How do you know if you can trust an expert?

While this seems to be about home repairs, it's actually about trusting experts so bear with me while I set the ground work.

We're in the process of getting a new furnace or at least see if we can find a way to stop replacing the igniter every 9 months. We had a fantastic system that worked really well for the first 14 years or so of home ownership. It was a new type of boiler system that provided practically endless supplies of hot water and fairly cheap heat.

Having a garage that we couldn't use unless we bought mini-Coopers or motorcycles, I converted the first garage bay into an office. The contractor insisted that the wall he was installing would provide adequate room to service the furnace and hot water heater/boiler. When I questioned this, the head of the company came out, made a few tweaks to the plan, and said that he was sure it would be sufficient. I call this "Contractor Lie #1". There may have been adequate room before drywall, but after drywall, I can barely get the filter out to clean it ,and I think even Twiggy would have difficulty actually looking at any of the furnace parts, much less repairing them. The hot water heater/boiler access isn't too bad but it is far from sufficient.

When the boiler part died, the company that had originally installed it no longer supported the system and I could find nobody else who had a clue. This being a boiler, I opted to try calling plumbers instead of heating contractors. Maybe this was my first mistake.

A plumber came out and replaced the unit. He didn't bother to tell us that we were getting a hot water heater (max temp. 160 degrees F) rather than a boiler (max temp. 200 degrees F). I consider this "Contractor Lie #2.  It became quite clear that the job was well beyond the scope of this guy's experience so after his company's third attempt to fix everything, I called a different company. They fixed the pipes and everything was great.

For a year or so.

Then temperatures went unseasonably cold for Seattle, and the igniter died. Unusual? yes. Out of warranty? Of course. I researched the water heater on the Internet and couldn't find any indication that there was a history of igniter problems so we replaced the igniter.  Everything worked great.

For about 9 months.

Once again, cold temperatures brought a dead igniter. Still nothing on the Internet that the igniters were bad or that the hot water heater had problems but it was clear that something was wrong. Once again, the company ordered an igniter and after 3 very cold days, it was installed. They called the manufacturer to confirm there were no service bulletins. It was suggested to look at airflow which we did. At this point, we discovered that the intake and outflow air were backwards on the roof. The intake should be higher so it doesn't draw in air from the outflow. We debated methods to fix it but the manufacturer said that they doubted it was an issue. This may have been Contractor Lie #3. Most likely, our first igniter was simply a bad one. Once again, out of warranty but the plumbing company gave us a discount on installation because even they decided this was unacceptable. Once again, everything seem to be just great.

Until about 9 months later.

I am once again listening as this poor hot water heater attempts to heat the water enough to warm the house.  I've now turned off the recirculating pump that makes hot water appear in only 10-15 seconds from most sinks. I've turned the furnace down to a perky 60 degrees to minimize the amount of work it needs to do.  I've done what I can to help it limp along so we have time to figure out what to do.

The question is: do we replace the whole thing or do we fix it once again. How can we make such a decision when I can't necessarily trust the expert I've hired?

This has made me think about all the various experts I depend on. I have various experts digest the congressional bills so that I don't have to read all 1500+ pages. I rely on an expert to tell me what programs have viruses on my computer. Car repairs. Horse trainers. Vets. Doctors. Dentists. Meteorologists. Medications and supplements. The list goes on.

Contractor Lie #1: Are they knowledgeable or giving me a snow job?
If I raise a concern, how can I trust that these experts actually know what they are talking about? My son is an amazing student who really does know a lot of different things. However, he is the most amazing bulls*#&ter that you'd ever have the pleasure of knowing. Unless you yourself are knowledgeable about a topic, you have no way of knowing that you've veered off into BS-land. I'm not sure I could trust him in a study group where everyone is responsible for reporting on their part of the assignment. While I know that he would take the responsibility very seriously, I wouldn't have the skills to know what part of his report he was BSing and what was actually in the assignment. He is a classic case of the better someone's speaking and social skills, the more they create an innate sense of trustworthiness.

In my experience, some of the best blue collar experts couldn't spell like a first grader and couldn't speak very well either but those are also the hallmarks of some of the worst blue collar contractors. As our experts get more educated to perform their job, their speaking skills somewhat naturally improve which means their ability snow me becomes higher.  How much do you know about the real reasons your doctor wants you to take some medication or have some test done?

In short, how do I know that my hired expert is actually an expert in what I need?

Contractor Lie #2: The super-secret lingo
If I ask for a boiler, how do I know that I'm getting a boiler and not a hot water heater? I did research and the only items listed as "boilers" were units designed for huge office buildings or apartment complexes rather than a single family home. I thought I was doing the right thing and researching my options before I made a large expenditure. How was I supposed to know the difference between a hot water heater and a boiler if the experts (in this case the contractor and the manufacturer websites) don't agree on the lingo?

This is especially problematic in computers, and it's not just the difference between PCs and Macs. Think of all the different ways people refer to the button on the bottom left corner of  your Windows machine. Some people call it the "pearl", some call it the "start button", and some people call it the "round flag". There are probably other names for it that I don't know. Some people use their term because that's what it was called when they learned about it. Some people use their term because it's the current one. Some people use their term because it's just what they use. None of this is bad until you have a problem and you are off trying to find a solution. If you've been told that that thing is called the "pearl", you'll be in great shape searching on Microsoft's site but it won't work on too many other help sites. Worse, if you don't know that people use different terms for it, you don't know how to search for it or, when you do find help, you spend an hour trying to find the "round flag".

