can access both sheet music and digital audio is itself a worthy project, it commemorates nothing. It has no historical moment. Members showing up for the big anniversary concert in October will get a username and a password. Nothing will "thud" on the coffee table when they return home.

Recently, I asked for statistics on the project, crunched the spreadsheet and found out how much work I'd done. I had a rough idea, but truly the project has been pretty much a blur.

The results? I engraved 88 songs, for a total of 423 pages. This may be the greatest reward of the project - knowing that we tackled something seemingly insurmountable, paced ourselves appropriately to achieve both quality and quantity and finished on time! We did it because we love this stuff, but also because of the goal to make something commemorative of the 100th.

To my family and friends who gave me the space to make something significant for the Centennial, I owe an enormous debt. Once the web site is up, I'll log in and show you what we did. ;-)

Cosi Cosa - so how did we do?

2009-06-29T18:10:00.000-07:00

Cosi Cosa got aired out in public this month. If you have been following my ravings, you will realize how long it took from conception to reality. On June 6, I took a deep breath and joined the backing chorus for the first public rendition with Brad Peloquin soloing. You might want a listen to this one.

-Bob

Mission is as important as repertoire

2009-06-21T13:13:00.000-07:00

Who are you?

Every group has a reason for being; a mission. It is what charges you up to do all the work. Your mission might be to make people happy, to rock the world with phenomenal cover songs, become famous and quit the day job, or it might be to preserve a particular musical tradition.

Since our inception, Blue of a Kind has existed primarily to create something fun. Equally important to us has been lending our voices to help fundraisers, causes and to benefit folks down on their luck in our community. We sing to share a special brand of mirth, and we sing to benefit others. Having fun, making fun and doing good seems like plenty of good reasons to exist and to work so hard.

Mission forms your identity

We're refining our mission as we go along. We've become more focused on raising the performance value of our work, a natural thing for any singing group to work on. Just making the "To the Sky" CD raised our performance bar significantly, but our primary goal in making it was to create another way to raise more money for the charities we support. Becoming better and avoiding complacence have naturally become fundamental to our mission. These values carry over into all aspects of the singer's lives, into their families and on into the community.

In the last month, Blue of a Kind has appeared on a float in a parade, sung hymns graveside on Memorial Day, been covered in a feature article of the Boston Globe, appeared live on FOX25 TV and entertained a thousand folks and a few wild critters at the Zoo. So another part of our mission is also coming into greater focus: we want to sing in more cool places.

All of the above goals support one another. The better we get, the more mirth and joy we can create, the more goodwill and charity we can spread around - the more exciting the performance opportunities become. Having a coherent mission gives you better buy-in on the part of the members to work hard. At the same time, as the character of the group becomes hardened publicly along the lines of your mission, you gain more buy-in from the community to hire and enjoy you. They know who you are and what you bring to the party. They can believe in you, and they can lock in on all the wacky stuff you do in the name of fun.

With "Blue of a Kind", we're getting more and more solid opportunities to sing in cool places especially because we've communicated clearly we're a bunch of fun-loving guys who work hard to sing well, share delightful music and help folks (and even some critters) in need.

Your identity is something your audiences will cherish as much as your music.

Zip Trip for the Blue Boys

2009-05-28T13:07:00.000-07:00

Blue of a Kind is going on a Zip Trip!

Read all about it in the Boston Globe online:

http://www.boston.com/yourtown/news/melrose/2009/05/melrose_a_cappella_group_ready.html

We'll be singing one of the songs from the "To the Sky" CD, originally arranged by our dear friend, Walter Latzko for The Chordettes.

Bob

John the Revelator

2009-03-28T21:08:00.001-07:00

Another song from the "To the Sky" CD - live on Stoneham, MA TV. I get to sing the 2nd verse here! Wailing away...

Rolling Down To Old Maui

2009-03-28T20:21:00.001-07:00

Another live recording of a song on "To the Sky"

Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika

2009-03-28T15:49:00.001-07:00

Blue of a Kind sings the South African National Anthem, in three languages! This song, the equivalent of God Bless America, was at one time illegal to sing under aparteheid.

It's Gonna Rain, Again

2009-03-27T14:03:00.001-07:00

Blue of a Kind shows off another song from their new "To the Sky" CD, "It's Gonna Rain, Again".

Linin' Track

2009-03-26T20:34:00.001-07:00

New Blue of a Kind Video! Here's another video of a song we have recorded on our CD, "To the Sky". Check it out.

"To the Sky" is now available on our web site. Please visit www.blueofakind.org where you can see the gorgeous cover, preview every song on the CD, and even buy it!

"Cosi Cosa"

2009-03-24T20:02:00.000-07:00

What Does It Mean?

It's a wonderful word, tra la la la! I got to hear my new arrangement of this song sung for the first time tonight - front to back. Last fall, Polymnia Choral Society's director, Murray Kidd, asked me to arrange "Cosi Cosa" from "A Night At the Opera" for the "Pops" concert on June 6 at Memorial Hall in Melrose. Last year he asked me to arrange "Take Me Out To the Ball Game" and I stuck to what I knew - a cappella. This time, I incorporated the standard piano accompaniment from 1935 underneath the choir; why fight upstream?

Still, it was daunting taking on a piece with accompaniment. Piano is not my forte; pardon the pun. I took more than a few deep breaths sizing up this project. Once I got the piano score and began to work with it, I could see possibilities opening up.

The more they opened up, the more I stretched and began to just have fun within the medium. The singers did not have to do all the work; they were suddenly freer, in my mind, to disengage and do frivolous and fun things. In truth, they really should always be free! I have a tendency to keep every voice busy, creating harmony and singing pleasing lines. "Take Me Out To the Ball Game" was classic in this regard. The calliope starts in measure one and every voice works hard to keep the machine pumping along until the tension breaking denoument, ala Carly Simon.

It Could Mean Yes, It Could Mean No

But this was different. I began to picture our soloist, one of Boston's most outstanding voices, Brad Peloquin, pacing around the stage, gesturing wildly with an operatic chorus backing him supporting or punctuating his every line, sometimes trying to outdo him. My inner Italian spirit began to awaken and I let the three ring circus of the song take life. Yes, some parts of the song are my classic a cappella style - the choir has to sing, after all. But sometimes, they just embellish and sing more freely and do silly stuff.

Three days listening to Mario Lanza, lots of espresso lattes and trying to feel what Mr. Lanza was going for, and eventually the picture begins to come into focus. More weeks of stewing and rework, and finally a pass by the director for some suggestions and changes (it's a tenor solo for Brad Peloquin, you idiot!), more stewing and rework and then it just seemed right.

Proof Is In the Pudding

Tonight I heard some really awesome singers begin to sing it under a director who knows how to work a song. Yes, it will do; it will really do!! It will be a three ring circus that makes Brad Peloquin look like a happy, mad genius. "Cosi Cosa!! Get together and sing tra-la-la-la!" Oh, and we shall!

The 70th Bacchanal of the Society of Orpheus and Bacchus

2009-03-05T12:52:00.000-08:00

Celebrating 70 Years of Music and Fun

The Society of Orpheus and Bacchus is in their 70th year. This "Bacchanal" is nothing more than their annual anniversary party and reunion. This year's event was held last weekend and was a tremendous success. The young men have regained their footing both in song and humor. The repertoire spans many years, with diverse styles and still stays on a high choral plane. The guys sing! And they can structure a delightful weekend event that appeals to all the men who returned.

The "lost" Songbook was not lost!
In past blogs I've mentioned the SOB Songbook and told a story about it going lost in 1972. At the Bacchanal last weekend, I met with my successor Orpheus from 1972, and a few other guys who knew his successor and we established the lost "Songbook" was nothing more than a rumor. Mind you, this is not a proper book we're talking about but rather a box of manuscripts. As the director changes nearly every year, the box is passed from one to the next. One of the reasons I got deeply involved in the Whiffenpoof, SOB and Bakers Dozen Songbook projects was that I had been told that the SOB songbook had gone lost after I'd passed it to my successor. This is apparently not the case. Nonetheless, I had felt some guilt over the last 10 years and I had begun working to restore the "lost" and moldering music.

So, the "lost" Songbook story is a tale told by an idiot, signifying nothing! How do these stories get started? I guess there seemed to be no other reasonable explanation why the music had changed so dramatically over the years and why so many songs had gone missing. It covered a truth that archival management over the years was at best shoddy. How could this be? I don't really know. If there was no mass extinction event, then maybe pieces were savaged by the occasional homework-eating dog, blown away by a gust of wind or they were tossed out from time to time. There were no holes in the box.

Poor Record Management
I've been through the Songbooks of 3 Yale groups now, so I've seen a few things. The Whiffenpoofs did a better job keeping their records, but they were not perfect. Songs went lost. The BD and the SOBs did not do quite so well. Stuff that seemed meaningful was copied, sometimes embellished and updated for better or for worse, and the originals discarded. Sometimes it was so completely "rearranged" it was simply co-opted by the editor. And, it looks as if stuff was simply pruned by guys whose heads were up their egos. What does this do to the guys who sang those songs 30 or more years ago? Nothing good.

Rule of thumb was if you arranged for the group, you donated your work and expected that if it was sung, it would be archived. Unwritten rule for the director: what is in the box at the beginning of your term should still be in the box at the end. But that is not the way it went down.

Weaving the Old with the New
So now groups like the Bakers Dozen and the SOBs are turning 'round about 70 years old. In large part, their founders and older members feel alienated and forgotten. Their music has moldered away, gone lost or worse, it was discarded. Many guys from the 40's, 50's and 60's gave up returning for reunions with their groups because they don't recognize the music and the group doesn't recognize them. They can't sing the old songs with their buddies 'cause the music is missing.

