A Cappella

The title of this post is one of those that would be reasonably opaque unless you are familiar with the argot of barbershop. For a barbershopper, a ‘polecat’ is a standard song that everybody in your world knows the parts to, and therefore suitable singing at any social occasion where you are meeting barbershoppers you don’t normally hang out with.

For people in the Barbershop Harmony Society, the repertoire is defined by the songs published in a set of books entitled the ‘Barber Pole Cat Program’ (and I imagine that’s where the abbreviation derives from). These have traditionally been ‘old songs’ – classic barbershop standards of the type that the founders of the society in the 1930s were nostalgic about from their youth.

The weekend took me over to Minden in Germany, to work with a capella ensemble Oriana in advance of their Advent concert on December 2nd. They are preparing a selection of repertoire that is strongly themed in terms of text, but very varied in style and origin - from Renaissance counterpoint to spirituals.

Consequently, one of the primary areas we worked on was mood-set. The group had previously identified the starts of pieces as an area that would benefit attention - like many ensembles they had found that it sometimes took them a bar or two to really get into the flow of a piece. And a programme that propels you into a new musical and emotional world every few minutes is going to make particular demands on this dimension of your performance.

After my day with Rhapsody in Peterborough, I had a day in Essex coaching Flame quartet in the morning and Chorus Iceni in the afternoon. Flame is a new quartet, though its members bring a considerable breadth and depth of previous experience to the party, while Chorus Iceni are fresh back from achieving their best results ever (by a considerable margin) at LABBS Convention last month. So there was a good sense of momentum in both sessions, if for different reasons.

With Flame, we spent a good deal of time using a new coaching technique I had actually devised the day before with Rhapsody. I have been advocating slow practice as a way to get into the detail and give yourself time really to hear the harmonies for a good long time. But this has usually been an analytical process with a technical focus, rather than serving artistic goals.

The new convention venueThe weekend saw the Ladies Association of British Barbershop Singers assemble at the Telford International Centre for their 36th Annual Convention. This was the first convention at this venue and, while in some ways it wasn't ideal (such as the limited availability of hotel space in walking distance), it did provide a very kind and honest stage for the singers to perform on. All the ensembles sounded like they were able to produce what they had prepared there without distraction and everyone I spoke to confirmed they had experienced it as a good performance environment. The team running the sound system deserve to feel very pleased with their work over the weekend.

Wednesday took me back to Windsor for a second visit to the Royal Harmonics. In some ways it feel like no time at all since I was last with them, but I couldn't help but notice that it was light when I arrived for my previous visit, but this time night had already fallen.

It was a pleasingly productive evening's work, with focused attention on several different pieces covering a wide range of musical and vocal issues. Their director, John Palmer, had some very clear agenda items for the songs he had picked to work on, but at the same time balanced his areas of interest with an openness for my diagnoses of a song's highest priorities for work. Sometimes the areas I picked up as the most important for attention were the same as the ones he had ear-marked to work on, whilst sometimes I brought up things that had not particularly been on his radar; either case was useful and interesting.

My coaching trip to Ireland continued with a day’s work near Dublin with Nota Bene quartet. They have formed under this name relatively recently, though three of them competed last year in Galway under a different name, and two have sung together in quartet for nearly five years now. This kind of profile offers both specific challenges such as adjusting existing vocal relationships to take account of the new singers’ voices and ways of feeling music, and specific advantages, with the know-how of the more experienced quartet singers supporting the newer additions.

Thursday evening was the first of three coaching trips to Bristol in the space of a week. Entirely a coincidence as it happens, but I am going to feel properly up to date on all the news from that part of the world by the end of it. This first trip was to coach Bristol Fashion, with whom regular readers will know I have been working a couple of times a year for three years now.

I commented last time I worked with them how gratifying it is to have a sense of building on skills that have been embedded in the months between visits, and I couldn't help but notice them using exercises in their warm-up that we had introduced back in May. I'm sure they do this when I'm not there to see it too!

I recently received an email with the subject line 'Please help me to harmonise', and I thought: well, yes, that's what I do! I'll let my correspondent say in her own words what in particular she'd like help with:

In January I took up singing in an A Cappella group. I find singing in a harmony group difficult at present and I am sure that it is all in my head.

I am singing baritone and have no problem at all learning my part, I sing well when I am grouped with the other baris in my group and we sound great as a unit. It's when we are split up and I end up having the lead part sung loudly in my ear, I just can't cope because all I can hear is the lead part... I would love to be able to hear the chord that all the parts make up to help me gel in this chorus.

Now my first thought is: don't be down-hearted, this is a perfectly normal experience in the first few months of singing a cappella harmony. One of the reasons I wanted to respond publicly was because there will be loads of other people saying either, 'Yes, that's me too!' or 'Yes, that was me when I first started!' So message number 1: hang on in there, this is something you do get better at over time.