If I don't speak the same language as my expert, it is much easier for me to view them as an expert. Heck, isn't that a big part of what the reformation was all about? People getting tired of viewing their Latin-speaking parish priest as the expert on God and decided that if God was all-powerful, he could understand their local language.

Doctors use this all the time. A patient doesn't want to hear "I don't know what it is" so doctors call it something so that you'll have faith in whatever treatment the doctor proscribes. Since your faith that a treatment will work is apparently a huge component in the treatment actually working, this sounds like a great idea. It probably is a good idea most of the time but how do I, as a patient, know when it isn't a good idea? I've now known enough people with cancer to know that doctors don't agree on what best treatment is but for many types of cancer are just going with whatever they've tried in the past or was in the latest magazine.

We treat some experts as gods and don't ever seem to question their thinking or their conclusions. Think about talk radio or newspapers. How often do you go off and research what they say? There's an expectation for some experts that they are factual and unbiased but more and more we seem to be discovering that even people like doctors are quite biased.

Contractor Lie #3: Good advice or avoiding a lawsuit? Good advice or money?
How do I know that the advice I'm getting is what the expert feels is the right answer rather than the answer with the least likelihood of getting him in trouble? Similarly, how do I know my hired expert is telling be the best practice rather than getting money for the next vacation?

For the most part, people got a long just fine without all the technology. When a doctor suggests that I need a test, I can followup with something like "how would the outcome of the test change the treatment?" Not only does this help me understand the purpose of the test, but it keeps me from getting tests that won't change the outcome because sometimes the treatment is for the symptoms not necessarily their cause. That's not saying that all tests are bad but I do think we do many things out of a fear that something will go horribly wrong and we won't be able to say "I did everything I could think of!" Certainly malpractice insurance sells the fear of that to doctors and our attitudes towards medicine often reinforce that "do everything you need" to confirm what you already believe.

Doctors aren't the only ones. Another one is the "get your septic pumped every 3-5 years otherwise your drain fields will be worthless" ploy. Not only do many people get their systems pumped regularly but some companies make a bang up business selling bacteria for your septic. Maybe some day, someone can explain to me why the septic guy insists that I need some different filter every time he comes?

Personally, I think that falls into the corollary of this lie which is "how do I know that what's being recommended is the best for my situation and not for the expert's wallet?" This is one of many reasons Car Talk is so loved. Tom and Ray tell what they think the car needs so that the callers can walk into a mechanic's business with some degree of control over excess repairs.

My daughter's computer died after barely 18 months of use. Having many computers in the household, some over 15 years old, this was abnormal. In calling tech support and spending many hours on the phone with some lovely Indian woman, we determined that the motherboard was fried. I'd said that about 20 minutes into the conversation but the scripts required that I dink around another few hours before the tech could agree. So pay $400 for a new motherboard or $600 for a new computer? I suspect that there is some very small part on the motherboard that isn't working but by pricing the motherboard so high, the company is strongly encouraging people to buy a new computer.

Clearly we can't trust all mortgage brokers or banks but those used to be some of the most trustworthy professions. How about your will? How do you know that what your lawyer has done will accomplish what you want? As people get older and need power of attorneys, death with dignity documents or living wills, how do you trust that the experts you've hired will do what you want? What happens when your expert doctors conflict with your expert lawyers over your care? With all the information coming at us and the increased specialization many of us are making in our day-to-day knowledge, reliance on experts is important but how do you know whom to trust?

Living wages and cheap goods

I have had this lovely quote for over 15 years on my bulletin board right next to my computer. I read it at least once a week to remind me that my purchasing choices matter. It was printed on the bottom of a warranty for some Kitchen Kraft cookware I purchased many years ago.

Does American Made Really Matter?

Joe Smith started the day early having set his alarm clock (made in Japan) for 6 a.m. While his coffee pot (made in China) was perking, he shaved with his electric razor (made in Hong Kong). He put on a dress shirt (made in Sri Lanka), designer jeans (made in Singapore) and tennis shoes (made in Korea). After cooking his breakfast in his new electric skillet (made in India) he sat down with a calculator (made in Mexico) to see how much he could spend today. After setting his watch (made in Taiwan) to the time on the radio (made in India), he go in his car (made in Germany) and continued his search for a good paying American Job. At the end of yet another discouraging and fruitless day, Joe decided to relax for a while. he put on his sandals (made in Brazil), poured himself a glass of wine (made in France) and turned on his TV (made in Indonesia) and then wondered why he can't find a good paying job in
America.

Yes, we can argue that looking for a job in tennis shoes and jeans, no matter how designer, is silly, but the point remains. I think about the fact that while companies such as Walmart say their products are made in America, often that means made in places like the Marshall Islands where workers are paid $2.00/hour as of 2011 which is considered to be a nonliving wage for the Marshall Islands. In our global economy, we've become slaves to the "cheaper is better but _I_ need a living wage" mantra. We can get caught up in the "this is so cheap I have to buy it" without thinking about the idea that nobody they know would accept a job to make it because the pay would be too minuscule.

I've been reading a lot of articles lately about the impact of Alabama's crackdown on illegal immigrants, and I've been paying particular attention to its impact on farmers. Articles like this oneinclude responses by the few Americans willing to work in the fields. I didn't do much work on a farm but I did have a Granny with a very large garden and family members who harvested tomatoes as summer jobs. After a few weeks of this labor, we all redoubled our efforts in school!