We are men from many generations. We sing, love, laugh, graduate and move on. We retain our connection with an organization like a singing group through shared experience and values - in this case the singing and the fun. The group has a responsibility to innovate and compete. Every year, things change. The Old Men connect to the group through the music (which changes) and the fun (which can also change culturally). They also connect from a sense of having been there to hold the fort, keep the tradition alive and keep the group competitive in their era. These are very important values, what I call "connection vectors". We connect along these vectors and we can disconnect along these same vectors.

Disrupt these vectors, and members feel disassociated from the organization. The fact that the music changes is expected. If the culture of the fun changes significantly, guys will pull away. When the group reunites, they must find a way to affirm the contribution and the culture of all of the alumni. The group must be able to see that the guys over all the years have basically been doing the same thing. If songs from the past are lost or forgotten, it is a rough road ahead. Old Men ask: You don't know what we sang? You don't have my name on the list? You don't know what we did to make this group great?

Once disassociated, they generally don't come back.

Bringing 'em Back
At the 70th Bacchanal, we had about 70 attendees. Of these, 90% were from graduating classes within the last 35 years. Virtually nobody came from the first 35 years of the group's existence. Nobody really knows why and when all your own friends are there, nobody really cares, an attitude which is very much at the root cause of the problem. The last time I went to one of these events, I saw that the culture of fun had changed so drastically that I did not identify with the group. Many of my classmates saw the same thing and vowed never to return. Last weekend, a small group of us ventured back into the water with some trepidation and saw that the culture of fun is much the same as it had been for us. It's sophomoric, wacky, edgy and obviously up-to-date, but it still looks and feels like "us." This was a pleasant surprise. Members from the 80's and 90's still cannot understand how we don't know songs arranged 10 or more years after we graduated - to them these songs seem to have existed forever. Oh well!

For the Bakers Dozen, the problem is apparently worse than for the SOBs. I have letters from some of the founders of the BD, similar letters from fellow SOBs, all saying the same thing - how they want to reconnect but their experience has taught them they are forgotten and unwanted. The SOBs are unique in having a core repertoire of seemingly timeless music by some of the most phenomenal arrangers spanning nearly the whole history of the group. The BD have this too, but it's buried deeper in the past and has lost any meaning for several generations. It will be difficult to recreate a touchstone.

At the Bacchanal concert, I was lucky to bump into the father of this year's Pitchpipe. We sat next to one another and enjoyed the program. It turns out this man, Larry, was a classmate of mine and was "rushed" by the SOBs along with me when we were Freshmen. We had a few rush lunches together in 1969. Larry joined the BD and I joined the O's and B's. We sang in competing groups for the next 3 years. Earlier in the day, his son had told me about one of those concerts which had really bugged his father. He told me not knowing it was my group and my arrangement that had achieved something that night no other act could top and which had ticked his father off. Larry is one of the top arrangers for the BD from the early 70's and his group had talent with a capital 'T'. As last weekend's Bacchanal performance proceeded, he asked me how many of the songs I recognized from my day. In truth, there were quite a few. Some of them still had the power to move people to tears, wild screams or belly laughs. Larry was amazed at this. I think by now he realizes he's connected to the SOBs for life, the last thing he ever thought would happen to him!

Put it Back In the Box!
We SOBs have a big job to do - we need to reach into the first 35 years of what our forefathers did, shake trees and find anything we can and put it back in the box. We need to extend our reach, and set a table for those Old Men, so they'll come and reconnect. We need to embrace them when they return. It's a huge task, and one that won't see 100% success. My hope is that the process of reaching back over the years will reengage alumni along the connection vectors and we'll see some serious representation of the first 35 years of this group at the 75th Bacchanal in 2014.

~Bob

Mantras for Blue of a Kind in 2009

2009-02-13T18:19:00.000-08:00

Starting your own a cappella group: "Don't try this at home"

I've talked about the difficulty of bootstrapping your own singing group before. Bootstrapping any new organization takes faith, courage, planning and some luck. Once you've bootstrapped your singing group however, getting guys to join is not that hard. Every time you sing out, you are rock-stars. People swoon over you, women eye you. Being bold enough to stand and deliver in front of an audience is an exciting thing, electrifying singers and listeners alike. Not everyone wants to sing a cappella, but believe me, you'll have no trouble finding folks who want to try.

All you need is a guitar and a hairdo

You can sing easy stuff and people will dig it. You can try more challenging material and many folks won't realize you don't quite succeed. Your choir can go flat and still be entertaining; only singers, musicians and those with perfect pitch will know for sure. Everyone else will feel the sag in energy but not be able to tell you much more. You can intone your vowels like yokels, belabor your consonants, make ragged entrances and cuts and basically do all manner of no-no's and still people will love you. Hey, you're singing for them, right? That's not a bad thing right there. Frank Zappa used to say if you have a guitar and a hairdo, you can be a rock star.

And if that's what you want to do, then go do it and have a ball.

Singing beautifully together

But to take a bunch of wanna-be rock stars and teach them how to sing bel canto might be one of the hardest things in the world. I studied photography, and my teachers taught me the rules as well as how to break them. Word: you are a master when you break the rules to a purpose, but you're a fool if you don't know the rules to begin with. And you're really not a singer if you can't control your body to produce sounds to a desired effect.

In choral singing, the buzzword is blend - sounding as one. Primarily, that means vowels, pure vowels, as in Latin or Italian. It also means producing a clear tone by supporting your air flow, controlling your vocal mechanism through your range and engaging your resonators. You learn to sing around problems caused by the breaks in your registers and keep a mostly consistent sound. I think in our lifetime and maybe a few generations, only Pavoratti was born without a pessagio. "Singing on the pessagio is something akin to the feeling of holding two oppositely poled magnates together, constantly adjusting toward a point of balance under the threat that at any moment the two ends will slip apart." (Christian Huebner). Pavoratti apparently did not have to endure this, but the rest of us do. Less eloquently said, singing on the pessagio hurts.

Blend also means managing your consonants, to produce a sound with as little noise messing up those lovely vowels. The dreaded 's' must not hiss endlessly, dipthongs which just aren't pure vowels and constrict your sound can be moderated to something easier on the ear (and easier on the vocal mechanism), and those 'er' sounds can be opened up to 'ah' to sound appealing and ultimately, more natural.

As a group, you've really got to start and stop together or else it's just campfire singing. Get louder and softer as one to express highs and lows to impart emotional power or delicacy. Color your voices darkly or brightly together to express gravity or lightness. Do all of these things and stay on pitch, and you will move people. That's what you want to do and this is basically what is called bel canto. It requires more than a guitar and a hairdo. If you can cover these fine points, follow these rules, something "beyond the norm" will happen to your audience. You will get under their skin and move them more deeply. You will evoke tears, laughter and goosebumps.

Listen to your favorite performers and you will hear them breaking the rules, no question. But you will also begin to notice how they break the rules to a purpose, and how they honor those rules more often than not.

Mantras for the new year

How do you achieve this? As a director, you can rant and rave. To some extent, you need to do this to demonstrate that you are serious about your requirements. But the primary problem is breaking years of habituation. You will only get so far ranting and raving. I realized two things, and they have become my joint mantras for the new year:

1) Old habits die hard, but die they must!
2) The way you practice is the way you play.

Both points are quite obvious, as they should be. The first goes to the heart of setting standards and insisting that your singers adhere to them. This means using every trick in the book to bring the need for re-habituation to the fore. And where do you do this? Well, in rehearsal, of course. Why wait until you sing a concert recording and then point out the flaws? It's a useless way to learn.

Here's my new approach. Listen to those concert recordings and choose several aspects that need improvement or development. Don't choose too many - pick only 2 or 3. Notice how I only have 2 mantras for myself? Then find pieces in your repertoire that afford a rich opportunity to drill on those aspects, and work those repeatedly, getting the standards in the mouths of your singers. Yes, it has to be learned in the body - that's where habituation exists. You can't tell your folks they have to do this or that and simply expect it to happen. You can ask them what you want and they will parrot what you said. Then they'll go and sing it the way they always do. Their habituation is a more powerful force than your feeble rants. You have to re-habituate them in their mouths and in their bodies.

If you ever quit smoking or started an exercise regimen, you will know this is going to take a while. As the first mantra clearly states, old habits die hard. Habits take 6 weeks to break or to make. Write it down and put it on your 'fridge.

Translating to the playing field

In New England this year, we saw Matt Cassel take over for the injured Tom Brady. As Matt emerged as a first rate NFL QB in the early part of the season, he began to talk about adjusting to "game speed". Your singers face the same issue of "game speed" in performance as an NFL quarterback on Sunday afternoon. Cassel's skills and practice standards were always high; every coach he ever had has said so. When he had to take the field and lead the Pat's his practice discipline was sorely tested. He was able to do what you need your singers to do - translate good habits at practice into solid performance at game time. Look at my mantras again. Translate those into your way of doing business.

Whiffenpoof 100th gets underway!

2009-02-10T15:52:00.000-08:00

The Centennial kickoff concert

The kickoff concert beginning the one year celebration of the 100th took place at Woolsey Hall on January 31. I rushed to put my plans together in the last weeks, knowing I just could not miss this. The original group had formed in January of 1909, so January 31, 2009 seemed the perfect date for this concert.

What a turnout! Some 2400 people packed Woolsey Hall. It took over an hour to get everyone seated. I was unable to secure reserved seating and ended up in the 2nd balcony. In Woolsey, this is the nosebleed area. But I could see everything and Woolsey's acoustics are fantastic.

