Copyrighting Your Work

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...

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.

Arranging 101?

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.

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

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

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

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

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

So What the Heck Happened?

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

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

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

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

"Sing Off", the Greatest Show on Television!

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

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

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

So, Tell Me About the Agenda

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

These are the Judges:

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

This is the Producer: Sony Pictures Television

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

What Do the Producers and Judges Want?

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

Do the Whiffs have a 'tude?

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

Are the Whiffs a true Super-Group?

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

Do the Whiffs have 'Street Appeal'?

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

Did the Whiffs Deliver?

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

So, Who Will Win?

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

Who are the runner ups?

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

But these are my favorites:

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

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

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

A New Season Begins!

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

How I Spent My Summer Vacation

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

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

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

Summer Arranging

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

Getting Some Fun Out Of Life

Lil' Darlin'

I Hadn't Anyone Till You

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

El Bodeguero

MLK

Topics for the Coming Year

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

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

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


• Singing in tune
• Going flat
• Going sharp


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


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


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


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

And What Else?

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

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

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.

The 70th Bacchanal of the Society of Orpheus and Bacchus

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

"To the Sky" is coming!

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