We have amazing farmer's markets around here where produce prices are usually similar to the grocery store prices. When I buy from the farmer (or from the coop he chooses), the farmer gets a larger percentage of the money I pay but neither of them is guaranteed minimum wage. When I buy from a grocer, I pay the grocer who pays the packager who pays the marketer who pays the farmer. Most grocers, packagers and marketers have to pay people minimum wage but once again, the farmer isn't. Do people stop to think about how each person in that link gets paid and how little the original farmer must be paid to get the grocery store price the same as the farmer's market price? If the farmer is making that much less, how much less must the workers be making?

I wonder if the Alabama legislature considered the delicate balance between what people are willing to pay in the grocery stores and how much farm workers are paid when they opted to crack down on illegal immigrants. I understand their desire to put Americans back to work, especially in a state with 10% unemployment, but there aren't too many Americans willing to do such back-breaking work for such little pay.
True, farmers could pay their laborers more, but that would have a direct impact on the price we pay in the grocery store.

Working on the farm is difficult, back-breaking work. Yes, there are lots of other  jobs that are also very physically demanding but that steelworker's job has bathroom breaks and lunch breaks which your average farm picker doesn't get. Your average industrial grunt is at work 8-10 hours a day but works 7-9 hours. Your average farm picker is on the job 12-16 hours a day and will work 11-16 of them. Many of them start at first light, eat as they work, and don't quit until it is too dark to see any more.
A farm worker isn't required (in many states) to be paid minimum wage but the dishwasher in your average restaurant is. The waitress in the restaurant isn't paid minimum wage but s/he can make some extra money in tips that usually brings them up to, or exceeds, minimum wage. Few farmers will pay their work crew extra for getting the crops in early or fast; a picker's only reward is making it to the next farm where they can repeat this backbreaking labor all over again. The staff in the grocery store where you buy the raw food is usually governed by union or state laws that mandate at least minimum wage. Ditto with the workers in the companies that handle the packaging and transportation of the foods to the grocery store.

Yes, there are a few unions who handle farm workers but most of their bargaining is around living conditions (no, you can't pack them like sardines; yes, they need to have clean, water and toilets provided; etc.) and around toxins (no, farmers can't apply pesticides while farmers are working in the fields; yes, farmers need to provide protective gear for workers who are applying pesticides; etc.). For the most part, even unions targeting immigrant laborers don't push on the wages too much. They've watched the steel and car industries and know that in this global economy, cheap raw materials are essential for getting products to market.

So how do states like Alabama who have a heavy section of their economy based on farming encourage these out-of-work Americans to do this hard work?

I guess we could take away food stamps and other low-income help from these people who would rather be unemployed than work these menial jobs but I think that might undo the major inroads made in child labor, health and education. It's one thing for an adult to have consequences for their actions but I don't like punishing children for things over which they have no control. As a child of someone who would rather starve than accept help, I can tell you first-hand that when you are hungry, you aren't in a good place to learn or to take advantage of whatever opportunities come your way. Pride in one's self-reliance or self-sufficiency is is a powerful thing. It is a fantastic trait in a worker with a job but take away that job, and these people can get hard to see from sideways on.

How do you take Americans who are fed a rich history of worker's rights and convince them that working at any job is better than not working? That's a pretty huge cultural shift. There are lots of Americans who already have this ethic and, of course, all of them were immigrants at one point or another. How do we regrow this ethic among a group of people who have been told by their parents "I've worked this hard so that you can have a more successful life than I have"? By saying this in the first place, the parents are saying that working hard at hard labor jobs is not "successful" so the kids aspire to jobs where they don't have to work as hard or the hours aren't quite so long. If the kids do end up in a job that requires long hours or back-breaking work, they feel like failures who have let their parents down.

With the new immigrants, they are so happy to have a job that they'll take just about any job. They'll take just about any discrimination or abuse just to keep that job. Yes, illegal immigrants bear more of this than legal immigrants, but with laws like Arizona's and Alabama's on the books, immigrants both legal and illegal will look for better, friendlier places to live and work which leaves farmers and other people dependent upon cheap labor up the proverbial creek.

I wish the legislatures had ask the farmers how many Americans were asking to be farm laborers before they instituted this. Certainly farmers had a running list of immigrant laborers who were applying for jobs so if Americans were interested, they should have been applying, too. The same goes for  hotel maid jobs and other menial jobs that immigrants tend to do. If Americans are interested in working them, they should be applying for them just like the immigrants do. When I talk to people hiring for these low-level jobs, they talk about the same immigrants coming day after day to see if today they might be lucky. The Americans tend to apply once or twice then give up. Do we need to teach perseverance, too? I don't think the Americans are lazy or unmotivated, but they have a very different set of expectations and skill sets that aren't a good fit for these sorts of low-level, menial jobs. I'm sure the immigrants would like to earn minimum wage, too, but they take whatever job they can get whereas the Americans tend to think that something better will come along.

This isn't an easy problem to solve, and there aren't likely to be any easy solutions that can be easily legislated. Like many problems, compromise is essential. Given the far-reaching implications of these types of legislations, this is way more difficult than rocket-science. At least with rocket-science, you have a whole slew of mathematical equations which form relationships between the many things you are balancing. With illegal immigration, there are no clear cut relationships one can determine.