As I read over the program, I saw some of my buds, some classmates, others teammates on the Songbook project, were performing. First, the Replicants, a quintet doing a handful of the songs done by the first Whiffenpoofs. My excitement about what they would perform began to grow as I realized I had only recently been asked to engrave some very early arrangements.

Waiting for the audience to filter slowly in, I began to jabber with the lovely young undergrad sitting beside me. We had a little exchange about the upcoming performance, I got to brag about working on the almighty Songbook and how my buddies and colleagues would soon be on that stage, singing music they had probably learned from my charts. She acted interested for a bit, and then her older sister leaned over and said, "Isn't my baby sister smart? She's in the eighth grade, you know!" We all had a big laugh on that one.

Finally, the show begins

And then, it did indeed happen as I expected. My buds sang the songs I had engraved. "Old Grey Bonnet" and "When Pa" which I had engraved in the run up to this concert, and "And When the Leaves" which I had puzzled over in the Songs of Yale. It turns out these were among the very first songs the founders experimented with developing this new sound. The performance flowed through the years from 1909 to the present, through all the decades with the SLOTS and other alumni groups covering the entire breadth of the 100 year repertoire. All the songs I had engraved, and essentially had learned, note for note, part by part, verse by verse, all were poured out before me. I soaked them up as few people ever could - knowing more than any man deserves to know. It was rich.

Then the Whiffs of 2009 capped the show, and again I was blessed to know this repertoire just as intimately. But this time, I also heard the inaccuracies here and there that have crept in during years of singing from unreadable charts.

Whenever the Whiffs perform on campus, one of their singers has a job to dress outrageously - he is the group "Turkey". I had not realized this tradition which began with my 1973 group had been carried on to this day. But as the Whiffs marched on stage and I saw one guy in a costume that made it appear he was crouched inside a golden cage and being carried by a gorilla. I instantly knew what I was looking at the group's Turkey. In my group, Turkey wore white sneakers to every show, which looked pretty outrageous with white tie and tails. These days, I learned a different costume is rented for every on campus performance, and the budget numbers thousands of dollars.

Did I mention the group sang incredibly well? This is an exceptional band of Gentlemen Songsters and they brought the house down.

Singing from readable charts

In literary analysis, I had learned that when ancient texts like the Old Testament were passed along by oral tradition, passages that were complex or incomprehensible were often "glossed" over time. Scholars are able to identify these glosses through various means, one of which is comparing various transcriptions and looking for points of deviation. In any case, I could hear glossed sections in some of the music in this show. We had glosses in my time, too. There were sections of the music we just did not get or maybe could not read. We might have heard these sung in the oral tradition and sang it as we'd heard it, or in some places we invented our own glosses.

There are probably sections of some arrangements that have not been sung as they were intended since their first performance. Is any of this bad? No, not really. Often the glosses are clever inventions to fill in a gap that can't be groked by a group. But some strong and powerful intentions of the arranger are lost, and sometimes that invention is far superior to any gloss.

So our work will restore these original intentions and inventions. This is especially gratifying when I get to meet the arrangers now, shake their hands and tell them we've unearthed their original work. I met one of them at the After Glow party that evening.

Black, black, black is the color...

If you know the Whiffs, you probably know "Black Is the Color". It was arranged by the great Fritz Kinzel '58. I spotted his name tag and introduced myself. Our Songbook musicologist, Charlie joined me and we engaged Fritz in a spirited discussion of his work, of the legendary 1958 group and also discussed the stunning performance abilities of our host 2009 group. What a treat! I wanted to ask him about the strikingly modern and nearly incomprehensible chords he used in Black, and somebody brought it up before I did. Well, he said, those aren't any true chords. They are color splashes I made up. The fact that anyone can actually sing these chords is a testament to the abilities of Whiff singers over the years. Fritz is also the arranger of "Johnny One Note" and "Delia". I always loved "Johnny One Note" but did not appreciate the craft of the arrangement until I engraved it a couple months back.

My New Arrangement for the 100th

To cap the evening, I gave Pitchpipe Brian Mummert a new arrangement of mine, which I dedicated to the Whiffs on their Centennial, "Angel Eyes". I'm giving them right of first refusal on a piece I began developing a couple years ago and has evolved and been refined up to this moment. What a thrill it would be to hear the Whiffs sing another arrangement of mine, this one from the 21st century!

Whiffenpoof Songbook Driving to Completion

2009-01-10T11:46:00.000-08:00

Marshall Bartholomew and Fenno Heath

The 20th Century was a time of expansive growth in collegiate choral singing, and particularly in the years following the Second World War. As I continue to engrave Whiffenpoofs music from across the Century, I encounter numerous post WWII pieces that capture the very distinctive ebullience of that era.

As college singing exploded in the 20th Century, the position of choral director at great universities grew in importance and impact in the wider world. Yale's Marshall Bartholomew is conspicuous in this regard, having published two editions of the "Songs of Yale", one in 1934 and another in 1953, which became college songbooks at many universities. When the late Fenno Heath took over, he inherited this rich tradition and continued to enhance and develop it.

As Yale admitted women in the late 1960's, Fenno had his hands full creating a new repertoire for mixed chorus. Yale men had this rich and deep tradition of songs, among them songs that made great good fun college life. Luckily for everyone, Fenno Heath reworked much of the cherished repertoire for mixed chorus. A new "Songs of Yale" was brought under our beloved Fenno.

Songs Every Yalie Loves

A couple of humorous songs every Yalie knows are "We're Saving Ourselves for Yale" and "Daddy Is a Yale Man". These were songs written by Yalies about being Yalies, poking fun at their college experience and made real crowd pleasers. Both of these songs came out of the Whiffenpoof repertoire, and are among a group of songs from the post war era that got folded into the immortal core Yale repertoire. Both were written by men who were likely classmates and pals of Fenno Heath, while Marshall Bartholomew was still directing the Yale Glee Club. These songs are on my desk now.

The "Missing" Link Returns!

Robert F. "Missing" Link's "Song Fest" was among this group of music, as I mentioned before. Another piece from that manifesto, "The Old Songs" landed on my desk a couple weeks ago. Some of those songs made the Yale Songbook, some made the Whiff songbook, and some just keep floating around campus.

Sacred Texts

What is it like engraving songs with this much tradition, songs that are beloved by generations of men and women for the last 60 years? It's amazing. I get to look at versions with the original markings of the arranger, songs that were later revised when folded into the "Songs of Yale" in 1953. I also consider my work will sit on pianos of some of the best a cappella singers and arrangers the world has known.

But more than anything, it means it has to be really good. The charts have to read well, express the energy and delight of the music, solve problems for singers and describe performance nuances that would otherwise be forgotten, things I don't know but things other members of the team know from being around longer and compiling massive archives. It's a job I take quite seriously. We're hoping a lot of people will enjoy a good deal of fun singing out of this book!

"To the Sky" is coming!

2009-01-05T21:26:00.000-08:00

We're still pushing to bring home 23 cuts on the "To the Sky" CD. Like many things in life, if one thought about the enormity of this task, one would never begin. I don't mean just the recording work. Think back with me to 2004 or 2005 for a minute....

The Blue Dream Begins

In 2004, I was still dreaming of singing in an a cappella group where I could contribute my directing skills and hear some of my arrangements sung. The dream was fuzzy and back then, my life was a mess. It was a dream I'd had for many years, but one of those "Yeah, like that's going to happen!" kind of dreams. I had a few arrangements I'd worked to completion, but no idea how I would go about forming a group or building an actual repertoire. I had been singing with Polymnia Choral Society for a couple years, and the tenors I knew were interested in starting something. But you gotta have 4 parts, and that means basses! The idea needed more momentum - I needed to believe it was possible and I needed basses!

In 2005 Saki, a friend from Polymnia Choral Society, asked me at one of the rehearsal breaks if we could get a bunch of guys to sing some a cappella stuff, and it was like a spark that hit dry tinder. Saki knew the basses and had some pull with them. Yes, he could deliver 6-8 men in "the basement". So it happened. We mounted a couple songs and made them work. People heard us and they liked it. They wanted business cards and bookings. And we had two songs....

How Much Work Is it?

So like I said at the outset, it's a huge amount of work. You start meeting every week and learning stuff. Some guys drop out, others join; things change. You try to figure out how to get 40 minutes of music memorized across 15-20 people and figure out how you're going to look like something of a show.

I went for what I call the "just add water" approach: take 18 guys who need about 18 songs. Get them from ignorance to knowledge as fast as possible - from not knowing how to entertain to being entertaining - from no repertoire to a set list - in less than no time. How do you do that? I decided to fill things out quickly with sea chanties. Why? Because the ensemble needs to learn the chorus once while one soloist has to memorize the 9 verses and then you got a song. It's manly and people will sit through it. Do that a few times over, spice it up with a few spirituals, gospel and rock/pop tunes and you got a repertoire.

Then arrange like your pants are on fire and see what holds up in rehearsal. Spice up the repertoire as fast as you can with anything that sticks. Take it one month at a time. Find a few good arrangements that suit your group at the retail outlets and work them in.

Reaching Out, Going Beyond

Then go beyond. I decided to make contact with some ringer arrangers and develop relationships to foster new work or revive lost work.

First, I made contact with Walter Latzko the arranger for The Chordettes. It was a couple years ago, and my guys needed good, secular Christmas music. I had fallen in love with Mr. Latzko's work (you know him from "Mr. Sandman" and "Lollipop, Lollipop") many years ago as a child watching The Chordettes on "The Arthur Godfrey Show". I asked him to arrange "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas" which became his 979th arrangement (completed in about 2 days flat!). Later, he and I reworked it to suit my group of amateurs to an excellent result.

