Overall plan description, in no particular order: unify vocal production among all chapter members; spend significant craft time on unifying vowel and word sounds; solidify a performance package of music for non-annual show singouts; prepare annual show-specific numbers for November’s annual show; and follow the judges’ advice on improving our contest package.

The next six months’ worth of craft should be spent continuing the work that we’ve been doing on unifying the chapter’s vocal production, specifically voice placement and resonance, mixed head-chest voice, and vowel sounds. I think that the Polecats are excellent vehicles for this, as they allow for many chord ringing, vowel matching opportunities. A mixture of unison singing and part singing is going to be the most successful.

The performance package for non-show singouts: we want a dynamic, entertaining, ever-evolving set of six to eight songs as a main performance package, plus our contest set, plus our closing set of Irish Blessing, a patriotic number, and a Gospel / religious number. The intent is to have the ability to sing, as a chorus, for anywhere from 30 to 60 minutes, with spoken interludes, in a performance setting.

For the show in November, we are going to prepare three or four Gospel numbers, two of which will likely be “Battle Hymn of the Republic” (already in our repertoire) and the Keepsake “I’ll Fly Away,” which has been in the hopper for a couple of months. The other two numbers are open to negotiation.

Following the judges’ advice on our contest set should be relatively straightforward: more individual buy-in from the guys, and a faster pace of jokes and punchlines, which we all have a responsibility for developing.

What do you think? What should we change? What should we add? What do YOU want to see from your chapter?

The quartet contest is the entry contest for the International Competition, this year taking place in Kansas City in the week after July 4. I believe (correct me if I’m wrong) that the seniors’ contest is for entry into the seniors’ international competition, which takes place at the Midwinter Convention somewhere warm in January. The chorus contest is for the district championship and for the chorus plateau championships, which are regulated by size and membership. The district delegates meeting discuss business of which I have no knowledge and, as a music guy exclusively, have no wish to learn. (Call it a tragic flaw.)

The rest of the convention is the important parts: meeting the people and getting to know the rest of the district. Only a small percentage of the district actually attends the conventions every year, with many choruses attending every once in a while or attending never (their loss). For many guys, these conventions are the only place that they get to see their friends from other chapters who live prohibitive distances from their homes! I know that I have many friends from far distances that I only see twice a year or so at the conventions. 

Of course, there is the argument that biennial friends aren’t friends at all, and they might be right. All I know is that I’m exceptionally happy to see these people and immensely enjoy the time I spend with them. To me, that’s a friend. I know these people by their faces, their quartets, and their choruses; I’ve spent many hour singing tags with them until the wee hours of the morning. When we leave the conventions, I’m happy that I spent time with them and am looking forward to the next convention that I attend.

So, when you go, look for your biennial friends and sing some tags. Look for some familiar faces with whom you’ve never sung, and sing a tag or two. Wear your name tag around the convention areas so that people don’t have to ask or don’t have to feel uncomfortable about forgetting. Enjoy hanging out with guys that have entirely different lives, careers, philosophies, religions, and viewpoints but enjoying ringing chords.

Buy a CD in the Harmony Marketplace of a quartet you’ve never heard. Bring home a Vocal Spectrum CD to give to a friend or to your local music teacher. Sing a tag with the guys from Old School, and crack some jokes with the guys from Lunch Break. Cheer on our local boys, Emeritus, Tones of Fun, and Pittsburgh Tradition,  as they compete, and wave a Terrible Towel for the Metro Chapter.

And, if you see a tall bald man with a goatee and glasses, say hello and sing a tag with him. He’s friendly, I promise.

Thanks go to show chairman Joe Fricker, who was the driving force behind the show. Thanks also go to Don Dressler and the music team, for preparing the chorus for their best performance in several years. Our next performance will be on November 3, with the feature quartet Vocal Spectrum!

We sang to a couple in a restaurant; to a lady in the lobby of a large skyscraper; a wife in her living room; and a lady in a cubicle farm. It was glorious! Our responses ranged from enjoyment to slight embarrassment to tears (because of love, not because of our singing)! Each lady received a small box of chocolates and a “rose” in a small vase. The rose was not a real flower, mostly because I’m allergic.

Singing Valentines is one of the most rewarding experiences for the singer and the singee. As a singer, it creates an intimate connection with your audience, a connection that allows you to reach their emotional core in a meaningful manner. It involves you in their lives and lets you feel their passion and love!  What an experience.

Plus, it’s lots of fun to completely disrupt an office for five minutes.

So, how do we show this to the public? How do we expose ourselves to new groups of people, who might not know that barbershop singing exists or that barbershop singing is NOT for “old people” alone? Currently, we have our Cabaret show in March, our Annual Show in the fall, and the two chorus contests in Ohio in April and in October. Last year, we had two or three other singouts during the summer.