2011 Men's International Barbershop Contest - Day 4 Observations

Today was the chorus competition. It was a very long day given the very early start to it and no time to nap if I was going to hear all the choruses. That said, the actual time spent in the audience pretty much flew by. The choruses were an interesting mix of choruses performing their two songs and choruses performing two songs with a theme. Some choruses sang clearly barbershop arrangements and some sang songs that I would struggle to classify as barbershop.

Notes from today:

• The camera people still haven't figured out how to pan the whole chorus or quartet. I'm beginning to think they need another camera or something. They have gotten better as the week has progressed but even in the chorus competition, there were many shots of one person from belly to head and two chins over his shoulders. Had they focused the camera nipples up, they'd have had the heads to go along with the chins. Worst problem in my opinion is that they keep going back to the same faces in the chorus most of the time. Once they'd made you into a head with two chins, they'd do it again later in the song.
• Either mic testers need a job description or someone needs to make sure they actually read it. It's lovely to be chosen as a mic tester but you have a job to do. The sound people are supposed to be using your sound to set levels. If you aren't placed where everyone else will be placed, the sound people can't set the levels. I realize this limits your artistic creativity at times but this should be worked out ahead of time. Perhaps offer mic testers three songs so that one can be off the risers or one that invites quartets 20 through 12 onto the stage ;-) While part of me really enjoys the show, if the mic testers don't do their job, the show starts running late from the very beginning. Often shows have strict times they have to be done before they start to pay overtime to the staff so having to add mic testing time can literally cost the show thousands of dollars.
• BHS has a real push to get everyone singing the older songs. We've had mini-mass sings while after intermissions or as stretch breaks. While I love this idea and wish SAI did more of it, it would be so much easier if they ran the lyrics across the bottom of the TV image with the director on it. It's hard enough to woodshed if you haven't a clue what the melody is but when you don't know the words either, it is nigh onto impossible.
• The men's risers have a constant creak to the point of having a fifth note into virtually every chord. While you can't hear it during the louder parts, the riser squeak was louder than most chorus' quiet moments. I think the person who develops silent risers will make a fortune!
• Most of the choruses are completely hooked on the director during the ballad where the chorus members are clearly trying to create characters and sing directly to me as an audience member. The uptunes are all performance numbers which the director participates in and I get to watch but I am not involved in. At some point, I hope I understand why choruses need a director to talk to me. My comparison was that the chorus was Cyrano writing the poetry and telling the director what to tell me except that all I saw of the director during the ballads was his/her back.
• I like SAI's division of choruses into size categories and I think I wish BHS would have some sort of divisions for its choruses. Whether they use size as the divider or use choral vs. performance or some other criteria, some of the choruses were sufficiently different as to barely be in the same contest. How does a 21 person chorus doing a choral presentation of two songs fairly compete against an 80+ person chorus performing two excerpts from a recent show they put on?

After four days of listening, I begin to really understand why some people are irritated at what they perceive as the lack of barbershop sound in some of the competitors. Westminster sang three songs for their swan song while the judges were compiling results. This was my first time hearing them live and it was a real treat. I did find it very sad that the champion barbershop chorus for 2010 only sang one identifiably barbershop song out of their three. What they sang was amazing but at the same time, I felt sad that the champions who are supposed to be our best barbershop chorus didn't sing much barbershop. I think if I had been singing barbershop since I was knee high, I might be concerned for the longevity of barbershop, too.

Let me be very clear that I do not have the best ears. I'd probably have to say that my ears are pretty bad. One of the things I work at during all the conventions I've been to is to get to the point where I hear the barbershop chords and progressions to the point that I can predict them. I view that as an essential skill if I am going to be a good barbershop singer. I want to get to the point where I may not be able to define barbershop, but I know it when I hear it. I don't have a problem with a cappella music being sung, but I would hope that after listening to 4 days of music at a barbershop convention that I would be pretty good at identifying the barbershop sound, and I'm not sure I can. As someone new to the artform

In SAI, the winning chorus and quartet for each region go to international. In addition, the top 5 scoring quartets and choruses who didn't win their region wildcard into international. SAI adds a little twist as well by offering small choruses (under 30 members) and mid-sized choruses (under 60? members) to compete at Harmony Classic. The top 5 scoring choruses in each category who aren't competing at International get to compete on the international stage with similarly sized choruses.

I think BHS quartets qualify for International by a percentage score which makes it easy to see the relative strength of the various districts. The Johnny Appleseed District is clearly a powerhouse region for men's barbershop. They had 2 collegiate quartets (one of which won), 4 quartets in the quarter-finals (1 is in the top 10) and a chorus at this year's competition. That's not to say other districts aren't as strong; merely that with this sort of a qualifying method, it puts the spotlight on the strongest regions. Since quartets are attempting to be a percentage rather than their fellow competitors, it adds to the camaraderie at the district levels.

2011 Men's International Barbershop Contest - Day 3 Observations

Forgive me for keeping this short. It's past midnight on Day 3 and I need to make sure a certain someone is up, fed and appropriately dressed for the chorus contest tomorrow.