Then, through the Whiffenpoof Songbook project and the SOB Songbook Restoration Project, I reconnected with some incredible vocal arrangers from the last half of the 20th Century whose work had largely been mothballed or retired. These guys have been incredibly generous of their time reviewing my work, but also sharing new stuff or arrangements in their attics. A few have arranged or collaborated with me on new works.

Pants On Fire

Meanwhile, with my pants afire, I worked developing pieces I heard performed by some of my favorites artists like "Eddie From Ohio", Jim Kweskin, Geoff Muldaur, Ray Charles, Son House and The Sensational Nightingales.

After a few years of this, the repertoire becomes seriously spiced up! Over 4 years, we have laid some serious pipe. We are singing some incredible music. You will hear this on the "To the Sky" CD.

There may not be 23 cuts on the final CD. But once we boil it down, I promise you you will get a solid sense of Blue of a Kind. You'll hear the roots of this entire story on the CD, and you'll hear where we are going.

To the Sky, Alice!

There are so many hours of work put in by the guys to make this CD complete; so many dreams dreamt over many years. Visions developed, ideas realized and crystallized in long hours of drill and practice, rehearsal and performance, review and reevaluation and finally, standup time in the studio. "To the Sky" will echo the expressions of men on decks of sailing ships, men who worked railroad track, men who loved women and succeeded or loved them and lost, men who longed for freedom or for salvation, men who yearned to be with their God or with their girlfriend Under the Boardwalk. It will tell a lot of stories.

But one story it will tell is that of us becoming Blue. This is the Blue foundation - the beginning of our story, years in the making. Years.

Bob

Trouble Soon Be Over

2008-12-28T10:44:00.001-08:00

Blue of a Kind singing at the recent Mayor's Emergency Fund telethon where we offered some hope as well as a challenge to viewers to call in pledges while we sang, matching them dollar for dollar. The telethon raised money many times over its' goal to help local folks having hard times and we were proud to be a part of it.

2008-12-25T10:59:00.000-08:00

Trouble Soon Be Over posted to YouTube

A video of Blue of a Kind performing "Trouble Soon Be Over" is available on YouTube. You can just click on the title to view it, or search YouTube for "Blue of a Kind".

Second tenor, Ron solos on a recent Melrose MA TV telethon for the Mayor's Emergency Fund. We made a challenge to callers to do a dollar match on all pledges made while we sang and the calls spiked! The telethon raised a sum more than 4 times it's goal. We were proud to be a part of it.

Blind Willie Johnson's song goes back into the 1920's. This treatment is based on Geoff Muldaur's way of performing it, with a little fancy footwork to make it work for a cappella.

Bob

Blue of a Kind CD project - Michael Clem and Eddie from Ohio

2008-12-23T20:48:00.000-08:00

Home Stretch for Blue of a Kind CD, "To the Sky"

We're tracking the solo overdubs, doing little fix ups and preparing for the final mixing and mastering. I gathered some images and ideas and tossed them over to our graphic artist, 2nd tenor Bob Griffin. Bob drove rough ideas to realization. Once he made his presentation, we had a unanimous conclusion: the CD was going to be entitled, "To the Sky". Wait until you see it!

The imagery is stunning, and the font and design decisions were not only professional, but inspired. He connected with the concept.

A trip to HarryFox.com and I was able to secure licenses for the "intellectual property". You need to set up an account (it's free) and then you can search their database for the composer and songs. If you don't find the title or artist there, you still have to track them down. I rely on HarryFox, but there is often someone "outside the box". On the Whiffenpoof CD, this was Fred Hellerman, who wrote "Delia". On this project, it was Michael Clem of Eddie From Ohio, composer of "Walk Humbly, Son".

Eddie From Ohio Rocks!

First, let me say I'm a huge fan of this band. They are 4 diverse talents each of which composes for the "best band you never heard of". In truth, lots of people have heard of them. Blue of a Kind has been singing one of their songs, "Walk Humbly, Son" for a couple years, ever since I heard EFO sing it on a CD I bought from them at Club Passim.

Michael Clem wrote this song. It's full of his slightly offbeat humor, but has a powerful message. I had to do some heavy lifting adapting it for men. In the EFO treatment, Julie drives the melody in the stratosphere. I also wrote to EFO back then and bought the official chart so as to align myself with what Michael was doing harmonically. EFO and I had a little email exchange and they were excited that we were mounting the piece.

Now, it's going on the "To the Sky" CD. And I was not able to locate Michael Clem on HarryFox.com. So the rule is: find the composer and make a negotiation to give them their due. You can look on ASCAP, but I haven't yet figured out how to actually pay the composer there. It must be easy, but....

So I visited the EFO web site and sent an email via their "contact us" link, explaining what we're doing and how I want to pay Michael for his beautiful work.

This morning, he wrote me back. I only have to attribute the song correctly and send him a copy of the CD. He's flattered and pleased that we want to cover his song.

One of the great things about this job

Being a musical director, you get to realize projects over 6 months or a year's time. You get to herd cats, week in and week out. You get to rant and rave, and you have to keep it fun. Don't get me wrong, it is fun and I understand where my guys are coming from.

But one of the great things about this job is getting a response like that from Michael Clem. Or writing to Geoff Muldaur about "Trouble Soon Be Over" to tell him I am arranging the song after his treatment and would he be cool with that, and he writes me back saying, "Have at!" These guys just love doing what they are doing and are downright glad that folks want to cover their stuff.

And they know who we are, that we're just a bunch of guys with a couple hours a week scratching together all the money we made in the last year to make a CD, sell it and have our little place in the sun. That's pretty cool, don't you think?

The Blue of a Kind CD project

2008-12-17T22:28:00.000-08:00

The boys have been working hard. We have "tracked" mostly everything and we have feathered our nest. There are some important notes on what we intend to release.

Here is the probable lineup:

Recorded at Chillhouse studios, November - December 2008:
Under the Boardwalk
Words and Music by Artie Resnik and Kenny Young
Arranged by Mark Brymer

[Steve Francis' solo makes this a total knockout]

You Don't Know Me
Words and Music by Cindy Walker and Eddy Arnold
Arranged by Bob Eggers

[This really rocks and was requested of me by Saki Okura, one of our founders. I sang it with him on duet one time and it was a memorable moment. Let us say, Saki has a gift.]

Trouble Soon Be Over
Words and Music by Blind Willie Johnson
Arranged by Bob Eggers

[Based on Geoff Muldaur's treatment of the same tune. This is a folk/blues songs from the late 20's by Blind Willie Johnson that defies description. Songs from that era did not abide by the rules of pop song. It's a honey. I asked Geoff about "stealing" his treatment, and he said, "Go to town!" Ron Serisky's solo really does the number.]

This World Is Not My Home
Words and Music by Albert E. Brumley, Jr.
Additional lyric by Woody Guthrie

[Another Steve Francis solo that drops jaws, I arranged this after hearing Geoff Muldaur sing it at Club Passim in Cambridge, MA. Geoff later told me, "Wow, that's a really difficult song!"]

Mobile Bay
Traditional Sea Chantey
Arranged by Marshall Bartholomew

[It's a gem. Marshall Bartholomew's pumping chantey lives on. Bob Griffin's solo makes it special.]

Pirates Chorus
Words and Music by G. C. S. Southworth (Songs of Yale, 1870)

[This song was mined from "Songs of Yale" published in 1870. I doubt it has ever been recorded in either the 20th or the 21st centuries. Blue of a Kind uses it for their marching song when entering the performance hall. This is a particularly moving rendition of a song that dates back to just after the Civil War.]

It's Gonna Rain, Again
Words and Music by Charles Johnson
Arranged by Bob Eggers

[The Sensational Nightingales. Need I say more? Tug Yourgrau, Karl Geller and Mike Margolis send this one off into the stratosphere.]

To the Sky
Southern Folk Song
Arranged by Bob Eggers

[No one has heard this song, but when they do, OMG! Evans brought me this from his voice teacher. I arranged it in like a day and wait until you hear Evans Travis nail it.]

MacNamara's Band
Words and Music by O'Connor/Stamford
Arranged by Lewis Girdler

[My dear friend, Lewis Girdler arranged this piece for the Yale Whiffenpoofs. I sang the solo with the Whiffs in 1972-1973, and my dear pal, George Caruby sang Uncle Julius with me at Saunders Theater in Cambridge, MA for my musical hero, Leonard Bernstein sitting in the front row. As I recall, Lenny and his companion got up and danced while George and I sang. Pinch me! Dan Franklin and Br. Richard Cook give this tune a run for the money.]

South Australia
Traditional Sea Chantey
Arranged by Bob Eggers

[I transcribed the entire "Songs of Yale", copyright 1953 assembled by the great Marshall Bartholomew. In the process, I learned something about arranging sea chanties. Check this one out. I sing the solo. It's a chantey men used to ask to be sung to them on their deathbeds. Stay with me...]

Away to Rio
Tradition Sea Chantey
Arranged by Marshall Bartholomew

[No one does it better than Marshall Bartholomew. Extra verse penned by Evans Travis. I love a man who understands "holy stoning".]

'Linin' Track
Traditional Work Chantey
Arranged by Bob Eggers

[Chanties were not only sung at sea. This is a chantey sung while aligning railroad track, a particularly grueling task. I got this song and the treament from the great Jug Band master, Jim Kweskin. Also from Club Passim. The place really rocks!]

