Holy cow! It's November already and by the time you read this the World Series should be over. HOORAY! No more baseball interrupting football season. Hee hee hee.
Thanks to all of you who participated in the Oktoberfest. I assure you that next year will be advertised MUCH better and the crowd will be more like our old Oktoberfests. Those of us who were on the committee had a meeting Monday morning and discussed our successes and failures with hopes of making next year's affair much more satisfying from our point of view. The only necessary change on our part of the program will be the use of risers and possibly monitors so we can hear each other and stay together. We had a noticeable problem with that. I also noticed some problems with words. You have no excuse for not knowing your words and music. You have the learning CD's and the music and you MUST use them at home, on a daily basis if necessary, to get it learned and retain it.
The holiday season is sneaking up on us. Please make sure you have no conflicts on our performance dates.
Harmony College West at Estes Park is Feb. 8-10 this winter. We can get $50 per man knocked off the registration fee for all the guys we get registered before Dec. 7. Please get the time cleared so we'll have a big representation there this year. It is absolutely one of the best weekends in barbershopping for anyone who truly enjoys our hobby and wants to improve. As I said before, if you don't care about improving, why are you here?
The young lady was complaining to the patrolman that had pulled her over, "I didn't think you gave pretty girls traffic tickets."
Said the patrolman, "You're right, we don't. Sign here."
Your Board of Directors convened October 2 at President Pete Anderson's offices. September's minutes were approved, and Treasurer Jim Gogolin assured us we're still solvent.
Pete reported on the Fall Convention in Albuquerque. Sound of the Rockies were the Chorus Champs again, and are singing even better than they did at International. Hometown quartet The Summit was the District Quartet Champion. There are some serious discussions about the Spring Convention continuing to be a large financial drain on the District, and ways to remedy the problem are being sought, including the possibility of joint conventions with adjacent Districts. More information is to follow.
The upcoming Scarecrow/Oktoberfest celebration on October 20 should be great fun. Gary Welsh is working on the scarecrows, and the Board gave him a small budget for supplies/parts. We will need to provide volunteers to sell food for a two-hour slot. We sing at 6:30, and the band will begin at 7 pm.
The Denver COTS (RMD Leadership Training) is scheduled for October 13, which is when we are supposed to perform at the Symphony's opening night. The two other RMD sessions are far away, in Albuquerque and Eden, Utah in November. It's unlikely our Chapter will be able to attend this year.
The next chorus "advance" (instead of retreating) is set for November 10 at The Anchorage Bed and Breakfast, hosted by Lin and Jim Gogolin.
Presentation and discussion of the Chorus Standards to the membership will be at the meeting following Oktoberfest. In addition, establishment of an orientation and buddy-system for new members will be established. The program will be for the new member's first year, and will require commitment from each mentor to be successful.
With most everything of importance thoroughly hashed and rehashed, the meeting was declared adjourned at 8:48 pm.
Next meeting of your Board is scheduled for November 6, same harmonious channel and location. All members are welcome to attend and be part of your Chorus's operations. (This month will be an appendectomy! Ed)
On October 11 "elections" were held for your officers for 2008. Unanimously "elected" officers (no time was given for objections!) for the Mt. Rushmore Chapter are:
Other positions are appointed and will be filled by the board, the president, or the VP's if they see fit to do so, or if they find the time. If you would like to volunteer for one of the appointed positions, please see one of the new officers. After you've seen them, tell them you want to help. There are always more than enough jobs to go around.
In looking ahead to the next year, (is it really that close?), it's time to set some goals for our chorus. Just what is it that we want to accomplish musically in the coming year?
This past year has seen some real growth in our musical performance. We continue to push the bar a little higher all the time. In doing so, our potential audiences are noticing and we are being asked to perform more. We are getting enough requests that we are having to turn some down. That's both a good thing and a bad thing.
In the coming year of 2008, what is it we want to accomplish? We all know that the board has made a commitment to go as a chorus to the fall convention and compete. The question many may have is, "Does that mean we work our contest songs to death?" I sincerely hope not! Competition is a great way for us to focus on singing at our very best, and it's a lot of fun for the chorus members as well as for the audience!
It would be my goal to work on everything we do so that all our music is of competition calibre. Every time we sing, no matter the song, we should be singing as though we are competing.
Yes, we are competing when we sing. We compete for bigger and better audiences, whether at our annual show, our Oktoberfest, Hart Ranch, or any other performance. We compete for new audiences and new singers who want to join this great group of guys each Thursday evening to perfect our craft.
During this coming year, it is my hope that we can work toward becoming the top-notch performing group that we have the capabilities of being. But what does that exactly entail for the members of the performing chorus?
