With the Society seemingly putting more emphasis on choruses and contests, isn't it great that there is a place where people can come and experience the true essence of what O. C. Cash envisioned? Four guys who have a love of music and are able to create that unique sound that can only be achieved by barbershop harmony! With no pressure of contest, anyone who comes to the Orange Quartet Chapter can sing to their heart's content and make about 25 new friends in the process. We do have our established quartets like Indigo, Balderdash, and Orange Town Four, but no one is denied an opportunity to sing. In fact, we will have guests sing with them during our meeting. It makes them feel they belong, and are not left out. When we treat our guests with first-class respect, they will return. When we keep doing this, they will join us.

Mike Werner

Let’s Add a Visual Element
Suspense is Fun!
By Stanley Tinkle

Here’s a poser for you: would you rather sit through an hour of gold medalist quartets who just stood there and sang, or would you prefer a parade of vocally gifted, inspired clowns like FRED (who happen to be gold medalists), Freestyle, Metropolis and Hi Fidelity?

Okay, I know that’s an unfair question. I’d prefer a mix of the two, myself. Anyway, if you were lucky enough to see FRED do its song in which lead Rick LaRosa pounded on tenor Jared Carlson with snare drum sticks, you’ll understand the value of comic relief during a barbershop presentation. And Freestyle made us laugh so hard it hurt when they did their lifeguard act, with baritone Andy Wallace tripping over his flippers or falling asleep in mid song. Hi Fidelity has tenor Craig Ewing eat a banana, brush his teeth, and even floss during the baritone’s solo. Without any props at all, Metropolis can shift in an eye blink from being shy of girls to portraying lounge lizards in “They’re Wild, Simply Wild over Me”. As often as not, a grateful audience will jump up off their tired duffs and reward the quartet with a Standing Oh.

Most of us lesser mortals are afraid to do anything but sing when we are performing in front of an audience. We even forget to smile. Watching us, any visually oriented public will go into a trance. (“You are getting sleepy, very sleepy.”)

It’s true that a young and high energy quartet like O.C. Times can blast you into full alertness, like two cans of Red Bull energy drink, merely by being their own electric selves. I think I’m already addicted to O.C. Times. But when I step up to sing in a quartet, I would just look silly trying to amp up my output that much. Besides, I’d risk burning out my Thelman wire; then I’d have to become a tenor. So I’m looking for sneaky little moves that tickle the audience’s curiosity and make them wonder what’s coming next.

Call it the Slow Burn, the Suspense Factor or the Shaggy Dog Effect. It’s a sub-plot that is inspired by the song you are singing, and it grows to a climax by the end of the song. A good example is Metropolis’ presentation of “I Only Have Eyes for You”. The lead, Bob Hartley, launches into an intense but sappy solo: “Are the stars out tonight? I don’t know if it’s cloudy or bright; for I only have eyes for you, dear.” The rest of Metropolis decides to make fun of him behind his back, and by the time they “all disappear from view” we realize that we have been given a sophisticated satire of the song even while we are roaring with laughter. Remember: no props; subtle visuals are all that they need.

So here we are with Indigo Quartet singing “On the Sunny Side of the Street”, with Rick on lead, Lee as usual on bass, and Phil on bari and me on tenor. That’s funny enough by itself, now that I think of it. But Phil and I “cross on over” at the appropriate time. Ha! Well, I guess you had to be there and see it.

Anyway, recently I was singing in a quartet that was trying to have some fun with “The Lion Sleeps Tonight”. The quartet, Mosaic, has two young guys and two old guys. Never mind which is which. So we decided to stare at tenor Ed Fajardo, while he did his “Whee dee dee dee” solo. Meanwhile bass Dick Cote looked grumpy and disgusted, while lead Brian Young and I started making visual fun of Ed. Then Brian would give in to the wild “leonine” side of his nature and step forth to do “who ah oh! Who a oh!” Etc. At the end, we dragged Brian back just in time for Dick to erupt in the same way and end the song with a bass post. This may seem rather tame, when compared with what Metropolis does with the same song, but for us it was a major change. The audience loved it, and we had a great time.

Having fun is what it’s all about. If the audience senses that there’s some kind of byplay going on within the quartet as we sing, they will watch us like hawks, waiting for the next move. A pushy baritone, for example, can slowly crowd the other guys out of the limelight, or he can step forward to deliver a tiddly. A tenor can cross over to finish the song on the other side, just to get away from the lead (even I can sympathize with that move), or the bass can be so full of himself that he steps forward and solos his part (I’ve seen that). Or the three harmony parts can slowly step back from the lead and leave him alone and lonely during a lonely doormat song. If the comic move fits the nature of the song, it will be a success.

While it’s wise to work on being good before you try to be funny, it’s even wiser to let the audience decide what’s funny and entertaining. I’d rather be funny than be Barry Manilow. Besides, Barry is only 62; what does he know? My nose is as big as his. I might as well use it in my act. Watch out; I may toot it!