Rolling Down To Old Maui
Traditional Sea Chantey
Arranged by Bob Eggers

[What can anyone say about the greatest forecastle chantey of all time? (A forecastle chantey was a non-work song sung only for pleasure by the work crews, for the benefit of all.) If you have not heard this song, you will be stuck on it forever once you have. Wayne Leslie solos on this and his unbelievable bass tone must be heard to be believed. Karl Geller and I layer atop Wayne for a duet and later, a trio.]

Roll Jordan, Roll
Spiritual
Arranged by Marshall Bartholomew

[Just listen and smoothe your short hairs down. Solos by Tug Yourgrau, Phil Kukura and Steve Francis.]

Loch Lomond
Traditional Scottish Folk Song
Arranged by Bob Eggers

[Most of this arrangement was mined from an old songbook, but I crafted a front end and a back end and it's totally different, so it's mine! Irish tenor, Br. Richard Cook shows you how it should be sung.]

John the Revelator
Words and Music by Son House
Arranged by Blue of a Kind

[We developed this arrangement ad hoc. Son House was our inspiration. We listened, sang, crafted, re-listened, performed.... This one can really get ya. Solos by Evans Travis, Tug Yourgrau, Mike Margolis]

Nkosi Sikelel i'Afrika (South African National Anthem)
Words and Music by Enoch Sontonga and Samuel Mqhayi
Adapted for men by Bob Eggers

[Tug Yourgrau grew up in South Africa. He also composed the music for a Broadway show name "The Song of Jacob Zulu", which featured "Ladysmith Black Mambazo". Lucky for us, Tug sings with Blue of a Kind. He introduced me to this song and the SATB arrangement. I rearranged it for men. Singing this song used to land a man in jail in South Africa. This version will keep you free.]

Walk Humbly, Son
Words and Music by Michael R. Clem
Arranged by Bob Eggers

[Eddie From Ohio. They are from Virginia. Go figure! This is another group I heard at Club Passim. I must buy some more tickets soon. Michael Clem writes the funny stuff they do, but this song also reveals a deep spiritual awareness.]

Sentimental Journey
Words by Bud Green
Music by Les Brown and Ben Homer
Arranged by Walter Latzko

[Walter Latzko. The Chordettes. These 4 girls showed up in NYC and got hired at CBS to sing every week on the Arthur Godfrey show. I watched them as a kid. Each week they were dressed in stunning dresses and sang sultry mens' Barbershop songs like angels. Boys like me, and men twice my age swooned. Later, they went on to become pop and film stars. Walter Latzko was with them all the way, and married one of the dolls. Mr. Latzko has arranged a piece just for Blue of a Kind, but not this one. This is one he did for the Chordettes.]

Live/bonus tracks:
Kentucky Babe (live at Fitch Home, October 16, 2008)
Words by Richard Henry Buck
Music by Adam Geibel
Arranged by Walter Latzko

[Walter Latzko, again. Also arranged for the Chordettes. You're going to love this performance.]

Morning Prayer (live at Fitch Home, October 16, 2008)
Words by Evans Travis
Music Peter I. Tchaikovsky
Arrangement by Bob Eggers

[Umpteen years ago, I got snagged by a kid's video from Russia, because the soundtrack was the complete "Children's Album" by Tchaikovsky. Written for his piano pupils, it's a masterpiece no matter how you slice it. I just had to sing "Morning Prayer", a true song without words. I arranged it for men many years ago but could not come up with lyrics. Once I met Evans in Blue of a Kind, he asked me to let him at it. Hope you like it.]

To the Sky (live at Fitch Home, October 16, 2008)
Southern Folk Song
Arranged by Bob Eggers

[Evans Travis and the boys raise some goosebumps in a live performance in Melrose, MA.]

Trouble Soon Be Over (live at MMTV, Dec. 14, 2008)
Words and Music by Blind Willie Johnson
Arranged by Bob Eggers

[Ron Serisky rocks the house on local MMTV. Look for a YouTuber version of the same.]

The Blue of a Kind CD

2008-12-17T20:56:00.000-08:00

[Steve Francis' solo makes this a total knockout]

You Don't Know Me
Words and Music by Cindy Walker and Eddy Arnold
Arranged by Bob Eggers

[This really rocks and was requested of me by Saki Okura, one of our founders. I sang it with him on duet one time and it was a memorable moment. Let us say, Saki has a gift.]

Trouble Soon Be Over
Words and Music by Blind Willie Johnson
Arranged by Bob Eggers

[Based on Geoff Muldaur's treatment of the same tune. This is a folk/blues songs from the 20's by Blind Willie Johnson that defies description. Songs from that era did not abide by the rules of pop song. It's a honey. I asked Geoff about "stealing" his treatment, and he said, "Go to town!" Ron Serisky's solo really does the number.]

This World Is Not My Home
Words and Music by Albert E. Brumley, Jr.
Additional lyric by Woody Guthrie

[Another Steve Francis solo that drops jaws, I arranged this after hearing Geoff Muldaur sing it at Club Passim in Cambridge, MA. Geoff later told me, "Wow, that's a really difficult song!"]

Mobile Bay
Traditional Sea Chantey
Arranged by Marshall Bartholomew

[It's a gem. Marshall Bartholomew's pumping chantey lives on. Bob Griffin's solo makes it special.]

Pirates Chorus
Words and Music by G. C. S. Southworth (Songs of Yale, 1870)

[This song was mined from "Songs of Yale" published in 1870. I doubt it has ever been recorded in either the 20th or the 21st centuries. Blue of a Kind uses it for their marching song when entering the performance hall. This is a particularly moving rendition of a song that dates back to just after the Civil War.]

It's Gonna Rain, Again
Words and Music by Charles Johnson
Arranged by Bob Eggers

[The Sensational Nightingales. Need I say more? Tug Yourgrau, Karl Geller and Mike Margolis send this one off into the stratosphere.]

To the Sky
Southern Folk Song
Arranged by Bob Eggers

[No one has heard this song, but when they do, OMG! Evans brought me this from his voice teacher. I arranged it in like a day and wait until you hear Evans Travis nail it.]

MacNamara's Band
Words and Music by O'Connor/Stamford
Arranged by Lewis Girdler

[My dear friend, Lewis Girdler arranged this piece for the Yale Whiffenpoofs. I sang the solo with the Whiffs in 1972-1973, and my dear pal, George Caruby sang Uncle Julius with me at Saunders Theater in Cambridge, MA for my musical hero, Leonard Bernstein sitting in the front row. As I recall, Lenny and his companion got up and danced while George and I sang. Pinch me! Dan Franklin and Br. Richard Cook give this tune a run for the money.]

South Australia
Traditional Sea Chantey
Arranged by Bob Eggers

[I transcribed the entire "Songs of Yale", copyright 1953 assembled by the great Marshall Bartholomew. In the process, I learned something about arranging sea chanties. Check this one out. I sing the solo. It's a chantey men used to ask to be sung to them on their deathbeds. Stay with me...]

Away to Rio
Tradition Sea Chantey
Arranged by Marshall Bartholomew

[No one does it better than Marshall Bartholomew. Extra verse penned by Evans Travis. I love a man who understands "holy stoning".]

'Linin' Track
Traditional Work Chantey
Arranged by Bob Eggers

[Chanties were not only sung at sea. This is a chantey sung while aligning railroad track, a particularly grueling task. I got this song and the treament from the great Jug Band master, Jim Kweskin. Also from Club Passim. The place really rocks!]

Rolling Down To Old Maui
Traditional Sea Chantey
Arranged by Bob Eggers

[What can anyone say about the greatest forecastle chantey of all time? (A forecastle chantey was a non-work song sung only for pleasure by the work crews, for the benefit of all.) If you have not heard this song, you will be stuck on it forever once you have. Wayne Leslie solos on this and his unbelievable bass tone must be heard to be believed. Karl Geller and I layer atop Wayne for a duet and later, a trio.]

Roll Jordan, Roll
Spiritual
Arranged by Marshall Bartholomew

[Just listen and smoothe your short hairs down. Solos by Tug Yourgrau, Phil Kukura and Steve Francis.]

Loch Lomond
Traditional Scottish Folk Song
Arranged by Bob Eggers

[Most of this arrangement was mined from an old songbook, but I crafted a front end and a back end and it's totally different, so it's mine! Irish tenor, Br. Richard Cook shows you how it should be sung.]

John the Revelator
Words and Music by Son House
Arranged by Blue of a Kind

[We developed this arrangement ad hoc. Son House was our inspiration. We listened, sang, crafted, re-listened, performed.... This one can really get ya. Solos by Evans Travis, Tug Yourgrau, Mike Margolis]

Nkosi Sikelel i'Afrika (South African National Anthem)
Words and Music by Enoch Sontonga and Samuel Mqhayi
Adapted for men by Bob Eggers

[Tug Yourgrau grew up in South Africa. He also composed the music for a Broadway show name "The Song of Jacob Zulu", which featured "Ladysmith Black Mambazo". Lucky for us, Tug sings with Blue of a Kind. He introduced me to this song and the SATB arrangement. I rearranged it for men. Singing this song used to land a man in jail in South Africa. This version will keep you free.]

Walk Humbly, Son
Words and Music by Michael R. Clem
Arranged by Bob Eggers

[Eddie From Ohio. They are from Virginia. Go figure! This is another group I heard at Club Passim. I must buy some more tickets soon. Michael Clem writes the funny stuff they do, but this song also reveals a deep spiritual awareness.]

Sentimental Journey
Words by Bud Green
Music by Les Brown and Ben Homer
Arranged by Walter Latzko

[Walter Latzko. The Chordettes. These 4 girls showed up in NYC and got hired at CBS to sing every week on the Arthur Godfrey show. I watched them as a kid. Each week they were dressed in stunning dresses and sang sultry mens' Barbershop songs like angels. Boys like me, and men twice my age swooned. Later, they went on to become pop and film stars. Walter Latzko was with them all the way, and married one of the dolls. Mr. Latzko has arranged a piece just for Blue of a Kind, but not this one. This is one he did for the Chordettes.]