It means that all members need to come to chapter meetings prepared to contribute to the chapter. It means that all members need to come to the chorus portion prepared in every way - knowing notes, words, visual aspects, interpretation. It means that chorus members come ready to rehearse not just be taught the parts only to let them lie dormant until the next rehearsal. It means some practice time each day on what we, individually, need to bring to the table for the next rehearsal.
Now, that may seem like asking a lot of our membership, but by becoming a group that takes our music seriously, we will gain new members. Men will become excited about singing in a group that always wants to be better than they are today.
It may sound like work, but I keep coming back to the saying I found on a blackboard in a middle school: "Music is Good Fun - When We Get Good, We Have Fun!" Let's strive toward being that kind of fun chapter. If we can't have good, clean fun, at least let's have good fun!
In the first ever, and hopefully annual, citywide scarecrow contest, the Mt. Rushmore Chapter came away with two prizes for their entry.
"Cornfield Barbershop Quartet" earned the judges' award for the Best Humorous Scarecrow. (What's funny about a barbershop quartet?) We were presented a plaque for this honor.
In the judging for the peoples' choice award, which was decided by a dollar a vote, we had $142.20 in "votes," which garnered us this prize. A traveling trophy, complete with a scarecrow on top, was the prize given to us.
As soon as possible, these trophies will be available for viewing by all of you, and the general public. They will be placed in our display window at the Civic Center.
Our special thanks to Gary Welsh, and, according to him, the Ferleys for making this happen. Gary says plans are already under way for next year!
This article consists of several thoughts from several people concerning public relations -- selling our chapter's activities to, first of all, our members and then to the general public. The first idea put before you comes from our friend Steve Jackson of the Denver area, Editor of PROBEmotor (Public Relations Officers and Bulletin Editors).
Pet Peeves
"Some people have dogs and some have cats for pets; I have pet peeves. I can't stand it when the word "chorus" is used instead of "chapter". Example: "I missed the chorus rehearsal last week" or "our chorus meets on Tuesdays". The chorus is part of your chapter! Chapter meetings are held weekly and chorus practice takes up about 75% of it. See what I mean?
"Do you have chorus rehearsals or chapter meetings? Hmmm. May I suggest that a more diversified meeting will help the retention of ALL members? Yes, DO market your chorus, but identify that it's part of your chapter, i.e. the Orange Empire Chorus from the Fullerton, California chapter. Thank you very much!"
Realizing that we are pushing hard to get the Shrine of Democracy Chorus name in front of our public, let us not forget that the chorus is part of the Mt. Rushmore Chapter which has a strong and active administration and is highly involved in activities related to, but other than, the singing part. In fact, it is perfectly OK to be a chapter member and not a chorus member. We could very quickly list the multiple tasks which non-singing members could carry out.
Our second idea for this issue is also published in the October - December issue of PROBEmotor and is written by Dave Baker of the Phoenix area who wrote an article entitled "Online Marketing for Chapters and Quartets". Within that article is this brief story:
Stage Presence: Close Your Eyes
"We cannot stress enough the effect smiling and movement adds to speech and song. It brightens your sound almost like adding a halo behind (not over) your eyes. Don't think for a moment that someone in the audience isn't looking right at you every minute you're on stage... they are! It's up to you to give them something pleasing to see.
"An interesting event happened when I was asked my opinion of a new quartet who had never had any coaching, yet did a wonderful job on-stage. I told them I was amazed at their proficiency and that Joe, the bass, had the best stage presence. He was dumbfounded! You see, he's 100% blind and just reacted to the emotion of the words, unaware of how it looked and not the least self-conscious in demonstrating how he felt. His brother, Tom, the lead and 90% visionless, was close behind him in physical expression."
Practicing what Dave describes here really sells our performance and improves your singing. How many times have you heard, "You guys look like you're having fun". That's a start. We must improve our performance (stage presence) in order to "sell" our product.
The last idea relates to the importance of the chapter bulletin. If the V.P. for P.R. and Marketing or the Chapter President, at a chapter meeting, asked for a show of hands with the following questions, how would you respond??
Editor John Elving holds the distinction of publishing the chapter bulletin judged as the number two online chapter bulletin in the entire Society. Had he entered the printed bulletin contest, my prediction is that he would have finished in the top ten. Gentlemen, we have in our chapter one of the finest bulletins in Barbershop Harmony Land. The very least every member can do is to read, learn and use the excellent information provided, and then thank, support and assist John in his work. So far the articles contributed by chapter members other than John have been limited to three or four guys. For years it was my pleasure to receive the Fullerton, CA chapter bulletin, Barbershop Clippin's edited by Dick Cote who was awarded first place in the International Bulletin Contest several times. Every issue featured contributions from about a dozen different people. How about contributing to the "Voice of Rushmore"? The chapter bulletin is the first and most powerful player in the game of PUBLIC RELATIONS. The handoff comes to you each month. What will you do with it?
These standards for the performing chorus are fluid in that as we become more proficient as a chorus, new standards may be recommended.