Having now watched the top 20 quartets, I am again amazed at the quality. Quartet scores for quartets 50 up to 21 ranged only 5%. Men's quartets are judged on a percentage basis so it makes it easier to compare quartets who made it through one round with quartets who made it through two or three rounds. In SAI, you need to remember that regional contests have 800 points max, first rounds at international have 1600 and second rounds have 3500? Forgive me, I can never keep the amounts straight. They aren't quite multiples of 800 because international has some amount of "performance" points. In the quartet quarter-finals, the lowest ranking quartet received a 74.8% and the quartet which received 21st place received a score of 80.1%. That's like having the lowest scoring first round quartet at a 1198 and the 11th place only 1282. Talk about your consistency!

Random notes from today (and a few I forgot from yesterday)

• Some of the men's costumes include bling. While the small touches were nice, I hope it doesn't become the norm. I like the tuxes, suits, and dress-casual jeans. Yes there were the lime green suits or bright pink shirts, but mostly the men's quartets managed to look unified even when everyone wasn't wearing the same thing. While I hope that someone(!) clues in some of the men that dress pants do need to fit properly, I envy their ease of costume. Let's face it: many of the quartet and chorus costumes in SAI are downright awful. We're so worried about hiding bumps and bulges that we hide everything with dresses worse than the proverbial mother of the bride drecktitude. While I appreciate some attention being paid to our costuming, the point is to sound good, not to be a contestant in a beauty pageant.
• I love that the husband of the president of Harmony Inc. is called the "First Husband".
• Today had lots of bass solos. I really see the difference it makes when the bass sings like a lead and when the bass merely sings their notes. The melody has to be sung in character and so does the harmony. If I don't have a complete character in mind, I think I would find it hard to add expression to my bass line.
• I know that the men can post for days. It's a shame that they seem to get carved in ice as soon as the post starts. They sacrifice the character they've had the whole song for a post.
• Those audience members who shout out "Yea!" the nanosecond the song is done are turning the wonderful fairy dust into dirt. Give the fairy dust a moment to settle before you give your audible encouragement.
• Yesterday during the quarter-final marathon, the audience was better about starting the clapping once the lights when down. Today, they couldn't seem to figure it out again.
• SAI has it's members fairly well trained to sit as soon as the announcer asks. Virtually every quartet thus far has had to wait for rude audience members to continue to where ever they need to go. When the lights go down, they don't sit at the first available seat. They continue up or down the aisle or stairs. They remain standing in the audience even after the MC has reminded them (again) that they are holding up the show. When you have 52 quartets or even just the 20 from today, those extra minutes add up.
• I think BHS should reduce the rates on its jumbotron ads. While the ads from TNS and Groupanizer are nice, there are barely enough ads to make it through one wait for a quartet - and the judges are fast. When there are probably fewer than 20 ads, it gets repetitive very quickly. At a minimum, BHS should have created some extra ads to throw into the mix.
• While I like the bear charity fundraiser, having heard the spiel well over 8 times yesterday and another 4 times today has made me want to go take the bear I bought and donated so I can drop-kick it from the nearest bridge. If you are MCing 52 quartets (or even 20) you need enough schtick to make it work. So far, there has been about 5 quartets worth of schtick before the MCs resort to bears and other fundraisers. I begin to understand why the audience is so rude with their clapping...
• Most of the quartets are very talented at passing the melody among the parts. It's a pleasure to watch and listen.
• LunchBreak quartet is amazing. I want to see them in a local show. I want the words to "Old MacDonald had a deformed farm". I was in stitches and I can't wait for them to be the mic testers on Saturday.
• If most quartets sang old standards like After Hours does, even I'd listen to a whole show of nothing but standards.
• One quartet's music choices today were barely related to barbershop. Great a cappella music but I couldn't find enough barbershop sound in what they sang. It seemed a poor choice of music for a barbershop contest but great choices for crowd pleasers or a CASA competition. I don't think the arrangements would be legal under SAI since they were mostly lead and the pips arrangements with the pips mostly oohing or dooting.
• Suffice it to say that the AIC show was fabulous. Since I didn't have a clue was AIC stood for (still don't actually), I was unprepared for the fabulousness

2011 Men's International Barbershop Contest - Day 2 Observations

Day two of Men's International brought many hours of the quartet quarter-finals. Once again, a very enjoyable day though the luck of the draw did give me one moment where I would have liked a certain lady's flask to ease the pain... None of the quartets were awful but I did become abundantly aware of just how long I could listen to different "B-level: boring but good" quartets. I begin to understand how difficult it is to put together a show featuring different groups. Not only do you need to vary the talent levels somewhat but you need to do it in such a way that no group follows a group that is significantly better than they are and you need to build up to a finish. Oh, enough about my learning here and on to my observations.

I think it is finally settling in that the men glorify the quartet. Men's International has three days of quartet competing. The first day is 52 qualifying quartets singing their two songs in the quarter-finals. The second day includes the top 20 quartets singing (hopefully different!) two songs in the semi-finals. The quartets get a day of rest while all the choruses compete for their one day before the competition rounds out with final 10 quartets doing their package.  There is no show of champions; the quartet finals _is_ the show everyone is waiting for.

SAI glorifies the chorus and likes the quartet. SAI has a day of all qualifying quartets singing their two songs, then a day where all qualifying choruses compete with their two songs. Next we get a day of  quartet finals where the top 10 quartets do their package followed by the last day where the top 10 choruses compete. Lastly, the women put on a show with their top winners of all the categories.

