ORANGE SQUEEZIN'S
 Orange Barbershop QUARTET Chapter, FWD, Orange, California November, 2005 
MEETING EVERY MONDAY 7:30 P.M.- COME SING WITH US UNTIL 10 P.M.
Afterglow, Denny's Restaurant, 3000 W Chapman between the 57 and 5 fwys by Dave Gryvnak Wow, what a convention. Let’s start with the House Of Delegates Meeting. Three items of interest. First, the members voted to send a letter to International requesting that we remove the new logo and bring back the old logo. Passed unanimously. Second, the members voted to change the chorus plateaus from based on membership to based on contest scores. Orange and Westminster voted against, but it passed. Third, after Lloyd Steinkamp and John Krizek discussed how we need to support the district youth program, the Orange Quartet Chapter presented them with a check for $2000.00. Thunderous applause. The contests were fantastic. You’d have to have been there to appreciate them. The chorus contest was won by Westminster, with 2nd place Phoenix, and 3rd place La Jolla. Terrific job by all. The quartet contest was won by Hi Fidelity (MOH & Fullerton), with 2nd place Stardust (Las Vegas) and 3rd place Dazzle (Phoenix). Stardust had it won but had a big hiccup in their second session and lost about 50 points and then lost the contest by 10 points. We had our election of officers. Your new officers who will be taking over the reins on 1 Jan are:
President: Mike Werner Sounds like a dynamic and aggressive board. Let’s all get behind them and push the chapter ahead. Don’t forget about the Installation Banquet. Cost is $20 per person. Choices are beef, chicken or fish. Get your order in to Paul Kelley ASAP. Don’t delay. He needs to inform the restaurant. It will be at Rembrandt's in Placentia again. And, yes, wives and girl friends are encouraged to come and enjoy the festivities. I’m bringing my girl friend. All of you hot shot quartet people, go to the website of www.timtracks.com. Tim has available, for a small fee, about 100 songs on CDs with separate voicing. This guy does a terrific job. If you have a song that is not on that list, he will do it for about $125. Go to the website. It is self explanatory. Save the date of 19 Dec for our Christmas Caroling at the Hospital. More on this later. But save the date. Yes, it is a Monday evening.
Well, I hope to see all of you at the next meeting. Bring a friend. If you introduce him to barbershop singing, he’ll be a friend for life. Remember, if you’re too busy to sing, you’re too busy.
Installation Banquet Nov. 5 By Paul Kelley PLEASE READ AND HEED... We return to "Rembrandt's Beautiful Food" for our third officers' installation, November 5, 2005, a Saturday.
Address: 909 E. Yorba Linda Blvd., Placentia, CA Times:
Attitude Adjustment 6:30-7:30 pm You will have your choice of entrees from the following:
Sliced roast beef with dressing, mushroom sauce There will be carafes of wine on the tables (about 1 carafe per 4 seats). Want more? Pay about $11. There is a cash bar in the banquet room or order through your waitress. Not included in dinner charge. The dinner charge is $20 each in advance. I need cash or check in my hands by Monday night, Oct. 31. Also need your menu selection so they can prepare for us. Don't start changing at the last minute. They normally limit the menu to one choice. Spence Graves will be our installing officer and will be singing with his outstanding quartet "Gaslight Revue." Spence has been singing and getting things done since the mid-sixties. No lengthy, high-powered speeches or I'll shoot him! Any chapter quartets wishing to sing during the cocktail hour, dinner or program time, please talk to Paul Kelley immediately. Quick directions to Rembrandts. They're on Yorba Linda Boulevard about 1/8th mile west of Rose Drive. Rose is the north extension of Tustin Avenue going through Santa Ana, Orange, and past the 91 freeway. It becomes Rose Drive at Orangethorpe.
Paul Kelley
Birds Sing in Barbershop
In September, Peter Slater of the University Of St. Andrews, Scotland, reported that his team of biologists had analyzed the songs of the plain-tailed wrens in an Ecuadorian bamboo forest. The team has identified complex harmonies that rival those of the barbershop genre.
Their song involves four repeated phrases that follow the pattern ABCDABCD. Male birds sing A and C, while females sing B and D. These phrases are like the chorus of a song. They involve up to seven birds, and they can complete about 20 choruses in about two minutes. All birds sing on cue, so that the ABCD phrasing gives the impression that only one bird is singing. In one case, the researches heard only BDBD, because five of the seven birds were females, and the two males couldn’t keep up with them. So much for the old male fantasy of having a harem.