One of the big problems is the size of the chorus! If you have a chapter with around 20 active members, it can be difficult to get a representative portion of the chorus to show up to a chorus job. Just like planning a wedding, you can usually expect that a third of the people invited won’t be able to attend; real life has a tough way of interfering with one’s hobby. Church or temple functions, kids’ dance recitals, wife’s date night, illness, and second jobs, among other reasons, cause members to miss a performance. I don’t think anyone WANTS to skip a performance; it’s just that real life says that performances are missed.

If a chorus of 20 guys is missing 8 guys, and among those 8 guys are a couple of quartet guys, then it can be really difficult to have enough music to fill a job quota. We’ve all had singing jobs where 3 out of 4 tenors are missing, or only two basses show up against 7 leads. It’s not ideal, and it can be frustrating.

My contention is that, with some exceptions, the chorus should take a job, anyway. It’s not that we’re putting our worst foot forward; it’s not that we’re preventing ourselves from being our best. It’s just that we’re never going to be our best unless we put ourselves out there.

The great bassist Stuart Sanke frequently said, “The difference between your best performance and your worst performance is less than you think.” What he meant by this was that every performance, to your discerning ears, has flaws. There’s always going to be something that you want to fix; something that’s out of tune, or has funny vowels, or doesn’t have the musicality that you’d prefer. The great musicians persevere through that and do their best to make every performance work.

The more performances a group does, the better they get at performing. The more performances, the slicker the performance package gets; the smoother the flow of performance; the more that the performers can relax, enjoy their music making, and make something exciting happen.

It doesn’t necessarily have to be a full 90 minute performance set. A chorus in Rahway, NJ, used to do “lightning performances” once a month: they would (after confirming in advance with the restaurant manager) show up to a restaurant, sing a couple of songs, leave a flier or two at the door, and leave. They’d do two songs, for a total performance of around five minutes. They would hit three restaurants then head to the rehearsal hall for the rest of the evening. Some nights, they’d do five or six performances. At the end of the night, those two performance songs – honed by a bit of adrenaline and repetition – would be strong and confident.

I’m not saying that the Metro chapter needs to get out to restaurants to sing. I’m saying that we need to put ourselves out there. Let new audiences hear “Everything’s Coming Up Roses” and “Cabaret.” Bring our contest package to live people before we go to contest. Make ourselves better and have more fun doing it by creating an audience for ourselves.

Those of us who have watched the Westminster Chorus win so spectacularly, watched the 52Eighty group break away from the Sounds of the Rockies Chorus with so much fanfare, and watched the growth of the Northwest Vocal Project might think that recruiting in the high school and collegiate ranks is the answer. To an extent, they’re right; we all know people in high school and college who have heard great barbershop and walked in to a chorus rehearsal, joined up, and spent 50 years in the Society singing. But, my question is this: how many more have heard a great barbershop group, gone into their local chapter as a teenager or young-20’s man, heard a bunch of old guys singing poorly, and walked out again, never to return? I would wager a far larger number.

So, what is the secret? Darned if I know. What I do know is that outreach is important – reaching out to the local high schools and colleges is important for creating awareness of the Society and of local chapters. But, I wonder if sending a quartet into the local high school of retired guys, who are singing in the 40’s and low 50’s, is the right first exposure to barbershop? If the quartet has a connection (a grandfather of a student, perhaps, or parent of the teacher, or something similar), then the students might be more motivated to pay attention. Without that connection? Difficult to say.

I believe that the secret for a chapter like ours, as we discussed in our December sitdown, is to reach out to the local community. If we knocked on ten random doors within a quarter mile of Trinity Christian Academy (where we rehearse), how many people actually know that we exist and that we rehearse every Monday night? How many people know that we compete in the Society’s district competitions, or that we’re putting on a Cabaret in March, or our annual show later in the year? For that matter, how many people who live within walking distance of our site might want to sing with us?

We’re the best barbershop chorus in town (and I am completely unprejudiced when I say this, as it’s a completely unbiased, objective opinion and not meant to offend any other non-Metro singers in greater Allegheny area). What singing guy wouldn’t want to sing with us?

