Date sent:       Mon, 27 Sep 1999 22:59:41 -0400
To:              bbshop@ADMIN.HUMBERC.ON.CA
From:            Melissa Martin <mamartin@mindspring.com>
Subject:         Harmonet Report - Rumors Quartet Class (long)

Janice and Jen were unable to attend the music education class on Friday morning in Atlanta, so I volunteered to put together a report from my notes and my memory.  This report does not represent 100% of what was said and done, but I hope I have hit the high points.

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Rumors opened the session by showing a videotape produced by International.  Several quartets were shown winning their crowns; in addition, several champions were asked what they thought made the difference in the year they won.  The answers were varied, including "hard work," "coaching," "friendship between us," "confidence," and "I really don't know!"

Forming the quartet
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Judy Baxter (lead) explained how the quartet was formed.  Judy had been in a top-20 International quartet that broke up.  She enticed Dale by promising to get Peggy into the quartet.  She had coached a quartet Charla was in that broke up not long afterwards.  The four of them sang together for the first time at a Rich-Tones Christmas party.  In their first Regional competition, they placed second; they wound up getting a wild card slot at International and placed 5th.  As a result, Charla does not have a first-place regional medal - and, of course, the audience felt SOOOO sorry for her!

Vocal production
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In addition to working with barbershop coaches, the quartet members work with a vocal coach, both individually and as a group.  They strive to "get in each other's space" (vocally speaking) in order to maximize their blend and the "ring" in their sound.  Their vocal coach Darlene [Rogers] demonstrated how she works with them.  They started by "bubbling" a 5-note scale up and down.

Next, they sang "mm-oo-ee-eh-ah" on a single pitch (first slowly, and then faster), moving up by a half step on repetitions.  Their goal was to keep a consistent ring in their sound through all vowels.  Next they added a
5-note descending scale on "ah" to this exercise.  Their goal was to keep it lifted (without excess weight) as the pitches moved down.

Darlene explained that she uses the person in the quartet who sings the tallest rendition of a given vowel as an example; she asks the others to match that person's vowel sound.  She also uses each individual's best
vowel to help them through trouble spots.  She demonstrated this using a place where Dale had trouble maintaining the ring in her sound as she jumped above her break.  Dale replaced the actual vowel with her best vowel to get the right "feel" for that spot.  When she fixed it, the difference was incredible!  It was amazing to see what a difference small adjustments could make.  At one point in the tag to a song, I was enjoying the quartet's wonderful sound.  Then Darlene said something to Charla that we couldn't hear.  I don't know what adjustment Charla made, but the sound went from wonderful to PHENOMENAL!

Learning music
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Peggy talked about the challenges of long-distance quartetting.  To maximize the value of their time, she does as much individual work as she can - not just learning notes, but also working on technique.  She starts
work on a new song by learning her notes at the piano.  Then she sings her part into a tape recorder a few phrases at a time.  She listens to the tape to find places where she needs to make adjustments in pitch, tone quality, interpretation, and so on.

A technique she uses to find where the sound should resonate is to sing leaning over a chair.  She stands behind a chair, placing her music and tape recorder on the seat.  She bends her knees slightly and rests her
elbows on the chair back.  She lets her head drop down and then sings the song.  She sometimes also sings the notes on "zee zee zee."  We all tried it (after some logistical problems related to the chairs) while singing
"How We Sang Today", and the difference in our sound was tremendous.

Creativity and individuality
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The quartet frequently makes small changes to arrangements (usually with the help of coaches and/or arrangers) in order to make them more interesting, to put a personal stamp on their version of the song, or to
address problems that they have.  They demonstrated the impact of rhythmic changes in "Two Tickets to Georgia" and talked about changes they made to "My Buddy" to resolve problems they were having with a couple of swipes.  They forgot to tell Joe Liles about the "My Buddy" changes (he was the arranger), so the first time he heard their changed version was at International last year!  Luckily, he liked it - in fact, he called them not long thereafter to find out what changes they had made, because he was getting requests for "My Buddy" as sung by Rumors.

Charla and Judy usually work together to do phrase plans for ballads.  Dale and Peggy, due to their directing experience, have a tendency to do "chorus phrasing" that is impractical for a quartet, so they stay out of the
initial planning process and instead make suggestions after Charla and Judy present the preliminary interp plan.  Charla and Judy shared their secret for creativity (in design of both interp plans and choreography) - a few drinks, and maybe dinner, and THEN they get to work!

The quartet once brought Debbie Connelly in to help them find ways to be more creative.  They recommended a book,  "A Whack on the Side of the Head," which helps you see things from many perspectives.

Miscellaneous
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The quartet rehearses twice a month on average, for 8-10 hours in a single weekend day.  The three in Dallas sometimes meet on a week night as well.

They highly recommend individual voice lessons.  In Dale's opinion, it is impossible to keep up with the increasing level of vocal skills in our organization without lessons.  In addition, voice lessons help the members to deal with their individual vocal problems, which are different from one member to another.

One person asked if "normal people" can really win International in a quartet.  Dale told the story of Music Gallery (1982 Queens), who gradually worked their way up through the ranks.  (And it's worth noting that this year was Signature Sound's ninth International competition.)

Judy remarked that one downside of having directors in a quartet is that they tend to direct with their hands.  She told a funny story about a photo of Rumors at its first competition in which both Dale's and Peggy's hands were blurred in the photo because they were moving so fast!  Dale added that, if you want to see if you are doing anything repetitive and annoying (visually speaking), a good way to find it is to play your contest videotape at high speed.

One of their closing remarks was something that everyone who coaches should hear.  In Rumors' first regional contest, when they came in second, the first-place quartet (I believe it was Crystal Collection, of which Harmonetter Becky Wilkins is a member) later thanked both Dale and Peggy for coaching them!  They clearly understand that the truly great person freely shares what she knows; only those who do not believe in themselves feel the need to hoard knowledge.

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by Melissa Martin
Lead, 14 Karat
Tenor, Carolina Harmony Chorus, SAI Region 14 (Raleigh, NC)