Live/bonus tracks:
Kentucky Babe (live at Fitch Home, October 16, 2008)
Words by Richard Henry Buck
Music by Adam Geibel
Arranged by Walter Latzko

[Walter Latzko, again. Also arranged for the Chordettes. You're going to love this performance.]

Morning Prayer (live at Fitch Home, October 16, 2008)
Words by Evans Travis
Music Peter I. Tchaikovsky
Arrangement by Bob Eggers

[Umpteen years ago, I got snagged by a kid's video from Russia, because the soundtrack was the complete "Children's Album" by Tchaikovsky. Written for his piano pupils, it's a masterpiece no matter how you slice it. I just had to sing "Morning Prayer", a true song without words. I arranged it for men many years ago but could not come up with lyrics. Once I met Evans in Blue of a Kind, he asked me to let him at it. Hope you like it.]

To the Sky (live at Fitch Home, October 16, 2008)
Southern Folk Song
Arranged by Bob Eggers

[Evans Travis and the boys raise some goosebumps in a live performance in Melrose, MA.]

Trouble Soon Be Over (live at MMTV, Dec. 14, 2008)
Words and Music by Blind Willie Johnson
Arranged by Bob Eggers

[Ron Serisky rocks the house on local MMTV. Look for a YouTuber version of the same.]

More Attribution Mysteries

2008-12-06T06:05:00.000-08:00

The Whodunnit plot rethickens

Believe it or not, the story continues, and maybe Robert "Missing" Link is indeed the missing link in the evolutionary process of "(That Slippery) Slide Trombone". Robert recently wrote me, saying,

I should have told you that I knew Bill Oler when he was a freshman and I

was a senior; I assume that he's the reason that Song Fest got into the

Whiff repertory. Also, a many years friend of mine is Brower McClintock,

'40, a founding member of O&Bs. If it's in the O&B repertory, I assume that

Brower got it there.

So the trail has not gone cold. Oler, Brower.... Connections and all part of the evolutionary process.... By the way, Mr. Link was made an honorary Whiffenpoof in 1947, as I said before, but is also an honorary O&B. Connections....

Connections... and another Whodunnit

Another fun whodunnit story surrounds the classic Whiff arrangement, "I'll Take Romance". I engraved this long time favorite many months ago from a manuscript that was marginally readable. Before and after screenshots of a few measures this piece can be found on our home page, Acappellanation.com. Of side interest, this note: there is an error in that screenshot that has since been corrected in the actual engraving.

But I digress, don't I? During some months last Summer after making that engraving, I also engraved another half dozen or so arrangements by the same Whiff arranger, but these from his undergrad years in the Bakers Dozen. This arranger is Lewis Girdler, known for "MacNamara's Band" as well as "When Sunny Gets Blue", among other gems. I wrote about him before as the man I believe introduced the faux string bass line in a cappella singing. This humble genius probably turned the a cappella singing world on it's ear in the late 1950's and opened the door to some of the expression we have seen flourish in our genre ever since. That's another investigation....

I'm still digressing, but it's a story! Well, I attributed the arrangement to him because I could make out his name in the top, right corner where it emerged from a black cloud caused by too many xerox generations. I also recognized the handwriting, but so many of the works I engraved had been recopied by others hands making this evidence less credible. However the style of the arrangement, it's voicings, pace and rhythms all sounded like classic Girdler, so I had no reason to doubt it was his.

Arranged by "Unknown"!

Nonetheless months after I submitted it, our lead editor and musicologist bounced it back to me saying to change the arranger to "Unknown". I looked at the original xerox (interesting combination of words there). Girdler's name was clearly legible at the top and I was baffled. Perhaps the black cloud from which it emerged had said, "copied by", but the rest of the evidence suggested otherwise.

Luckily, I had come to know Mr. Girlder while doing the Bakers Dozen engravings, and I sent him a copy of the copy asking, "What about it?". Yes, he replied, and thanked me for sending the manuscript so he could say for certain. It turns out our lead editor had asked Lewis about 10 years ago at some Whiff function if he'd arranged "Romance" and well, he wasn't sure he had. So rather than take credit for what might be someone else's work, he said, "No." Remember what I said about humble? Besides, Mr. Girlder's contribution to both the Whiff and Bakers Dozen repertoires is vast and this is but one sweet "Romance" that slipped his mind. ;-)

Once Mr. Girdler recognized his own hand writing, we'd solved this whodunnit. Luckily, he's still matriculating along with the rest of us, otherwise this piece might have remained forever "Unknown".

Dick Peaslee's Garden of Earthly Delights on Broadway now!

Quick note before I depart: Dick Peaslee, another Whiff and Bakers Dozen arranger I've mentioned in earlier blogs, has a new musical on Broadway, called "Garden of Earthly Delights". Click on the name to visit the web page about it. The man is a powerhouse. I am currently engraving another bunch of his works from the 50's that he'd saved away in his attic and there are some great songs there!

Bob

The case of (That Slippery) Slide Trombone, continued

2008-12-02T20:18:00.000-08:00

"Missing" Link is found and tells all!

Robert Frederick "Missing" Link wrote me back and has relieved me of my position that he is the "missing link" in the case of (That Slippery) Slide Trombone. I hate to see this theory blown, but oh, what fun!

First, Robert made clear he was merely an honorary Whiff. He actually graduated in 1942 but was made an honorary member of the 1947 Whiffenpoofs. I'm sure there's another story there and I won't venture any guesses beyond saying the guys at Yale during the War years didn't pass and become forgotten at the usual rate of 4 years apiece. Robert may never have sung with the Whiffs or he may have done a ton of pick-up singing to fill the ranks - this I don't know yet. He says he probably got the song in his head hearing the '42 Whiffs sing it.

But Robert was the man whose hand wrote the pages of music I described. First he wrote me that he had little if anything to do with Slide Trombone, certainly had not arranged it. He said he might have written it down in 1946 among a group of songs he called "Song Fest" that he and a bunch of guys probably sang together at least once, maybe many times. He said songs like that were floating around being sung and shared. He suggested perhaps the "Silver Dollar Quartet" was the inspiration the arrangement of Slide Trombone.

Well, that seemed like a dead end, but I thought I'd see if my mysterious song cycle happened to be this "Song Fest", so I wrote him back, naming all the songs I mentioned below. Well, he said, if I looked at the piece "Slow Motion Time", "There should be a picture of feet sticking out from a sombrero" on the last page. Indeed, when I brought up the scan and scrolled to the last page, there was his little hombre in the sombrero.

Oh, how I laughed to know something about the source of these charts.

What can be known about anything?

Many years ago, I read "The Perfect Storm" and the author said the thrill of writing that book was creating a story about an event that was not witnessed and about which nothing could be known. But in the process of researching narratives of others in that storm, some kind of knowledge clearly emerged.

Sometimes, you can't know anything about certain things, but every once in a while you can get a glimpse. I just read "Shadow Divers" about one of my schoolmates named John Chatterton who was diving a deep wreck off New Jersey, a vessel that from his first dive, he thought might be a submarine. On one of his first dives, he found a dish and in 200 feet of cold, turbid water and he turned the dish over to find a swastika on the underside. For some long minutes, John was the only person in the world who knew the wreck he was diving was a German U-boat from the big War. A sudden glimpse, and it made him laugh.

So I laughed!

A link was made way into the past, concerning documents I had seen in 1971 and gave me pause. Other SOB compadres have also observed and wondered about these same charts. My thoughts about the genesis and life of these songs, of this manuscript, including where these particular songs went in published records have been shared by everyone who has seen them. And now, for a few moments I know something! They are "Song Fest", recorded in 1946 by Robert "Missing" Link.

And they're definitely part of that whole "oral tradition" thing. As Robert wrote to me, "Sometimes songs arrange themselves in an evolutionary way." He doesn't really know how he knew all the pieces, note for note. Really quite a bit of knowledge there. His explanation: "I osmosed them somehow when I was there."

So who arranged (That Slippery) Slide Trombone? Maybe "WBB" is short for "we'll never know".

Still on the trail,
Bob

How is The Sunshine Girl?

2008-11-30T18:49:00.000-08:00

Hey, Sunshine Girl!

What's happening with the Whiffenpoofs of 1973 Sunshine Girl? I promised to get back to you on this and detail some of my experience.

The CD has been on sale now for months and it hasn't hit number one. But the cool thing is, it's selling. Gosh darn it, people like us! I have three vendors (and happily all my royalties are paid): amazon.com, acappella.com and Cutler's Records in New Haven, CT.

What's it like being a record magnate? Same as not being one. We see steady sales at all three locations. Each venue sells a few CDs per month without any real advertising or marketing. The Whiffenpoofs have a cachet, and collectors are always looking for interesting or "lost" recordings. This is an "original recording remastered", so if it didn't exist, it would be pretty much gone from the planet. People like getting something like that.

The CD was lovingly remastered and the result is very fine quality. I've heard some worn records that were remastered without high end filtering that are just barely listenable. This was a pristine LP and was given lots of attention and high end treatment. It's very close to the original quality of the master tapes and certainly more than equal to a pristine LP record. You are not distracted by lots of snaps, crackles and pops. It's quite smooth and clear.

