The concert seemed meant to be from the beginning. We purchased our tickets, believing that even if we were called for a gig that night, it would be just as beneficial (if not more!) to see TMT as the money for the potential gig. CV already had a busy holiday schedule lined up, but that one night remained open! We were also able to upgrade our seats to the front row of the balcony the day of the concert! Plus, we had been given permission to go back stage after the concert to meet them! Talk about being excited!

We got to Lufkin early to enjoy a nice meal at Ralph & Kacoos before heading over to the Temple Theater on the Angelina College campus. What a beautiful venue! We took our new fabulous seats and eagerly awaited the beginning of the show.

The stage was decorated with poinsettias and Christmas wreaths loaned by the local Sam’s Club. The orchestra was tuning and looking so impressive, as was TMT band. And then … there they were! Walking out on stage! The Manhattan Transfer! Right before our eyes! Having listened to their music all of my growing-up years, it was so cool to see them performing.

Cheryl Bentyne, their soprano, isn’t able to do their holiday tour this year due to her having surgery recently. Margaret Dorn filled in nicely for her. After the show, Janice Siegel (alto) told us that Margaret learned their entire show in just ten days! Very cool.

They opened with their famous “Happy Holidays” and also sang favorites like “Route 66,” “Birdland,” “Let It Snow,” and for their encore, “Choo Choo Cha Boogie.” They are such classy entertainers and perform with seasoned ease.

After the show, we headed back stage, as were told to do. Thankfully, the Associate Director of the Angelina Arts Alliance met us and knew we were coming. We waited like nervous school kids for them to come out of the dressing room. And then … there they were! Right there! And we were shaking their hands and gushing about the show and asking Janice to teach me how she does her muted trumpet and being the biggest nerdy TMT fans imaginable. And loving every second of it.

We told them that we do their version of Java Jive, except that we do it a cappella. Paul (baritone) said, “Why don’t you sing it for us?” I couldn’t help but ask, “Will you sing it with us? That would be a huge honor for us!” And they did. All the way down to the classic Tim Hauser “yeah.” SO. VERY. COOL.

After the coolest Java Jive ever, we got a picture to prove that all this really happened, and we got their autographs to frame and love and hold and cherish forever. Thanks so much to Janice, Tim and Paul for being gracious enough to visit with us after a long day of travel and an outstanding performance!

Dreams really do come true!

Clearly Vocal backstage with The Manhattan Transfer

By 5 P.M., we had dropped off the kids, loaded all the equipment, picked up the members of Clearly Vocal (Stefanie, Kim, Andy, John, Don and Ben, our new sound guy) and left Tyler. Nineteen hours later, we pulled into our hotel in Durham, North Carolina, to check in. The guys were gracious to go unload our equipment at the Carolina Theater, where we would be performing that night, while Stef and I slept!

By 4:30 we were all dressed in concert attire. We wore our black outfits, accented with purple and blue, like we wore in Denver, for those of you who saw that look. Of course Stef and I didn’t wear our exact outfits, as we are both pregnant, so we had some wrap shirts made. I was pleased with how they turned out! Then we loaded up to head to the theater to begin our sound check by 5:30. When we got there, Sonos was having a sound check/rehearsal. They were one of the professional groups performing that weekend. Wow. Truly amazing.

Running sound for everyone at the theater that weekend was Tony Huerta, probably the absolute best sound guy in contemporary a cappella today. He regularly runs sound for Take 6, m-pact, Nota, Sonos and others. He was also the guy who ran the sound at the Rocky Mountain Harmony Sweepstakes in which we competed last year. I just think it’s pretty cool that we can claim Tony twice as our sound guy! Ben, our sound guy, was in sound engineer heaven watching over Tony’s shoulder, learning, but also helping Tony know what was coming up in our songs!

We hit our sound check and worked out our in-ear monitor kinks and other little things. It really felt rushed and we couldn’t keep a consistent pitch and we were having tempo issues and hearing issues and we were getting irritated with each other, yadda yadda yadda. And suddenly our time was up. Next on the schedule was the Contemporary A Cappella League (CAL) reception, which was upstairs, but before we ran up there, we took a minute to regroup, to remember to think as a group and to breathe and de-stress. Thankfully it worked, and our shoulders relaxed back into their proper positions.

We headed upstairs and enjoyed reconnecting with the other CAL groups as well as the directors of SoJam and of the Contemporary A Cappella Society (CASA). Also in attendance were the members of Sonos and Basix, the other pro group that was performing Saturday night. What an honor to rub shoulders with these people! Other “big dogs” included Dave Brown and Christopher Diaz, the hosts of the Mouth Off Show, Bill Hare, the producer of many pro, CAL and college CDs (Nota, Straight No Chaser, The Red States, On the Rocks, etc.), and Ed Boyer, one of the arrangers for the show The Sing Off. The place was packed with talent!