What purposes do such complex and rapid harmonies serve in nature? Dr. Slater thinks the flock may be trying to drive out intruders. Another possibility is that other species of animals don’t like the barbershop buzz, so they leave the area. I’ve seen that reaction in some small human children, who plug their ears when we ring chords.
Another possibility is directly related to sex. Birds in tropical latitudes lack the stimulus that birds in temperate climes receive in the spring, when the gradually lengthening days trigger their nesting and mating behaviors. So tropical birds such as the plain-tailed wrens have created the stimulus of mixed quartet harmonies so that “love’s old sweet song” is always with them and can be heeded when it’s needed, “not entirely unlike humans singing along to some sexy music on a hot date,” as Dr. Slater explains it.
To hear a sample of the wren’s song, just check out http://www.abc.net.au/cgi-bin/common/printfriendly.pl?/science/news/stories/s1463185.htm, but I don’t recommend you join in. You might hurt yourself. Instead you could learn “Don’t Blame Me” with three other guys and then spring it on your sweetie in a month or two. Let us know how it works out.
Actually, you could sing it as a solo. Plain-tailed wrens sometimes sing alone. But they prefer barbershop. So does my wife.
Dave Gryvnak asked me to do this article on Marilyn's memorial service, since I was probably the oldest member of her extended family. Those beautiful name badges designated us as such! Dave suggested I get a copy of the eulogy written and read by Lewis' son Mike during the ritual and publish it in the Squeezin's. Good idea! Except Mike took 45 minutes to read the six full pages.
Mike obviously was swept up with so much to say about this remarkable woman that he couldn't stop. All the superlatives that could be used couldn't do the woman justice! My lady suggested the word GRAND. I think it appropriate. If anyone wants a copy of the eulogy, let me know and we'll get some.
I'm going to tell who was there plus some of the fine parts of the ritual. First, there was a table in the church entry with those beautiful badges (made by Rich, I think!) allowing us to sit in the reserved section with the family. Some obviously did not understand that. Stan Smith, the senior pastor of the church, did the invocation plus a short bio of Marilyn. Stan handled things with poise and grace as we expected. While he was at it, he let the assemblage (there was a goodly number) know that the barbershop quartet chapter is their favorite tenant (for 12 years) and often our melodies float across the area and into some committee meetings. (he says they enjoy it!)
Barbershoppers showed up with around 50 men from our Orange chapter, plus Fullerton, Irvine, San Juan Capo and Dana Point. Maybe some others unknown to me. We sang "Hello Mary Lou" because Marilyn picked that out months ago, "Precious Lord" because of the occasion, and "Girl of My Dreams" because Rich Lewis wanted it. The lyrics just fitted their relationship. Marilyn would cry if we sang that song around her, but I believe she enjoyed it this time. Frankly, I was proud of the gang singing. A lot of us leaned or woodshedded, but we were all seasoned singers. On gang singing, Pat Claypool, a Lewis grandson, directed two of the songs and Nick Gasper directed the "Gorilla" song. Pat then sang "What A Wonderful World" with the O.C. Times Quartet, which took the fifth place medal at international competition in Salt Lake City this July. Awesome!
The reception was great with lots of old timers talking about the "old" days.
Well, I've drifted around, as usual, but maybe shed some light here and there. The subject matter, of course, is about Marilyn Lewis. She was indeed a grand lady who was a friend to every person she ever met. I'm sure every one of those people would say, "I'm glad she came my way."
Are Arrangers Ruining Barbershop Contests?
At the FWD Convention and Contest in Pasadena last week, the singing was spectacular and the competition was as heated as it could be at any sporting event. My favorite quartet, Hi- Fidelity, became FWD Champions after years of coming in second. My favorite chorus, The Westminster Harmony Showcase Chorus, also won, with director Royce Ferguson and 45 young singers thrilling the audience and the judges with beautiful sound. This was an unforgettable District Contest, and my only regret was that Barbara and I didn’t stay two nights in the hotel so that we could enjoy the really fun part: the after-hours activities in which the quartets are free to relax and sing their favorite songs. You know, the songs that aren’t “contestable” but sound so drop-dead gorgeous that one or two of them could keep you warm all winter. One example from a previous convention was Jimmy Kline’s bass solo with Gotcha, singing “P.S.: I Love You”. We live for such moments in barbershop.