Quartet Tips on the QT
Submitted By Dave Gryvnak

On the QT brings quartet singers great ideas on performance, singing skills and programs of the Barbershop Harmony Society. Read On the QT on the web -- www.barbershop.org/ontheqt.

This issue features a 1963 piece by Lou Perry outlining the fundamental skills every quartet singer ought to possess

1. A musical ear
2. Intelligence
3. Vocal Equipment
4. A Sense of Rhythm
5. Word Sense

Where Ya Been?
By Paul Kelley

Let's do some thinking about attendance. At Chapter meetings, membership as such isn't a problem, since quite a few guys drop by from other chapters and get a real kick from quarteting. So we have a heavy number of dual members. Welcome!! But we can't handle a hundred members, and I for one am happy with actual attendance around thirty to thirty-five. Seven to nine quartets practicing in our facility works out fine, and having each quartet doing a single twice a night works fine timewise. So, a fifty member chapter is just about ideal for us.

Back to attendance. If there's a good game on TV, any kind of rain, or a good local barbershop show on the previous Saturday, we're very apt to drop down below twenty guys with our multi-part men stretched thin. My plea to you occasional attendees is to try a little harder to be there even if a fictional uncle is visiting from Fargo, North Dakota. If he's real, bring him out for an enjoyable evening. If not, all us regulars would like to sing some new stuff with you. Can't do that on a bi-monthly basis!

Too, our afterglows have some pretty bad problems when only a handful show up. We've got a nice place now for the afterglow. But again we need numbers to keep us in favor with management and ourselves.

Please do a little hard thinking on these things and give your wife a breather from your outstanding witticisms. We would really appreciate it. (She would, too.)

Your official Curmudgeon, P.K.

A Good Audience
Is Sometimes Enough
By Stanley Tinkle

On Sunday April 30, my quartet did a half-hour gig at a nursing home. Our bass set it up: we’d meet at 2:30 in the parking lot, sing at 3 and be out by 3:30. We’d all be home by dinner. Would we do it for free?

That’s a tough question to answer. Usually my answer is no; our product is worth something, and in an era of $3.15 per gallon of gas, it means each of us donates over $10 in fuel for an across-the-county trip. But we had sung there before, and we remembered the pleasure of awakening musical memories in our elderly audience. So we went.

Two wives and a young girl relative tagged along. I had the list of gig songs ready, complete with the first line of each song. Our audience, seated in wheel chairs, was so bored by the large screen TV that they didn’t complain when an attendant turned it off. They expected us. One lady complained, “You’re late!”, and we were—by one minute. That’s how we knew we had a typical barbershop audience. So we waved hello and hit them with our best uptune.

They applauded politely, but they were paying close attention to the words and music. We are an inveterate barbershop quartet in that we always veer toward the long form of the song. If there’s no intro verse, we write one. So we figured they would not recognize the songs until they were half over. Not so! Soon I noticed that one lady in the front row was quietly singing along on every song. I myself could not have done that ten years ago, because I didn’t know those songs yet. Here’s a sample of the intros she knew:

1. “You’re all of the world to me, my love……..”
2. “Any time I find I’m feelin’ lonely….”
3. “Why do I do just as you say?”
4. “I’m so tired of this dull routine.”
5. “We meet at evening time.”
6. “I used to walk in the shadows.”
7. “Days can be sunny, with never a sigh…”

When we finished our last song, we moved forward to shake hands, to “meet and greet”. I asked the lady who had been singing about the source of her exceptional mental repertoire. “Oh, I had three sisters!” she replied. As the youngest girl, she once had every motivation to learn every song. “Little pitchers have big ears,” as my mother used to say.

Perhaps eight of the 20 people in our audience were singing along by the final song. Phyllis Roth and Patti Anderson said that the entire group enjoyed the time immensely. So did we. It was a good place to try out our newest song, “I Got Rhythm”—with a captive audience! Besides that, the gig was a chance to share their fifty-year old memories of important moments from their past--and our own—and to gaze with them one more time at what poet Jack Gilbert calls the “cauldron of cooling melt” of our youth. Some things you don’t do for money. The right audience will share your musical experience and make you better for it.

Barbara Blackwell, Rest In Peace
By Paul Kelley

Floyd (Blackie) Blackwell's wife Barbara passed away at 4:30 am May 2. The memorial service will be on Saturday, May 20, at the church where Orange rehearses, the First Christian Church at 1130 East Walnut in Orange.

We express our deepest sympathies.

The Sunshine Boy
You’d Better Not Get Sick
By Stanley Tinkle

Barbershop chapters tend to miss their members who are absent on a given evening. Having been ill a time or two myself, I was surprised and touched when someone called and informed me that he had missed my loud baritone and abrasive humor that week. Was I okay, or had I contracted some contagious and medically interesting disease? Had I perhaps taken up yet another hobby, like pigeon plinking or tortoise counting? In short, I had interrupted his weekly supply of happy songs, and I’d better have a good excuse. I countered that I had the flu, but that I’d return next Monday and breathe on him if he insisted. Undeterred, he said he’d bring a supply of Tic Tacs. How could I not be energized by such an offer?