Friday night, the show consisted of six college groups who were competing against each other. After they all sang, we performed for thirty minutes while the judges’ votes were being tallied. The theater was JAM PACKED! About 1000 in attendance. Probably the biggest audience for which we’ve sung. Overall, it was the best show that we five have ever done! “The Moment” of our show was when we put our mics down, stood in a semicircle a the front of the stage and sang “And Can It Be.” I was really nervous about doing this song, because there were some pretty anti-Christian people in that crowd! But after the show, the two most talked about songs were Java Jive (always a crowd pleaser) and And Can It Be! They were impressed that 1.) we would put down our mics, and 2.) that we would be brave enough to share our faith with everyone! Seems they really appreciated both things. To all of you whom I know have been praying for the hearts of those listening, THANK YOU! I believe hearts were touched and that God was glorified.

Before our last song, I  gave a little motivational speech especially to the college kids encouraging them to keep singing! Most think that if they don’t plan to sing professionally, that their singing days are over after college. Our goal was to show them that they can keep singing at a high-quality level, if that’s what they love to do. We can’t NOT sing, and so we began Clearly Vocal.

After the show, we signed autographs, passed out business cards and received a flood of congrats and great jobs. From the theater, everyone went to an after-party where we all got to interact with other groups and more fans and relive the evening. What a night!

Saturday was packed with amazing workshops, like “Say What?” with Dave Brown, “Organic Arranging” with Christopher Diaz, “Live Sound Basics” with Tony Huerta, “The Cool Factor” with Claude McKnight, “Essential Listening” with Benjamin Stephens, and many others. Interspersed throughout the day were mini-performances by three other CAL groups: Euphonism, from Washington DC, Treble, from New York City, and The Red States, also from NYC. It’s just neat to see other “real people” doing what we do!

We raced from there to supper where we ate with the other CAL groups. We scarfed down our food as quickly as we could so that we could make it back to the theater to change and get ready for our last performance. Saturday night, we went with all black and white. We hated to upstage the pros, you know.

There was only one little glitch on Saturday night. Our in-ear monitors were off for the first half of our first song! (Words, by The Real Group.) All we could hear was the bounce-back from the back of the theater! Therefore, our tempo was a little slower than usual! We managed, though, and when we finally did get our ears back, thankfully we were all in the same tempo and key! Ha! The show must go on!

We were told to do two songs to open for the other groups, and as we walked off stage, Thomas “Tekay” King, who was running the groups backstage and one of the judges for the CAL Showcase, said “That’s it? You had 15 minutes!” That was the first we had heard of it! Oh well. Better to leave the crowd wanting more. Plus they were really there for Sonos and Basix that night!

Then we got to join the crowd and watch as Sonos and then Basix performed. What an incredible concert! It became very clear why they are the professionals. Sidenote: as Basix was singing, I leaned over to John and asked, “Are those our mic stands they’re using?” He grinned real big and nodded. Again, I geeked out. After the show, I asked Chris, one of Basix’s members, if they enjoyed using our stands, to which he replied, “Those were yours? Oh, thank you, thank you! They were so easy to slide up and down; much better than ours!”

The Saturday night after-party was a blast, too. We had so much fun hanging out with new friends one last time and reliving the evening. We got back to the hotel around 1:30 A.M.

Sunday morning, we checked out of the hotel and headed back to Duke a fascinating workshop on “The Science of Singing.” We were embarrassed and honored when the instructor motioned to us and said to the rest of the class, “This is Clearly Vocal in here, by the way. They already do all of this stuff I’m talking about, which is why they sound so amazing. I don’t really know why they’re in here!” So sweet.

And finally, we went to our master class with none other than Claude McKnight himself. Claude McKnight is the founder of Take 6 and the brother of R&B artist, Brian McKnight. Of all the SoJam attendees, he most likely has the best trained ear, especially for jazz. What an honor!

Claude gave us some very practical tips to use on each song and worked with us on how to accomplish those things. Things like grabbing the audience from the first word, standing and moving with a purpose, conversing with the audience in-between songs rather than giving speeches, and other things like that. Those seemingly little things made a huge difference as we worked. I can’t wait to apply those principles to the rest of our show!

After grabbing lunch, we drove out of Durham at 2 P.M., rotated drivers through the night, hit a traffic jam in which we were stopped for a little over thirty minutes and rolled into Tyler at 7:30 Monday morning so the boys could go to work. Crazy.

What a weekend. So physically exhausting, but so rewarding. So many connections made or renewed. We were encouraged, had our egos stroked, inspired, humbled, challenged, refreshed and refocused. Can’t wait to go back next year!

For more about SoJam 2010, listen to the Mouth Off Show podcast, with Dave Brown and Christopher Diaz.

Kim

LA/AF was held on the campus of UCLA. My first time there. It is beautiful! My first class was with Julia Hoffman, the president of the Contemporary A Cappella Society (CASA). She is a licensed psychologist, so she taught the “Group Dynamics” class. Now most of the attendees and singing groups were from colleges, just like they were at SoJam, so it was nice to see that we had moved past a bunch of their group issues (i.e. inappropriate inter-group relationships, “I Want All the Solos,” being a distraction in rehearsal, etc., ad nauseum). My takeaways from the class had more to do with group motivation than conflict resolution.  John got some great tips from Amy Malkoff in her class on Electronic Press Kits.