Every year it’s getting harder to win in contests, and that makes Westminster’s victory especially admirable. They were all casually dressed in black, with no flashy scarves or other ornament. Their ballad, “The Way You Look Tonight”, was delivered straight-no-chaser, although this chorus spaces its singers out across the risers and expects each man to emote like mad. Their uptune, “South Rampart Street Parade”, allowed them to toss in a bit of juggling and some eye-popping group visuals, but what kept our attention and won the contest against an excellent Spirit of Phoenix performance (“If I Loved You” and “I Love a Parade/Seventy Six Trombones”) was their incredible sound, which they delivered with seamless intensity. By the end of each song, the listener felt he had to jump up and applaud. This is barbershop at its best, sung by an electrifying young ensemble group. If we could clone them, we could redefine our hobby through these guys. Not that it would be easy. They are all too young for long-term commitments, and the chorus tends to scatter like quail after a performance. But we should be donating our money to send this chorus to the Internationals. We should also badger our friends in the media to watch for them, so that the world will be ready to sit up and take notice.
I obviously think that our choruses are being well served by our music arrangers, past and present. But last weekend in Pasadena, during the quartet competitions, a new phenomenon asserted itself. It tends to happen in uptunes rather than ballads, and it’s a result of the understandable temptation to reach for that extra point or two from the judges. Vocal pyrotechnics took precedence over beautiful harmonies, and our recent infatuation with the pleasures of rhythm carried us to extremes. The result was that several top quartets sang jaggedy compositions that lost their musicality. The excellent quartet Stardust was leading on points when it lost its way on an impossibly difficult version of “River Stay Way from My Door”, allowing Hi-Fidelity to slip past and win by only ten points. Several times Barbara and I turned to each other at the end of a song, realizing we had witnessed a singer’s equivalent of the required figures that ice skaters must complete. Whatever it was, it wasn’t entertainment.
You and I don’t sing such arrangements, unless we are out of touch with 1) our audience, 2) our vocal limitations, 3) the other three guys in our quartet, and 4) objective reality. I doubt that the competing quartets will touch them after contest, because their audiences will prefer the songs like Jimmy Kline’s bass solo. But I do expect that in the near future, great quartets will be tempted by the heightened competition to over sing or even crash. It’s like driving too fast. We all do it when we’re tempted by the dark side of the force. But none of us wants to pay to witness it.
A Memory of Marilyn Lewis
One of my favorite memories of Marilyn Lewis is described in this paragraph of our August 2003 issue about Richard and me watching the International on Webcast:
"We spent hours in front of the computer watching the quartets and choruses performing at the International in Montreal, for awhile at the Lewis' house and then more hours at home. We agreed that the most fun part was watching Marilyn Lewis' excitement every time there was a close up on Pat during the Masters of Harmony performance (he got a lot of close ups!)"
Marilyn was a special lady, one who brought out the best in us all. When you quarteters sang "Precious Lord" at her service, I had not heard that song so perfectly sung ever in my life. And when O.C. Times sang their breathtakingly beautiful "What A Wonderful World," I knew Marilyn was smiling. In fact, I'll bet she was again jumping up, pointing, and saying excitedly, "There's Pat!"
Chapter History: Fifteenth Anniversary
Believe it nor not, November 18, 1990 was the FIRST meeting of the "Orange Plaza City Serenaders" chapter to be. This was to be and still is a chapter for the sole purpose of barbershop quartetting. At that time there was not another chapter of like persuasion in our society. The organizing committee consisted of Rich Lewis, Jim Czach, Frank Devine, Fred Robirds, Don Moffatt, Phil Wortman, John Hanger, Dean Taylor and Roulo West.
Maintain A Healthy Voice
As Barbershoppers, there is no question we are more likely to have vocal problems because of the greater demands we put on our voices as singers. We are living longer and singing better for a longer period of time than ever before. Thus, we need to take better care of ourselves. We are singing athletes who must stay in good physical condition in order to sing well.
Here are some things you should consider to help you:
1. Do a five-ten minute personal warm up every day in the morning.
Those of us who depend upon our voices need to make the correct choices to help our voices stay healthy. Here are some other things you can do to help yourself be a quality singer.
1. Do at least a five minute vocal warm-up every morning while in the shower before you go to work or do your morning activities.
Cool Quotes (found on the Internet)
The easiest way to grow as a person is to surround yourself with people smarter than you are.
Everyone wants to live on top of the mountain, but all the happiness and growth happen while you're climbing it.
It's those small daily happenings that make life so spectacular.
Next Issue
Target publication date for the next Squeezins' bulletin is Dec. 1 or whenever we get enough articles. Send your articles to Editor at dcacton@earthlink.net.
|