On the one hand, I like the idea of multiple days of quartet competition. To go from 52 quartets to 10 is a strict job and singing on the international stage must be nerve-wracking. Having the opportunity to have a second chance if you didn't bomb your first attempt would be nice. On the other hand, I don't think I'm looking forward to sitting in the audience for another 4 hours today for the semi-finals after sitting from 10-3 and again from 4:30-9:30 for the second half. If I were listening to choruses today, I think I'd feel better about the sitting.

I think I am going to miss seeing chorus packages. I enjoy the singing but I like a show, too. We'll see what tomorrow brings.

Here are my observations from the quartet semi-finals:

• Many, if not most, of the quartets stand somewhat overlapping. The two in the center are rarely shoulder to shoulder but instead overlap. The two end people also overlap the people in the back. This makes the cup closer and probably makes it easier to hear each other.
• This works because there isn't nearly as much planned choreo in the men's quartets as there is in the women's. There is some planned movement but I would say that it is the exception rather than the rule. The men could use a few lessons in choreo that doesn't involve wandering hands. The hands tend to move as the individual parts move which means there is a constant flow of movement. It really distracting from my audience perspective.
• I am particularly tired of the "weighing a woman's breasts" move. Bring the hands up (palms up) to breast level, pause a moment to make the moment special, lift up your hands, smile, and gently lower your hands back to waist level. By the 4th quartet, I was really tired of this particular move. By the 52nd quartet, I just watched with my eyes closed.
• A few quartets did appear to have applied blush. No foundation and the blush was on the cheek hollows rather than the apples. And did I mention that there was no blending or feathering? Just a swash of color the way a 3 year old might do. Yes, the guys need makeup but when they see the results of what they are doing, no wonder they don't want to wear it!
• Many of the quartets had great chords but only the ones where the mouth-shapes matched had any ring that I could hear. I know I've heard this before, but watching 52 quartets ended up being a great way to get the experience I needed to really cement this in my brain. Time to haul out the video camera for my quartet...
• Lots of the quartets came out on stage before they were announced so that they had a shape on stage that contributed to their presentation. It worked for me and it varied the stage entrances to make the contest more interesting.
• Some quartets had the people going to the farthest side of the stage run or job across the stage. Not only did this leave two members with a breath deficit at the beginning of their set, it wasn't necessarily attractive to watch. Not every barbershopper is in great shape and not many people like to see bulky bellies bouncing like a basketball as the person runs across the stage.
• Many of the quartets began their set with the lead singing a solo, then another part joining in on the next phrase, followed by the last two parts on the third phrase. It made for very tender song beginnings but I think that would add immense pressure to the lead. I don't think that sort of thing is legal in SAI but again, it added some nice variety to the 52 quartet march.
• Again, a really nice mix of classic and newer arrangements. BHS is having a "disagreement" at the moment about whether modern songs with modern chording
  
  On the one hand, I understand better now how important those classic songs are. They really do have a different sound and it is the sound I associated with barbershop before I joined AJoy. It is a sound that brings back the feeling of the old times when life was simpler. The chording is easy to harmonize with which makes it much easier to woodshed. If people have a firm foundation in these older, square songs, they'll have a better sense of barbershop chord structure. That has to be beneficial.
  
  On the other hand, the old songs pretty much sound the same because they use the same chords over and over in fairly predictable patterns. Newer songs evoke more recent times and are more entertaining to listen to when there are a lot of them.
  
  Given 52 quartets, if they had all sung modern arrangements, I doubt I'd be able to tell you anything about barbershop other than it is 4 part a cappella harmony. Add in a healthy dose of the more traditional barbershop songs, and I could probably hum a few bars of what I'd call barbershop music. Better yet, I'd be willing to try to harmonize with you if you sang a few bars. If they'd all sung traditional barbershop songs, I'd have left after the 10th quartet to drown my sorrows.

Ok, off to the quartet semi-finals today. Theoretically, Daniel's studs for his tux shirt will arrive today. If not, I get to be creative since the chorus competition is tomorrow.

2011 Men's International Barbershop Contest - Day 1 Observations

Here I am in hot, humid Kansas City attending my first ever men's international barbershop contest. Last night was the opening contest featuring the collegiate contestants, and I have to say, WOW! If this is what the college kids do, I am in for a real treat. I've attended two SAI competitions (Nashville and Seattle) so I thought I'd give my impressions of this contest.

Women
The first thing I noticed is how many women are at this contest. Most of the people manning the ticket booths and sales floor in the merchandising area are women. While this isn't an astounding observation, it means that the men aren't trying to put on the show while preparing to perform.

• While there are men at the SAI competitions, it is mostly the women working to pull the show together as well as keep their heads in the competitive game so they can blast onto the stage. Wouldn't it be nice if the men spent the SAI week doing many of the jobs so that the women could concentrate on the competition itself?

Family
This is a family oriented contest. There is a BarberTots area where people can take their kids and still listen to the show. There are picnics planned. There is a women's breakfast and hospitality suite to make sure that women know they are welcome. There are tons of kids here already. There is a concerted effort to make this a family environment. Women are encouraged to be Associate members so that they can support the BHS and get discounted tickets to contest. (Wish I'd know about that aspect before I paid for my KC tickets though!)

• In contrast, the SAI competition seems to be a women's week away. Not only do I not find it particularly inviting to the male members of my household, the schedules made it hard to find any time to spend with them. I do understand that in the past, if a woman travelled with her husband or her kids, she never stopped being the wife and mother and so couldn't concentrate on the chorus/quartet experience. That's probably still true to some extent today but if we want SAI to continue, we need to figure out ways to encourage it to be supported by the whole family. If  contests aren't family friendly, Sweet Adelines becomes the way the woman spends money and time away from home. As long as the family isn't encouraged to support this hobby, we risk our members having to treat it as a "special" thing rather than a lifetime hobby.