If only we never had to cope with anything worse than a three-day virus! It’s hard to imagine that one of our singing friends might be sidelined for weeks or months by a serious illness, an operation, or some other hitch in his gitalong. Even a big toenail can mess up your cha cha, as we will see in a moment.

Cap’n John Majzler has been a fixture of this chapter since before my time. What kind of fixture might he be? Well, sometimes John resembles a Rudy Vallee megaphone, as when he announces the blue ribbons he just earned at the County Fair for best tomato, zucchini, Flame Thrower Chili Pepper, or Gumbo Boy Okra. Recently, I noticed that things were a little too quiet at break time, despite a large turnout. Then I realized that John had been absent for about a month. But why hadn’t the Sunshine Committee given us an update on his condition?

It turned out that John was Chairman of the Sunshine Committee. President Michael Werner decided that it was time to name a replacement Sunshine Boy. So here I am. I thought I’d better set out some parameters, because I don’t want to disturb the fine tuning of my experimental nice guy/curmudgeon persona, though I do intend to take my solar radiation role very seriously.

First, I don’t want to hear any whining about minor ailments, such as hangnails or sore heels. When I phone you to hear your excuse, I want to hear a real ripper, one I can repeat to the guys, like galloping epizootie or an atrophied uvula. I want something that would really interfere with your ability to appear on the international stage. In short, make it fun for me to listen to, something to give me relief from my usual agenda of picking ticks off the dog or pulling weeds.

For example, I called long-time member Chuck Governale, who has been sidelined for several months by major back pain. His condition keeps him from standing or sitting much. Chuck has to spend a lot of his time looking at the ceiling, which I hope has a TV set on it. When I called him last week, he said he now has an electric gizmo that he hopes will disrupt the pain signals. This is a first-class excuse, and I think I can forgive him for keeping his wonderful rumbly bass away from our meetings for so long. Chuck said he would enjoy being serenaded by a quartet after they finish any gig. Just phone him to make sure he’s home and not out water-skiing or something. Let’s visit him, and keep on doing so until we drive him back to the meetings.

I rousted Cap’n John and accused him of lollygagging. So he returned this Monday, but I made him sit and listen to my Sunshine report on his absence anyway. He gave me several get-well cards that he had left over, and I threatened to send one of them to him. John’s garden is good again this year, so we’ll expect more mega-reports each week.

Now, on to the big news: toenail trouble. Last Monday, after I had reported on John and Chuck, our Number One Fan, Annie Dimola, raised her hand and with a twinkle in her eye reminded me that she had been absent the previous week but had not been called by the Sunshine Committee. As you’ll remember, Annie is the lady who faithfully delivers our food orders to every Dennys afterglow. It seems she banged her big toe, whereupon the toenail “mortified” and had to be removed. Her toe now looks remarkably healthy, but I think I’ll send her a get-well card anyway, just to prevent a recurrence. Remember to sign it, everybody. Annie is a great audience; she and all the ladies give us an extra reason to sing our best. And watch out, Editor Dorothy. Now that you’re feeling better, we might send a limo to bring you to a Monday meeting!

So that’s my message. Don’t get sick; it interrupts your singing. I’ll see you in church on Monday.

O.C. Times Review--A Real Day Brightener
quoted from a Harmonet review of the Big Apple Chorus Show (Manhattan, NYC) by Dave Briner

Last month The OC Times (www.octimesquartet.com/) sang on the Big Apple Chorus' annual show at Lincoln Center, NY. At the end of his review, Dave Briner made this observation of what happened after the show:

"OC Times was out in the lobby...and CHILDREN WERE FLOCKING TO THEM! I mean, everyone wanted a piece of these guys, that's expected. But children...the future of our hobby...just absolutely adored them! And OC Times was so gracious and caring about these kids...it was like watching a combination of superstars and Barney...parents loved them, kids loved them, parents loved that their kids loved them...it was awesome."

Sean Devine, Shawn York, Cory Hunt, and Patrick Claypool, carry on! Rich and Marilyn Lewis, we know you're smiling.

Dorothy Acton, Ed.

Interesting Words
found on the Internet

Cannibal: Someone who is fed up with people.

Committee: A body that keeps minutes and wastes hours.

Decafalon: The grueling event of getting through the day consuming only things that are good for you.

Egotist: Someone who is usually me-deep in conversation.

Inflation: Cutting money in half without destroying the paper.

Osteopornosis: A degenerate disease.

Toothache: The pain that drives you to extraction.

Yawn: An honest opinion openly expressed.

Next Issue

Target publication date for the next Squeezins' bulletin is June 1-30 or whenever we get enough articles. Send your articles to Editor at dcacton@earthlink.net.