Amazon.com

One thing I learned at Amazon is that it does not really pay to be a Premium Seller unless you're doing high volume. They don't keep any inventory on hand, so you do all the work whether you are a Premium Seller or just another bozo. They send you an email, you print a packing slip, package the goods and mail it to the buyer, all within 2 business days. If Amazon fails to notify you, which happened to me in one case, the buyer will stew for a few weeks and then write a nastygram to Amazon, at which point Amazon will notify you, and the buyer will never believe you were not notified in the first place. Try complaining to Amazon? It's "talk to the hand". There's no one listening.

As a Premium Seller at Amazon, you pay hefty monthly fees for their service. Without this status, you have to renew your selling "site" every 60 days. It's a pain, but well worth it if you're losing money paying their service fees. Otherwise, they deduct your profits from the fees you owe and you gain nothing. Not so sweet. If you make money, they direct deposit it to you. Sweet.

Acappella.com

Acappella.com, on the other hand will keep some small inventory on hand and ship to the buyers. You have to keep track of the sales and resupply them periodically, but there is no ongoing cost. You won't lose money in a month where nothing sells. They pay the postage, do the shipping and send you checks when they sell - sweet! But your record must be good enough for them to include it in their catalog. They listen and if they figure it won't sell, you're toast!

Cutler's Records & Brick and Mortar operations

The brick and mortar operations like Cutler's Records work pretty much the same way. They accept a small inventory, sell it at an agreed upon "split", and you have to check with them periodically to keep them supplied, at which point they pay you for what was sold. Like acappella.com, brick and mortar operations won't waste space unless they think they can sell your product. Luckily, the Whiffenpoofs are a proven commodity and Cutler's is glad to carry us.

CDBaby.com

I read up on CD Baby recently, and they operate much like acappella.com - small inventory, simple profit split, no monthly overhead and lots of happiness for all. CDBaby will carry you no matter what. You pay a small one-time fee and that's all there is to it. Look for Whiffenpoofs Sunshine Girl there soon!

Pay the royalties and licenses to your composers, lyricists, arrangers...

If you want to sell publicly, make sure you pay for all the intellectual property rights you need to be legal. It's really very simple. You go to Harry Fox agency on the web, research every song in their database and declare how many CD's you're making and pay it in advance when you are manufacturing the CDs. Pretty much everyone who wants to be paid is listed there. Rarely they are not listed and you have to track them down and make a private deal. When making the Sunshine Girl CD, I had the opportunity to pay license fees for downloads but did not opt for that. There's a serious profit margin there, but unless you're expecting a feeding frenzy on your music, it's probably more bother than it's worth. Don't take my word for it but you gotta sell to make money, that's for sure!!

For most of us, it's just cool to be selling it and bragging to our spouses and girlfriends. Make sure you stay legal and that you don't lose your shirt for the bragging rights!

Bob

The Whiffenpoof Songbook project: Whodunnit?

2008-11-29T11:30:00.000-08:00

To bring you up to date and give the executive summary: we have engraved hundreds of arrangements using Finale to preserve and protect the Whiff's hundred year old tradition. I have engraved something like 70 arrangements from all over the 20th Century.

Many of the originals were in a poor state, copied over by hand several times, and then copied by xerox many times over. By and large, the music was readable but there were times when you really had to squint. Then, many oddities could only be revealed by playback and still more errata found only by superb editing by our music leader, who now sits at piano and plays through every engraving weeding out glosses applied by copyists, errors applied by the engraver and truing up harmonics to match early recordings.

A Musical Whodunnit?

One very interesting problem that came up several times was that of attribution. Sometimes the songs themselves have unknown origins. They may have been Tin Pan Alley songs whose copyrights have lapsed and no information exists about them at ASCAP or Harry Fox. Some of these may have been composed by undergrads, and no one took credit. Some of the arrangers names got lost over the years when manuscripts were copied. These mysteries have proven difficult to solve, especially when songs go back more than 50 years and few folks are around to remember.

One piece I engraved was "Slide Trombone". Whiff records have the composer as Alstyne and the lyricist as Williams. You will not find this song anywhere on ASCAP or Harry Fox, nor will you find the lyrics posted anywhere. The Internet does not know this song exists! For the arranger, Whiff records show "WBB", which is an abbreviation for "Whiffenpoof Blue Book". It's in the book. Yes, there was an actual "Blue Book" assembled at some point which few people have ever seen and probably no one is allowed to touch. Maybe it's in Salt Lake City and heavily guarded! Anyway, it's in that book and no one knows who arranged it. "WBB" is short for "we don't know".

The Whiff singing society sang, collected songs, stuck them in folders, passed them along and didn't always care very much about history and keeping records. Arrangers noted their work often by just putting their initials on the page. Three letters, nothing more. So now on their 100th anniversary, folks come along to document what this fun-loving bunch of guys did, and knowing stuff like who arranged what is suddenly very important.

The case of (That Slippery) Slide Trombone

So here's my story about Slide Trombone that actually leads to knowing something more about this piece than has been known for probably the last 50 years.

While engraving the SOB songbook, which I noted earlier in this blog included a bunch of songs "stolen" at some point from the Bakers Dozen, there were a number very old manuscripts in a hand that was, well "scary". I had seen these charts years ago when as Pitchpipe, I had the actual SOB songbook in 1971 and 1972. A set of songs including "Slow Motion Time", "Jungle Town", "Deh Wind Blow Ober Mah Shoulder", "George Jones" and "Slide Trombone". I remember the handwriting of these charts vividly, since they gave me a shiver when I looked them over in 1971. Several of these songs ended up in the Yale Songbook, also known as "Songs of Yale".

That songbook as we know it today was assembled by the great Marshall Bartholomew in 1953 but had had many editions published. The first copyright was 1903 and there were copyrights in 1906, 1918, 1934 and 1953. Songs in the 1953 edition had been passed on for many years without attribution. I have some of those in the "Songs of Yale" assembled by C. S. Elliot published in 1870, including earlier versions of songs you can see in the 1953 edition. The songs apparently had a life of their own; they grew, got embellished, updated and probably were just sung in the wider College community in the "oral tradition".

In any case, wondering who arranged the Slippery slide Trombone, I took a look at the ancient manuscript for Slide Trombone that is in the SOB archive. It's clearly very old, and it is sitting among what appear to be a group of songs that were floating around the singing community described above, some of which became part of the Whiffenpoof "Blue Book" and some of which were published in Bartholomew's 1953 edition of "songs of Yale". It's not exactly note for note the same as the one in the "WBB", but it's clearly an ancestor, and a very close one. In a court case on plagiarism, this manuscript would convict.

And this copy has something on it. It's an inscription, mostly unreadable, saying something like "Old song- freely cooked up...", then some unintelligible stuff, and then "by R. F. L.". Like I said before: three letters, nothing more. I am not sure what we really have here, but when I look into the Whiffenpoof records, I find only one singer in the 100 year history of the group with those initials. He is Robert Frederick "Missing" Link who sang 2nd bass with the Whiffs in 1942. The stars are aligning. Did he arrange it? Well, maybe he did or he knows who did, or maybe he was just the guy who transcribed what was being sung around campus. The search for truth and the meaning of life goes on....

More next time on some other finds.

Bob

Blue of a Kind Recording Update

2008-11-29T06:36:00.000-08:00

The guys showed up ready to play for the next session. Compared to the second session which produced only 2 keepers, the third session produced 5. For a couple hours of hard work, standing around microphones and trying it again and again, you have to have something to show for the effort.

Speaking from the point of view of music director, sometimes you just gotta apply some tough love! Members of the ensemble have to take responsibility for their music. Too many singers are along for the ride and are pushed and pulled by whatever happens in the next moment. Your ensemble will not rise to the top if your singers don't do their homework.

The list of keepers is lengthening and the dream is in sight. Now as we complete this aspect of the project, we have to begin thinking about all the other assets we need to develop - the CD cover, liner notes, photos and etc. There is still a bit of work ahead! Luckily, we have a great artist and designer in the group who has experience doing CD cover artwork.

Bob

2008-11-14T18:43:00.000-08:00

Recording "Blue of a Kind"

I've taken Blue of a Kind into the studio to make our first CD. We've had 2 sessions so far at Chillhouse Studios. It's a marvelous experience working in the studio, one you'll never forget. Working with Eric at Chillhouse is really good because he's got such a great ear. He can mike the group in a way that you can analyze problems and make corrections, and he knows when a take basically works. With a couple of active ribbon mikes at hand, some great condensers and the iso booth, you can really rock.

What have we found out in the process? More than we want to know. We can sing in front of an audience, totally knock them out and give a full hour's entertainment before we wilt, but underneath there are guys improvising, slugging along and basically having a good time but they aren't drinking the same Koolaide the rest of us are. They are showing up for the big game with their shoes untied.

I stacked up songs for the first session that I thought we could nail pretty easily. The first session was quite successful. For the second session, I mixed comfort with some stretch, since I thought the guys would be better adjusted and would show "up ready to play", so we could cut some butter.

Let me say this: we're a medium-sized ensemble. There's room to hide.

It turns out maybe one sixth or one eighth of the group doesn't know their stuff, and now they are getting caught by their fellow singers. What seems to work in concert isn't cutting it when the harsher light of the studio is shone upon them. I'm not talking about the occasional flub - some guys are on a map all their own.

They fall into 2 basic categories. First, the guy has basically learned everything but is occasionally singing a line that is interesting but "off book". Maybe it's one individual in one song and another guy in another song. It might pull off the other singers, depending on the complexity of the song and whether they are near enough to hear. It creates muddiness and noise, but it isn't a total mess because it's so sporadic.

Second category: the guy just has not learned his stuff and is singing pretty much whatever comes to mind, being pushed and pulled freely by whatever else is going on around him, touching here and there on the vocal line he is supposed to present.