Collegiate and YWIH
There were 21 young quartets last night who did an astounding job. Yes, many of them were nervous but they all did a great job.  There were two or three quartets that presented themselves as comedy quartets which I personally think is great. Music and laughter are both great healers of the soul, and it takes rare skill to combine them well.

The collegiate contest is free and was well advertised on local TV and radio. Daniel and I met some people coming to see the Collegiate show who had never heard of barbershop but were coming because it was free. I think they YWIH show in Seattle was free as well, but I honestly don't remember. This is a great way to get barbershop out into the community.

I think the thing that struck me the most about the Collegiate contest is how well prepared the quartets seemed to be. Yes, some quartets were better than others but only two out of the 21 had me cringing with bad chords. There was only one quartet that had my heart up on stage with them in that Tinkerbell-need of "You can do it! I believe in you!" I contrast that to the YWIH in Seattle where I had Tinkerbell-needs for easily a third of the quartets and some of them had me exhausted because of the work I had to do to find a chord as they sang.

• I attribute some of this to the fact that the collegiate quartets appeared to be fostered and sponsored by the Harmony Foundation which appears to give them $1500 to help cover costs as well as give them access to past Collegiate winners as coaches. Somehow these collegiate quartets are getting access to productive coaching. Most of the YWIH quartets had clearly been coached very well but at least one of them went looking for some sort of local support 4 weeks before the Seattle contest.  From first impressions, the guys are doing a better job of fostering the college kids so that their competition is a success for all involved.
• That said, the YWIH contest included a lot of high school quartets so the women are being exposed earlier. I think local choruses and quartets need to find these girls earlier to give them the coaching and support they need so that their experience is a success. SAI also includes a weekend before competition where local girls are formed into a chorus, taught excellent choreo, and then perform on the international stage during one of the contests. This seems to me to be another great way to encourage the young people to choose barbershop as a way to spend some of their time.
• It's a good thing the Collegiate contestants brought their own cheering sections. The crowd was pretty dead and there weren't that many people in the audience. I'm not sure the YWIH was much different. If we want young people to choose to spend their time and energy in barbershop, we need to be in the audience for them. If the prospect of free entertainment isn't enough to bring in the crowds, we have a major problem.

Judging


I know it takes a lot of time and energy to be a judge, and I sincerely appreciate all the effort it takes to be a judge in either organization. I do wish SAI could figure out a way to speed up the judging process somehow so that our competitions would be more show-like in tempo but I haven't got a clue how to do it. I wish I knew what the men were doing that allows their judging to be so quick so that I would have a better understanding of what the trade-off is.

Random comments

• Can I please be jealous of how well-developed many of the male basses are? As young as they are, they have some great rumble and presence!
• It's time for the men to realize that they are on stage and need to wear stage makeup. Yes, I am aware that I am anti-makeup in just about every other situation, but after watching guys who look ghostly-pale or green under that stage lights, even I recognize that stage makeup is appropriate. At a minimum, many of the collegiate quartets had clearly been up way-too-late the night before and had eye bags half-way down their cheeks. As a mom, I wanted to tuck them into bed and drug them into sleeping for a week. As an audience member, I was cringing looking at the bags on the huge TV screens.
• The camera people have this fascination with the two center people in a quartet, showing three of the four people (often excluding the person currently singing the melody), or showing the four people so that they look like tiny people on a large stage. Could they please occasionally pan the quartet so I could see all 4 faces? Focus on the two wing people sometimes? One quartet had one guy essentially singing a solo with the other three pips singing behind him. Where was the camera focused? On the pips. For the whole 30 seconds of this guy's solo.
• The judging was fast but the crowd didn't think it was fast enough. As soon as the MC came out, they'd start that lovely rhythmic clapping to indicate they wanted the next quartet. I think the MC did a great job staying calm in the face of such offensive rudeness. As an audience member, I apologize to the judges and to the MC for the childish behavior of some of my audience members.
• Twenty-one quartets singing two songs each often means that I hear only 30 or so different songs in SAI. Not here. I think only two songs were repeated at the Collegiate contest. Not only that, but there was a nice variety of old standards and newer songs. There's a lot to be said about singing the old, square barbershop songs as a way of cementing one's sound. Those older arrangements may be "boring" but they offer the quartets an easy way of rocking great chords. As a great woman once told me, "Don't show off what you can't do. Show me what you can do really well." It's a challenge to choose music that your quartet can really ring and that isn't so boring  you tire of working it.
• There's an auction to earn the privilege of being a guest judge. This fundraiser for the Harmony Foundation lets people bid for being a trial scorer at a single event during this contest. Top bidder gets to sit in the judges pit with score sheets and then gets to hang out in the green room with the judges to talk about the experience. What a great fundraiser! What a great way of making judging appear to be a coveted and valued job, too.
• There is advertising by Harmony Inc but none by SAI in the program. How sad that the only barbershop being advertised to the women attending this convention is available primarily in the NE of the United States. A great opportunity to recruit new members has been missed here which is especially bothersome given the January 2012 SAI open houses planned and current membership push. 
• Harmony Marketplace is primarily just stuff by BHS augmented by a few choruses and quartets selling their CDs. I kind of miss the variety of stuff offered at SAI conventions and think the BHS are missing a golden opportunity.
• Another fundraiser being offered here is encouraging the purchase of a teddy bear. Proceeds from the bear purchase go to the Harmony Foundation but you are then encouraged to donate the bear to a local hospital. What a great win-win for all involved! This is yet another way of getting the word out into the community about barbershop.