The chapter has agreed that our membership efforts should likely concentrate on the local area. We’re planning on continuing our outreach efforts to Penn Hills High School, but this new idea is going to be our primary focus. Here’s the thing: how do we reach the local community in a non-invasive (meaning, non-annoying, non-spam) sort of way? We could arrange for bulk fliers pretty easily. That’s not a great method, unless we come up with amazingly compelling marketing materials (maybe a postcard, with great Society pictures?). Walking door-to-door might be a better idea – it certainly has the desired face-to-face conversation that we like, but it’s very time intensive and people might think we’re stalkers or crazies. Community events are always desirable – what does Forest Hills do, at which we can attend and sing (paid or unpaid)? Where do Forest Hills people go for fun and for shopping, where we can hang fliers or do a quartet-led meet and greet?

We need ideas, folks, and people who can do some research and spearhead this effort. Imagine if Forest Hills had, say, a 25% awareness rate of the Pittsburgh Metro chapter! That’s 25% of a large community, each of whom has friends and relatives who might be singing men and chapter members.

What are you going to do to help?

The Membership VP will lead the effort (assisted by the Music VP and the Program VP, among others) to contact recently active members (active as of the October contest time) to find out why they have not been attending chapter meetings on a regular basis. Telephone calls (personal contact) is the preferred method for most members, with the understanding that some members find email easier.

Look, we just got out of the holiday season. Even outside of the holidays, we all have things to do and people to see. There’s people to visit, colds from which to recover, meetings to attend, etc. And yet, many chapters continue to have normal attendance. What’s the difference? It’s a matter of priorities and importance. If you have visitors at your house, why not bring them to the chapter meeting for some singing? Why not contact our director, and bring your guests to the chapter meeting, and let your guests be entertained by the Pittsburgh Metro’s performance package?

I can’t and won’t tell you what should or shouldn’t be important. I will, however, suggest that, if you make the chorus a priority in terms of attendance and time practicing your music at home and in the car, then the rewards will be many and rewarding (socially, musically, and personally). If you half-commit yourself and find excuses to stay home from chapter meetings, then you’re only preventing yourself from enjoying the company and from being a contributing member, musically.

It’s not a “100% or the highway” situation, but the chapter is entering a new musical period. We’re working very hard on new vocal craft, and we’re working very hard to learn an entirely new set of repertoire – complete with choreography and physical movement. When you miss large chunks of rehearsals, then it becomes increasingly difficult to catch up. When guys feel overwhelmed by playing “catchup,” then it becomes likely that those guys will just throw in the towel and quit – a situation that none of us wants. I know that it’s a “slippery slope” argument (miss rehearsals leads to quitting the chapter), but it’s happened often enough to be true.

Think about it for a second: since the beginning of December, we have learned Cabaret and gotten a performance package introduced. We’ve done some good work on “Everything’s Coming Up Roses.” We’ve learn the notes and words for “Mistakes” and are almost off the paper. If you are a member that hasn’t been around since then, how intimidating is it, to have so much time to make up?

We want people at the meetings because, first, we like you. Second, it’s more satisfying to sing in a larger chorus. Third, we want to take the next step forward musically, and we need you to do it.

What can you do to help this out? What can the rest of the chapter do?

1) The Membership VP will lead the effort (assisted by the Music VP and the Program VP, among others) to contact recently active members (active as of the October contest time) to find out why they have not been attending chapter meetings on a regular basis. Telephone calls (personal contact) is the preferred method for most members, with the understanding that some members find email easier.

Look, this is the holiday season. We all have things to do and people to see. There’s presents to wrap, houses to decorate, meals to prepare and to purchase, visitors to entertain, and that sort of thing. And yet, many chapters continue to have normal attendance. What’s the difference? It’s a matter of priorities and importance. If you have visitors, why not bring them to the chapter meeting for some singing? Why not contact the director, and bring your guests to the chapter meeting, and let your guests be entertained by the Pittsburgh Metro’s performance package?

I can’t and won’t tell you what should or shouldn’t be important. I will, however, suggest that, if you make the chorus a priority in terms of attendance and time practicing your music at home and in the car, then the rewards will be many and rewarding (socially, musically, and personally). If you half-commit yourself and find excuses to stay home from chapter meetings, then you’re only preventing yourself from enjoying the company and from being a contributing member, musically.

It’s not a “100% or the highway” situation, but the chapter is entering a new musical period. We’re working very hard on new vocal craft, and we’re working very hard to learn an entirely new set of repertoire – complete with choreography and physical movement. When you miss large chunks of rehearsals, then it becomes increasingly difficult to catch up. When guys feel overwhelmed by playing “catchup,” then it becomes likely that those guys will just throw in the towel and quit – a situation that none of us wants. I know that it’s a “slippery slope” argument (miss rehearsals leads to quitting the chapter), but it’s happened often enough to be true.

We want people at the meetings because, first, we like you. Second, it’s more satisfying to sing in a larger chorus. Third, we want to take the next step forward musically, and we need you to do it.