This month's membership ideas come from Byron Meyers, Sr., Chairman, Society Membership Committee. How many of these ideas can we put into practice? Can we strive to be a chapter of 100 men as others are striving toward?
[In Part 1 the author dealt with warming up the voice and related matters. The exercises he recommends here can be done separately or in conjunction with a warm-up session. Though some of the exercises for breath control should be done daily, so should vocal warm-ups, but that isn't always feasible for the amateur singer].
You do it thousands of times a day. You do it 24 hours a day, seven days a week. You don't even think about it. But if you can't breathe - even for a few seconds - your body certainly lets you know fast!
It's a natural process
Breathing is natural, normal, easy, unconscious, and effortless. There is no reason why breathing while singing should be any different. Yet it's amazing to observe the contortions and gyrations that some singers go through to make singing a reality. We are going to discuss how you can achieve a natural, easy breath while singing and, therefore, a natural, easy singing voice.
Vocal exercise is the key
There are two objectives to doing breathing exercises. One is to be able to have a longer singing phrase, and the other is to have a smoother use of the air column as you deplete the supply. The former objective requires exercises to increase your vital lung capacity. All things being equal, the more air you can store, the longer the phrase you can sing. The latter objective is met by exercising the muscles that control the inflow and outflow of air so that they function smoothly. This is generally accomplished by good physical conditioning and muscle toning.
It is important for the singer to maximize vital lung capacity because this makes the biggest difference in the quality and beauty of singing to be achieved. By having a greater capacity for air, your phrases can be sung without tension and with emphasis on nuances.
To be a good singer, you have to know how to breathe properly. An intake of breath, preferably fast and smooth, involves the relaxation of muscles, whereas an outflow of breath in singing involves the controlled contraction of muscles.
There is an expression known as "drop like a pear" when taking a breath. This means: Open the mouth wide enough to get all the air you can in the shortest possible time, relax the diaphragm muscle down and out without pushing, and let physics take its course by drawing in the breath and filling the lungs "from the bottom up." Not doing this is one of the biggest mistakes in beginning singers, and one of the main reasons for having insufficient singing breath. If you raise your shoulders to breathe in, or if you forcibly expand your chest, you will get air into the lungs all right, but the air will fill the upper part of the lungs, and make filling the lower part more difficult, if not impossible. Not only that, feeling a full chest of air may trick you into thinking you have your lungs full, and this is not necessarily so. The trick is to let the diaphragm relax and, therefore, draw in the air from the bottom.
Practice doing this a few times a day. Begin by exhaling all the air you possibly can. Then, standing erect, but not rigid, simply open your mouth and at the same time relax your diaphragm, letting the air rush in of its own accord before you expand the upper chest. If you have a "spare tire" around your waist, it will be pushed out as if you were exaggerating it. This is normal, and to be expected. It may not look pretty, but it works! As you get used to dropping like this, you will begin to see that relaxing in all directions around your stomach tends to allow in even more air. Be especially conscious of the relaxation of the muscles at stomach level on each side of the spinal column, and finally the rising of the chest as the last of the air is taken in.
Getting through the three stages of singing
You will get through the three stages of singing once you have gotten the hang of "dropping like a pear." In the first stage, every time you sing, you will be consciously aware of how you are breathing, and it will mean no end of distraction to your voice. Your timing will be off, you will feel very self-conscious as you sing, and everything will seem to be coming unglued. However, this is normal. Keep it up, and you will progress to stage two.
At this point, you will be less conscious of your breathing as you start to develop "muscle memory" and experiment with the breath and its use in singing. In the last stage, when everything is integrated, you are singing better than before, and you are glad you went through all the hassle.
Learning to use air efficiently
There are two useful exercises to train the muscles for smooth operation. The first one should be done while relaxed and comfortable. The second can be done anywhere and any time, even while driving on the freeway!
Find a long article in a newspaper or magazine, one that would take several minutes to read at a normal pace. Cut out and save the article as you will be using it many times. Take a full breath and start reading the article aloud in a normal tone of voice. Do not pause for punctuation and do not take a breath. Actually, the article is just a convenient string of words for you to utter. Keep going until you have no breath left. Mark the point at which you stopped. Then do it again with the express purpose in mind to go farther than the previous time, even if it is just one word more. Do it a third time, again marking where you stopped. The total time of this exercise will be four or five minutes. If you do it every day, you will be amazed how much more you can read as time passes. More importantly, as you read, you will find yourself coming in contact with feelings and sensations in your body that tell you how much breath is left. This process will allow you to consciously change the pace of the reading in order to "beat" your previous record. Then, when you sing, these same sensations will tell you how to properly complete each phrase.
The other exercise involves reciting numbers out loud until you cannot go any further. You remember the number at which you stopped and, in a subsequent exercise, try to go farther. This exercise can be done anywhere.
