Elliott is again hosting the Third Addition of the League Wednesday July 25th at 7pm

Good Evening Gentlemen,

The Master of the Domain
Thank-you Russell for kindly taking on this role last week. I will be back.

The Place and Time
Elliott Lehman and the Dartmouth Chapter has opened their doors again for this session of the league.
7pm at the City of Lakes Chorus weekly meeting place near NSCC waterfront.

North Woodside Community Centre, Gym

230 Pleasant Street
Dartmouth, NS

The Songs for this week

"Dream a Little Dream"

"Make Em Laugh"

Digging into the Learning Tracks

The concept is to know your songs prior to coming out. Listen to your learning tracks a number of times to get an idea of the songs.

New Addition will be Wednesday July 11, 2018 at 7pm

Good morning Gentlemen,

The Master of the Domain
Russell Sketchley has kindly taking on this role this week. I will be in Oakville, Ontario with family.

The Place and Time
Elliott Lehman and the Dartmouth Chapter has opened their doors for this session of the league so an extreme thank-you to Elliott for hosting.
7pm at the City of Lakes Chorus weekly meeting place near NSCC waterfront.

North Woodside Community Centre, Gym

230 Pleasant Street
Dartmouth, NS

The Songs

"Dream a Little Dream"

The second song moving forward will be "Make Em Laugh"

There are a couple of songs that the Harmonizers and City of Lakes is "Sentimental Journey" and "Under the Boardwalk" for warmup and filler songs.

The Concept

The concept is to know your songs prior to coming out. I know we are all busy, but knowing your songs makes for a better experience. It is difficult to read and listen at the same time. 

Downloading Songs and PDFs
Some singers are experiencing difficulty downloading songs from the site. The only advice I have here is to right-click on the song and choose "Download Linked File..." on a Mac product. I don't know what it would be on a Windows product.

First Night for Volume 2 of the League

Introduction
A very good night for the first evening for quartering. At least I never know how the evening is going to go. A little warmup and then down to business with group sing on "Sentimental Journey".  We then brought up the first quartet and started by listening to their harmonies. As with all quartets that come up, we make suggestions on how to improve, what ideas that you can bring to the song that would drive the song in a certain direction, how to support each line from a vocal point-of-view, try and demonstrate vocal placement (really is the shape of the vocal instrument) and allow the participants to listen to the other parts so that there is a lot to enhance.

Participants
One of the amazing thing about the participants is the quality of their voices. There is real potential to make a number of really good quartets, if quartering is their goal, or at least sing better within the chorus. You become an amazing chorus member. The person who comes out needs to realize that singing with other people, you need to present your vocals so that you can harmonize.
Many of the participants want to be in a quartet and may even have found three other guys to sing with. The league will definitely improve their singing quality with each other.

Listening
This is the most important starting point. Knowing your note becomes easy if you can hear the other singers and be able to match. For the lead, you provide a sound that the others match to and listen to what sound is produced and adjust your vocals accordingly. A cappella is not tuned to the piano which is a tempered tuning meaning that the piano play in any key. If the singer sang the same pitch as the piano, only the tonic and fifth notes would match while leaving the 3rd and 7th sounding off.

Adding the element of Competition
As a quarterer, eventually you may want to compete and that provides an incentive to learn your craft to the best of your ability. This also allows for those not ready to compete to sing beside people and learn from them. The goal is the same, to become a better singer. I have found that high quality competitors genuinely want all singers around them to get better. Capich.

All for now.

New Installation of League of Extraordinary Quarteters

Introduction to the League of Extraordinary Quarteters
The barbershop chorus and quartet sound is a very rich sound that give people and the singers a lot of joy. I have been blessed with singing with September Sound for a number of years and also traveled to Marlborough Mass for the past four years to focus on quartet singing. As quartet singers will attest, the process of learning a song together is very uplifting.

Why the League

The league of extraordinary quarteters is my attempt to engage great singers from our chorus and possibly others to get together and learn to sing and perform four part harmony with a number of people in a quartet structure, but not a fixed quartet. The years going down to Mass., I found that the knowing the song bring the process of learning to be very enriching.

Hosting the LeagueThe idea is to meet one to two a month to go over the song or songs to get singing with the other parts. Then break out into quartets and work the song maybe with a fifth ear to give helpful feedback. What makes this process work best is that each person know their part. Then the fun part begins to sing in close harmony. 

During the month, any singer can host a run-through at their home and invite voice parts to sing. You just provide the space and the water for hydration, the singers will provide the sound.

The Music

The five songs are:

Volume 2 Number 1

 

2018 Quartet Meetings

This is the beginning of starting the League again. The last session was quite successful with the people involved. The amazing idea was to take the singers that want to perform or learn how to sing in a quartet has made the participants aware of their role in creating a sound that is barbershop.

This year, the League should meet twice a month once on Tuesday and once on Thursday to get the most of each day whether a member can make both or just one night a month. Last year, it became quite evident that the Thursday was too restrictive. Also, last year we did not get to perform the songs in front of an audience.

This year, the following songs will be pursued:

As Time Goes By
Dream a Little Dream of Me
Make Em Laugh
Do You Hear The People Sing
Dear Hearts and Gentle People

Next League Meeting - Dan Boland's Place 7pm

Thursday November 9th Run-through at Dan Boland's place

Another good day gentlemen,


Dan has offered his place up to the rowdy bunch of singers, oh barbershoppers for this Thursday. Dan has a great place where in the past we have brought together musicians to jam.


This week, we should focus on the four songs:


That Railroad Rag (just good fun)
Don't be a baby, baby (difficult harmony parts for note placement)
Drivin' Me Crazy (who says drivin')
When I'm Sixty Four (personally still in a learning phase)

 I want to try to get the blend a little tighter on some of the older songs that we have been doing so we may not get through full songs.


Here is the location for Dan's place:


11 Brackley Place, Halifax

League Meeting on Thursday 19 October 7pm at Ron Marchand's place



Hey guys,

Let's get together on Thursday for the next meeting of the League at Ron's place in Halifax at 7pm.

The plan will be to go over the first four songs of the league's rep:

Railroad Rag

Don't be a baby, baby

Drivin' Me Crazy

When I'm Sixty four

The biggest focus will be When I'm Sixty Four, BUT if you are not ready to sing the song, we will focus on the songs that you do know since our focus is on the greater harmonic sound so come with what you have.

The last 30 minutes, we will focus on a learning technique to get you started with learning a new song. We will use Be Our Guest since it is a shorter song.

See everyone then. Thanks.

Ron (not Ron's place)

Ron's Place