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Quartet Beat - By Tom Koch
To start off this issue, I thought I'd lift the following from the SPEBSQSA web site:
Grant Carson's 20 more reasons to sing in a quartet:
1. lts fun.
2. You have total responsibility for your part, not the
responsibility for the other guys in the chorus section.
3. You can really ring chords! Yes, choruses can
produce overtones, but not the lock and ring of a quartet.
4. You don't have to go through a board of directors or a
music committee to decide what you're going to sing.
5. You don't have to go through a board of directors or a music committee to decide for whom you're going to sing.
6. You don't have to go through a board of directors or a music committee for any darn thing, like moves and such.
7. Yet, if you get good, the chapter will ask you to sing on the show.
8. If you're good enough to sing on the show, your family and friends will be more adoring than if you simply sang in the chorus.
9. Your section has unison sound!
10. You don't have to watch a chorus director.
11. You don't have to pander to a chorus director, or look to him for inspiration, and all the other things choruses must do with the chorus directors.
12. You learn more about blend and balance from playing a tape recording or your quartet than you ever would from a chorus director.
13. If you are also a member of a chorus, then you make the chorus better for having leamed to sing in a quartet.
14. You don't have to be a member of a chorus if that's your preference.
15. You'll be popular with the Singing Valentines Chairman.
16. You'll sing valentines very well.
17. Resolving decisions about when, where and what the quartet will sing only requires convindng the tenor.
18. The other three singers take delight in the responsibility of keeping the baritone in only three dimensions.
19. You get to choose your quartet costume. (After convincing the tenor, of course.)
20. You get three really good friends.
Some of the above are, of course., tongue-in-cheek humor, but I think reason number 20 is one of the best. You will not only get three good friends; I have found through quartet singing that you will get many friends. Plus, as you move about singing for various groups, you run into many interesting people and situations and generally just have a great time.
OK, what has my own favorite quartet, Random Choice, been up to since my last column? On June 26th RC (Amos, Hamilton, Koch & Pascarella) did our usual two hour walk-about singing engagement at New Kensington Days. We have been doing this job for
several years now. July found us very busy. On the 7th we stopped into the Presbyterian Home in Oakmont and sang to Don Busselli's wife Ada, and to Jim McCarthy's aunt, Alice Barr, plus her daughter and a whole room full of other residents. For this engagement, Jim filled in for Mark Pascarella at the lead spot. In fact, Jim filled in for Mark on all the jobs listed here. Mark has this problem in that he is still working for a living and can't do all these daytime jobs like us old retired guys. (somebody has to feed that social security kitty') On July 22nd, RC sang for some "Red Hat" ladies over at Alcoma Country Club. This time, Bob Parker filled in Tom Koch at the bari spot.
On July 27th, RC sang at Nigro's Restaurant for the Mon
Valley Shrine Luncheon Club. On the 29th , the quartet sang for "customer appreciation" day at the Lincoln Pharmacy and B&G Diner, an old family run business in MilIvale. Talk about old, when's the last time you saw a pharmacy selling cakes of shaving soap to use with a brush in a cup? We finished July off on the 31st with another long time "walk-about" performance at Turtle Creek Days.
We started August off on the 9th singing at Nemacolin Resort. The quartet was hired to attend the antique auto and air show and stroll as an "old" gay 90's barbershop quartet. Well, if they wanted someone to look old, guess they got the right guys. All for now; have to go oil my rocking chair.
Opps - See addendum on Page 9
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