It's All Right 2.0

Bob and brother Rick climbed to the top of Mt. Olympus, a 9,000+ peak overlooking the great city of Salt Lake.

I was cleaning some closets and came across this montage which I had framed for display. We were alone at the peak, and I took the photo with Rick in it, and vice versa. I am gesturing back to the trail that we scrambled up for the last 100 yards.

hint: if you create a free account and login to Flickr.com, you can see and download hi-res scans of my images. For example, this image above is available in 3048X1691 pixels. When you are logged in, look for the associated link that says “see different sizes”.

I got a few more Tosca photos added to my photos set on Flickr. These were provided by fellow choruster Will B. He’s the guy smiling in this shot of our (partial) firing squad.

I completed another 5K this am, my second one. It was right in my neighborhood, and I ran into Liz Roby from church. My time was slightly improved from the one I ran last fall, I did about 32 minutes. I took my little camera along, check out the short video clip below.

We’re preparing for a classic barbershop gig in June when Nick will be out of town. The client has asked for a photo, so I photoshopped this one with our expected lineup — Drew, Pete, Seth and Bob. Don’t look too closely, I didn’t have much to work with.

Our church sponsors a mission trip to a small town in Mexico as a youth activity. The mission work is construction, repair and cleanup at an orphanage. We had planned to encourage Gina to participate in summer 07 when she will be 15, but it turns out nearly her entire confirmation class is signed on for this summer. Gina has helped with some of the fundraising by the youth groups in the last few months, and she wants to go. There is still space and we’ll need to pitch in with a plane ticket.

She’ll be gone from friday May  26 returning early monday June 5.

under consideration:

2007 Honda Fit (33/38 mpg)

2006 Honda Civic (30/40mpg)

2005 or 2006 Ford Freestyle (20/27 mpg)

2006 Toyota Matrix (29/35 mpg)

Samples from my Tosca photoset on Flickr:

I’ve been listening to the A Cappella U podcast lately. There are so far about 13 episodes produced since fall 2005. The podcast focuses exclusively on the current collegiate a cappella scene, which had its roots in the ivy league glee club tradition, but clearly went in some new directions in recent decades.

Episode 13 features part 1 of an interview with arranger Deke Sharon. Sharon founded the Contemporary A Cappella Society (CASA), and he arranged the first two CASA songbooks back in the early 90′s. [ Much of Makeshift's contemporary repertoire is drawn from the CASA songbook series.]

Sharon was active in collegiate a cappella in the late 80′s, and he described it as monotonous, mostly based on rich vocal arrangements from the 50′s-70′s like doowop and CSN&Y. In the 90′s Sharon was influential in moving toward what collegiate a cappella is today, which is to have lots of percusion. mulit-layered instrument emulation, plus microphone enhancment with the unashamed objective being to wholly imitate popular top 40 or alternative radio hits. And if you listen to the current contemporary AC scene, both collegiate and pro, it is pretty amazing, and hard to believe its all human voice. There’s a group that has simulated from start to finish Pink Floyd’s entire album Dark Side of the Moon, a cappella.

My opinion is that its a nice parlor trick, but if you want to sound like a drum kit, electric guitar and a synthesizer, then hire a band. I prefer a cappella vocal arrangments that emphasize the unadorned voice in song and musical blend. Like with Barbershop, doo-wop, madrigals, or rich choral arrangements. And when we do tackle contemporary popular songs,I think its more interesting to interpret them in purely vocal style, without electronic embellishments.

Then again, I don’t have vocal percusion talents, arranging skills, a large singing group, or even the technology needed to produce this modern stuff. So I’ll stick with what I like.

pshaw. Kids today!

B.