The first category is more correctable, and probably does less overall harm since the deviations are musical, creative and episodic. The second category is just like the plague and sucks life out of every performance. It creates an undercurrent of noise that permeates every piece. You can't put a finger on it; it's just always there muddying things up, taking the edge off every effect the arranger intended or what the director is going for. Combine the two, and a very small fraction of the group is heading you directly towards your next "train wreck".

What to do? We're a volunteer group, a bunch of guys who do this for fun. So I repeat, what to do? We are achieving our goals in the field and we want to make a CD to sell that represents us at our finest. So?

It's tough. I have decided to serve everyone notice. They have 7 days to polish 4-5 pieces they should already know by rote. Come the next session, if their compadres don't think they have a song down pretty much solid on the first take, they will ask them to stand down and try on the next song. Maybe sitting in the control room with their songbook open will help. It's ugly, but it might work. Last week we recorded 5 songs and produced maybe two keepers. The glass may be almost half full, but it's no good. Next week, we have to do better. The guys have to show up "mentally hot".

Look forward to a really great CD from these guys. I know they have it in them and Eric will definitely help us bring it out.

Bob

The O's and B's Songbook Restoration Project

2008-07-07T20:38:00.000-07:00

Recently I sent off dozens of songs for proofing and vetting to Baker's Dozen arrangers from their founding years. How exciting to begin getting responses from these guys! Lewis Girdler gave me a complete set of corrections. The man remembered every note of every song he arranged more than 50 years ago. Wow!

Dick Peaslee wrote me back and said he's working on it but he's a little backed up with current work. Why? Well, he's a major composer with a full plate. Check him out at http://www.dickpeaslee.com. Herb Payson wrote me that he's on the case, still plays jazz piano every day and fondly remembers his BD days. Pete Sipple is floored to see his work from 50 years ago and is working his way through it all.

What a thrill!! I could not locate some of the BD founders. I tried every means I could, and all I can say is that time may have taken its' toll. I am still trying to contact a few guys. We'll see where it leads.

Meanwhile, I am still engraving the O's and B's music and trying to turn over a few rocks to see what we can find. The Internet is a major asset finding early recordings of these tunes so I can piece together melodies from recordings these arrangers probably listened to. How does a song go? Well, this is how Doris Day sang it....

I've made contact with some Spizzwinks(?) about working through their songbook and I hope to hear more from them. Then there's the Alley Cats and the Duke's Men. Sadly, the Bachelors and the Jesters are gone.

Why can't the best of this music be revived, not as it was done in the past, but interpreted for the modern ear? Some of these songs have been revived by directors who knew how to treat the music for the modern audience. The result has always been stunning. I want to hear this music sung again in the new way, with impeccable voices and creative direction. The best of the best from 1940-1970 in the hands of a great artist.

Would it sum things up? Connect old and new? Create new bonds between young and old? Re-utter the core 20th century music we all love in a powerful way? I want to know.

Bob

Restoring the Society of Orpheus and Bacchus songbook

2008-06-22T20:54:00.000-07:00

Back in 1972, I passed the Songbook of the Society of Orpheus and Bacchus to my successor. Said songbook was never seen again. Thirty-four years of music was lost in one fell swoop. Luckily, the group survived based on the music in members' personal songbooks. Also thanks to oral tradition and to a newbie who re-enscribed everything into a proper, new songbook.

Nonetheless, a TON of stuff was lost and some of it will probably never be recovered.

Over the last 35 years, the SOB alums have endeavored to recover the archives from members songbooks salted away in attics. The alums managed to recover several hundred songs and scanned them into the "archives". I've been engraving Whiffenpoof music the over the last year, and in my downtime, I dug into these archives. One of the pieces I was looking for in particular was "Lazy Bones", a Hoagy Carmichael tune I had sung with the group in 1970. It was there, but it was not the arrangement I remembered. This bothered me a little, but I guessed that maybe it had been rearranged and the more recent version was missing.

Oh, what a wealth of forgotten music I found! Many of the arrangers' names were familiar to me from engraving the Whiff's music. I began to troll through the archives by name and finding connections between arrangers until I found a group of musicians whose work clearly formed the core of the founding music from the early 40's and led right into the 50's and early 60's. None of this music had been sung for many years and some of it was quite extraordinary.

Many tunes were xeroxes of xeroxes and were severely compromised. I spent hours over many pages, with a magnifying glass and bright sunlight, looking for a pixel here or a blotch there, trying to interpret what the arranger was telling me and what the ravages of time had stolen from his expression. At some level of generations, xerox copies of sharps turn into something that looks like a star exploding. At the next generation or so, they turn into a few specs that might be a sharp, a flat, a natural or just a singers' pencil mark. Things break down.

As I engraved the music and listened to it on playback, it was as if I was passing through a time portal. These tunes came back to life to me as if from the dead. I could hardly wait to engrave the next tune to hear how some of these arrangers would interpret songs from Irving Berlin, George and Ira Gershwin, Hoagy Carmichael, Johnny Mercer, Edith Piaf, Lennon & McCartney and so on. These were songs that defined the 20th Century, and these arrangements were by music majors aiming to become Whiffenpoofs. The music was stunning, and almost all of it had not been heard for 40 years. It was lying in forgotten archives and barely readable.

Then I began tracing the history, nailing down the names and dates, and trying to contact the arrangers to proof and vet my work. And I learned something I did not want to know. A large portion of this music was not ours. It belonged to a competitor.

I wrote to some of the arrangers, and they told me they had not been in the Society of Orpheus and Bacchus, but rather in the Baker's Dozen. The S.O.B.'s had been founded in 1938 and the Baker's Dozen in 1947. Youngsters!!

Youngsters they may be, but the music is incredible. I had sung many arrangements from guys in this group in my tour as a Whiffenpoof. Some of their music is still sung by the Whiffs to this day. Lew Girdler, Dick Gregory, Herb Payson, Dick Peaslee, Pete Sipple: OMG these were the arrangers who defined a cappella singing at Yale!

How did this music get into the SOB archives? I have no idea. I distinctly remember seeing some of these pieces in the SOB songbook in 1971, in particular "Vermilion Hair" and "One Meat Ball". Years later they were collected from another member's songbook from the 60's, backing up my contention. My conclusion is they were stolen at some point, probably by a college roommate. I doubt the S.O.B.'s ever performed the stolen music, but apparently they did pass it on.

What to do now? I keep engraving and writing to the arrangers. This music is too good to let die. What is the Society of Orpheus and Bacchus missing? Well, about 98% of their music from 1938 - 1960. We will keep digging and hopefully finding.....

Bob

Who is BellaMafia?

2008-05-14T15:18:00.001-07:00

Who is BellaMafia?

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

Finishing the Whiffenpoof Audio Restoration project

2008-04-26T10:30:00.000-07:00

Well, the audio restoration project is completed. The Whiffenpoofs from 1973 wanted to create a CD to give to class members returning for a reunion. The group had long since lost the master tapes. Presumably, these were left on file at the studio in Wallingford, CT. Eventually, the studio figured they wouldn't hear from these guys and disposed of the archives. What was left to work from was a 33 1/3 LP record that had never been played. That seemed rather fortunate. How many people have a record they never played?

The original transfer took a little doing to get set up properly. There was some excess noise on side 1 on the left channel to worry about. This noise did not come from wear and tear, but rather from the original stamping process. After trying a couple of configurations, Eric found a way to record the LP that reduced the noise significantly and side 1 recorded very nicely.

As side 2 was transfering, we could hear a lot more noise over the monitors, and my heart began to sink. The layout of music for the 2 sides of the vinyl had put a lot of songs on the second side, and many of these songs carried more density of information overall then the songs on side 1. The result? A lot of data packed into tightly packed grooves. Worse still, the stamping process had done worse on this side, and there was a lot more noise in the left channel. The further we got into the transfer, the more the sound degraded. It was not awful, but it was far less optimal than we'd anticipated starting with a clean piece of virgin vinyl.

Clearly what we had was good enough for the singing group members to have as a memento, and was probably better than their well-worn copies from 1973. But to produce something of quality for the reunion class gift, we knew we had to go to the next level. We discussed with the University and got approval to remaster the audio.

Eric did some research, discussed the problem with other experts at the college where he teaches and located some fabulous software for restoring from vinyl. We took the raw transfer back into the studio, and tuned parameters on some of the most delicate songs to remove pops, hiss and crackle. The results were astounding! It was like sheer magic. This software could identify the chaff, remove it and put these more delicate songs back to a state so close to pristine, it was jaw-dropping. We ran the filters over the entire raw data and thought we were finished.

Then we spot-checked across the entire result. While the parameters we selected had worked like a dream on those delicate songs, the dense, rumbling pieces from side 2 where the grooves were jammed so tightly were not pretty. Although they were hiss, pop and crackle free, they were now distorted. Terms like "wow" and "flutter" come to mind. We found these pieces required special attention, a completely different set of parameters and some measure of compromise to find the right level where noise could be reduced measurably without distorting the vocal performance. We reduced thresholds on the filters by 50% and then another 50% and made several more passes over the data, giving us 4 versions the entire stream from which to select the best starting point for each song.

Then Eric worked by with each piece to fine-tune the compression and a light EQ, as well as removing some noises by hand to achieve a result that was unimaginable after the initial transfer. The master has been sent off for production and the result should be something worth adding to a collection of college a cappella recordings. The reunion group should be very happy, and we came in right on budget!

I hope to talk more about getting the artwork together as well as acquiring all the mechanical licenses, so we're nice and legal. I even got to speak with one of the composers, Fred Hellerman on the phone in the process! How cool is that?

~Bob