The well-produced voice always seems to have more breath "in reserve" at the end of a phrase, no matter how difficult or complex its nuances. The poorly trained singer always seems to be gasping and in distress.
A few more pointers
Remember to fully exhale any unused air before you "tank up" again. Remember also, that having good breath control alone is not enough to make you a good singer. Vocal pitch and tone color require a certain amount of energy and muscle balance. You need more than good breath to achieve a precise attack on a note. The instantaneous melding of vowel, pitch, and intensity is possible only when you have a balance and smooth maintenance of breathing tension. Don't think of breath control as saving the breath for later notes. If you do that, the energy necessary for an efficient tone is lost. These factors are considered part of vocal technique, the subject of the next article.
I attended a Denver class held by Vocal Spectrum, 2006 Gold Medalists. A discussion of membership ensued and they had a revealing observation from the many chapters they had visited.
Lots of sitting, talking and poor singing by inattentive people, and little interest in improved singing. It seems that most members have fought the wars of life - school, making a living, raising kids, etc., and now just want to relax and have fun singin' old songs with old words no longer listed in current dictionaries.
Excitement, challenge, perfection, achievement... they want more "wow!" in their lives. You see it in the Westminster Chorus... gold medals in just two or three years. You see it in the young quartets. You see it on the International stage in choruses - even those with older singers who manage to keep up and act young and excitable while holding the risers in place as the kids do dancing, flips, juggling, and gymnastic moves that make us wince.
Dr. Jim Henry explained it best in his Gold Medal Moments speech: Under his previous director, the chorus began standing to sing. Some members quit. They began having vocal testing. More members quit. They had tape auditing. More members quit.
During this transition, from a chorus of 20-25 men, they lost half their members, but tripled in size. Suddenly everyone learned it WAS more fun to sing well. Just good enough was no longer "GOOD ENOUGH". Today it's a chorus of 150 men, young and old alike, with pride in Gold and Silver medals.
We don't have to look to St. Louis to see these results. We can peer 400 miles Southwest to Denver. Today they're 100 some strong, have several District Championships under their belt, have made CD's, are the current third-place International Chorus, have several district ranked and/or International ranked quartets.
Maybe, maybe not. Many of the finest choruses are less than fifty members strong. Should we try? Would YOU want to try? The answer is really up to you!
Many a barbershopper has wondered what it takes to become a lead. Please answer true or false to the quiz to test your knowledge of this part.
SCORE: 8-10, you must be a Bari, you notice things. A good Bass will score from 3-5, a good Tenor will probably score 6-8. If you score 0-2, you must be a lead.
From Fox Tales, Appleton, WI chapter, Clary Reinhardt, Editor
Let's focus in on the news this issue. Not the world news, the national news, state news, or even local news. Let's focus in on the news of our chapter and chorus.
My job as editor is just that. I edit the news articles that come in to me for inclusion in the monthly newsletter. It is not my job to write everything.
The American Heritage dictionary defines editor thusly:
That, of course, means that others need to write articles for me to edit. Unfortunately, that's where the rubber is not always meeting the road. Let me explain.
The association of bulletin editors, public relations and marketing gurus, and web designers/managers, known as PROBE, states that articles should be written by all officers of the board. Of course, some will write more often than others, but they should be communicating with you members via the monthly newsletter.
Once the major performances are scheduled, annual show and Oktoberfest, something should be written by the chairman for those events - another way to keep the chapter member up to date. After the performance is over, there should be glowing reports (articles) written for that event.
Quartets should be submitting articles about their performances. Submission of pictures is always welcome.
In this issue you will notice several places where articles have not been written. Maybe you can submit something. Naturally the argument always comes up, "I don't nearly write almost half so good as I think I might want to." Take a chance! Submit it to me and I'll edit it and try my hardest to make you sound like a genius who should be writing novels.
Lacking ideas? Talk to me. I can give you many ideas. I can even show you examples of things others write about that would be of extreme interest to your friends in the chapter.
I know that many, both within and outside our chapter would have loved to read more about Buffalo Chip and Harmony Happening. How about your feelings about our performance at Oktoberfest?
Are you new to the chapter? Write something about yourself so we can get to know you. Write a series of articles about your first year in the chapter and Society. Not only will that tell us a lot about you, but it will also help us make this a better chapter for you and all who come after you.
The sky's the limit as to what you can do for this newsletter. Try it - you'll like it! I'll wait for your article.
Sing-cerely & Humm-bly,
The Mt. Rushmore Chapter and the Shrine of Democracy Chorus shall promote, encourage and perpetuate barbershop-style singing in both chorus and quartets. We will recruit and welcome interested and motivated men who like to sing four-part a cappella harmony. We shall continually strive to improve our singing and performance skills, through the use of proper resources and opportunities. An attitude of fun, fellowship and teamwork will always guide our activities.