Then we attended an improv class with Moira Smiley that was very “organic and evocative,” which, apparently is the highest compliment an a cappella singer can receive. She gave us some great exercises for groups to do in rehearsal that get us out of our comfort zones and develop all kinds of different sounds the voice can make. Really fun.

We networked a bunch at lunch. Said ‘Hi’ to all the aca-big dogs, and some of them had either heard of us from the Mouth Off Show or remembered us from SoJam. Very Cool! We also reconnected with some of our fellow Contemporary A Cappella League (CAL) people and groups. It’s nice to know that others are in the same boat as we!

Went to a class called, “Solo Like a Rock Star,” taught by George Hoffman, husband to Julia, and in the all-male aca-rock band, Hookslide, based in L.A.  John attended Sing to WIN!, a class on preparing for competitions, with Julia Hoffman, Amy Malkoff and Dave Brown, which was of particular interest to us now that we’ll be competing in just a little over a month.  Again, some great advice and reminders from both sessions.

Next was a class facilitated by Amy Engelhardt, of The Bobs. This was basically a master class for any group that wanted to sing. I REALLY wish all of CV could have been there for that! The groups got some good stage time and some practical advice as well as encouragement.

During the last session, John went to a workshop with Tony Huerta and Charlie Forkish on making the most of your sound equipment in a live concert setting. Tony is the international touring Production Manager for Take Six and live sound engineer for M-pact and Face. Yeah, he knew his stuff. John ate it up. I was clueless when he was describing it to me.  My last class was with Mister Tim, who excels in marketing for aca-groups, and performs in a few himself. So valuable in learning more about how to better market an aca-group, getting and keeping fans, posters, business cards, venues, equipment, etc. We WILL be putting these into practice. ASAP.

The concert that night featured a UCLA group, Bruin Harmony, that did very well.

THEN CAME SONOS.

SONOS is the new sound of a cappella. Go hear their stuff. It’s not all covers like most groups do. It’s not jazz. It’s not rock. It’s a sound unique to them, which is very cool. Now they do “cheat” by using pedals to put some really cool effects on their voices, but they use them well. Seeing them perform was my highlight of the weekend.

m-pact closed the concert, and they were great, too. The “Jingle Bells” that CV sings is their arrangement. But John and I had to leave before it was over to catch the midnight flight out of L.A. to arrive in Dallas by a little after 5:00 a.m. to drive to Tyler to get to Glenwood to change clothes, freshen up and be at praise team practice by 8:00 a.m. I am fully aware of the lack of sanity on our part. But it was SO worth it!

We missed the rest of CV terribly! The weekend was amazing, but it would have been 10x better had we all been there together! I really hope we can all go next year!

Dude. That just happened.

From the very beginning, Peder put us at ease. Not that we were nervous or anything—I mean, it’s not like he’s in the world’s best a cappella group … oh, wait. We got to work with PEDER KARLSSON! We’re talking celebrity status here. But like I said, he was so warm and friendly that we were able to connect immediately.

To begin, Peder asked us our goals for the group. This, I believe, gave him a better idea of where we are currently as a group and where we see ourselves in the future.

Building on that foundation he began addressing the 4-5 topics that we had chosen from the list of suggestions he had given us prior to the session. With a few simple exercises focusing on listening for tempo, dynamics and timbre, he helped us naturally and significantly improve our intonation and phrasing issues. We plan to use this very full “toolbox of resources” to improve our entire repertoire!

Another thing Peder encouraged each of us to do was to take turns leading. Whether it was counting off or changing the dynamics or whatever, we each took ownership for that part of the session. He mentioned that the members of TRG take turns directing their rehearsals. We plan on following their example as it demands that we share the rehearsal planning responsibility, and ensures that at least one out of five rehearsals will go perfectly.

We asked to sing one of our originals, and Peder graciously indulged us. Not only that, but he also gave his opinion and critique of the song.

Peder is an active listener and was able to pick up on things that we, because we were singing, were not able to hear. He gave us very practical criticism in an amazingly positive and encouraging way. What a gift! He was also very complimentary, but in an extremely true sense. Nothing felt fake or insincere, but always thoughtful and genuine.

Thanks so much to Peder for sharing his expertise and time. It was truly an honor!

_____________

Technical Setup:

* We met in a small room with a projector hanging from the ceiling and a screen on the wall.
* Computer: 15″ Macbook Pro (late 2008 model), Mac OS X 10.6.2 and Skype, plugged into the wired network, connected to the projector with a Mini DisplayPort to VGA adaptor and a VGA cable.
* Video: We set up the computer on a lectern at the bottom center of the projector screen and used the built-in iSight camera. We stood about eight feet away.
* Audio input: Five wireless Audio-Technica microphones into Yamaha MG166CX mixer, out Aux 2 into a Griffin iMic USB audio interface, then into the computer.
* Audio output (to hear Peder): Desktop speakers plugged into the computer. (We also used our Sennheiser in-ear monitors to hear ourselves.)

This setup worked great for us, but if we were to do it again, we might feed Peder’s voice into our in-ear monitors instead of using the desktop speakers, just to avoid any potential feedback issues.