Blue of a Kind sings National Anthem at Fenway Park

Here's the live video of the performance:

Arranging 101, Semester 2: A Case Study

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?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So What the Heck Happened?

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

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

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

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

"Sing Off", the Greatest Show on Television!

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

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

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

So, Tell Me About the Agenda

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

These are the Judges:

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

This is the Producer: Sony Pictures Television

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

What Do the Producers and Judges Want?

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

Do the Whiffs have a 'tude?

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

Are the Whiffs a true Super-Group?

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

Do the Whiffs have 'Street Appeal'?

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

Did the Whiffs Deliver?

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

So, Who Will Win?

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

Who are the runner ups?

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

But these are my favorites:

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

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

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