OK, enough about yesterday. I'll let you know how today goes with the Quartet quarter-finals.

Teaching Cats

I think I'm glad I only had two kids in the group today. They were tired, couldn't focus, and struggled to figure out what times 8 equals 8. I finally gave in and granted them time for a 10 minute nap followed by 15 pushups to get the blood going again. We managed to make it through another few problems, but it just seemed like torture to be asking these kids about fractions when they were struggling so much to put two coherent thoughts together.

It didn't help that I had run out of cereal the day before so there was no food for them to nibble on while we worked. Neither child tends to eat breakfast and their abilty to think is seriously compromised when they haven't had food. We did have a discussion about "healthy" cereal when one of them volunteered to bring in cereal. Every cereal he wanted to bring in was a real-life equivilent to Frosted Sugar Bombs.

We also had a discussion about "no excuses" regarding homework. One of the two routinely doesn't do homework and so I had to give the "school is your job" lecture. I explained that when he didn't even have his name written on the paper, it was an indication he hadn't even attempted to do the homework. If you choose to do karate and other fun activities, you have to make choices that allow you to complete the homework, too. One choice I pointed out was the 10 minutes I had given them in class yesterday to start the homework when  he opted to play with the unit shapes instead of doing the homework. He had forgotten to hand in his homework packet from a previous unit. In looking through it, he had done less than half of one page out of the 20 or so in the packet.

I'm sure I wasn't exactly helping the situation since I hadn't had nearly enough sleep but this being the day before their spring break, the entire school was squirrelly. It was one of those days where I was very happy not to be a full-time teacher and probably the first time this year that I've been happy to leave the kids behind.  On the plus side, one of them said that this is the first time she's ever enjoyed math and that she felt like she was starting to understand it. That's always a good feeling and a huge part of what brings me back each day.

Quartet rehearsal last night was good. I'd forgotten to go over a potential new song with Nikki so I couldn't sing along very well but we ran through most of our other repertoire. I gave them a copy of the new bass solo song I'd like to add. We'll see if this one makes the cut. I'm trying very hard to find a bunch of easy but interesting songs to add to our repertoire. Nikki has something like a 3-rehearsal rule but I don't think we're ready for anything that strict. Perhaps we'll choose a "if it's not reasonably solid in 6 rehearsals, we should drop it" rule. We have both a Mother's Day and a Father's Day gig coming up so we need some non-love songs to broaden our range a bit. With so many soldiers still overseas, "Bring Him Home" seems like it might work for both. It never ceases to amaze me how many songs there are about a mother's love but ones about a father's love are virtually impossible outside of country songs. Hmmm, maybe I'll see if there's  a barbershop arrangement of "A Love Without End, Amen".

I had a great lunch with Nikki the other day. Lots of great conversation about jury duty, singing, competition and the challenges of finding a mentor director. Sweet Adelines had a mentor director program where both parties filled out an extensive questionaire then SAI would match up-and-coming directors with established directors as mentors. They've cut the program due to budget cuts so the question has now become one of  how does Nikki shop for a mentor director. Does the mentor need to be someone that will work with AJoy or could it just be someone that works well with Nikki? AJoy's grown and changed so much over the last few years that it's a little challenging to figure out what coaches might work for us and Nikki. Donny and Amy are a formidible team and have really helped both AJoy and Nikki but looking down the road, we'll need another coach to bring us a long. It's kind of like thinking about what to put on your internet dating profile. What kinds of things can you say that will attract the "right" person and how do you know that you are focusing on the "right" and "important" things. We don't want to spend half our coaching budget bringing in someone to have it be an unmitigated disaster but if we're going to try someone, this summer is a great time to do it.

Oh well, nothing going on this weekend so I can clear off the to-do list: taxes, bills for both home and AJoy, cleaning and repairing costume stuff for competition, buying timed cat feeders for next weekend and, most importantly, sleeping. I'm going to need a lot of energy next weekend!

Challenges of Teaching

Some of you may know that I am an all-but-thesis teacher. I've been volunteering in schools since '98 and have been privileged to work with a lot of teachers and students through the years. Today I want to talk about what I see as the challenges facing schools, teachers and parents as we all work together to educate the kids.

First off, I live in a predominantly upper-class area with a high tax rate going to the local school district so if there was a district poised for success, this should be one of them. There is not an excess of poverty, English as Second Language (ESL) kids, or kids who have serious behavior problems. If we can't figure out how to educate kids when the kids mostly don't  have to worry about their safety, food or shelter, how do we expect to figure it out when a large percentage of the kids can't take those basic (Maslov) needs for granted?

Here's what I've seen in my 10+ years of volunteering. Note that as a volunteer, I haven't had to endure the bureaucracy that the teachers do but I have heard a lot about it.

• Parents proudly stating that they "can't do math" when they are the parents of 1st and 2nd graders. Imagine the outrage if these parents stated that they couldn't read! Talk about challenging a teacher to get kids excited about math when their parents are giving up without even trying to understand the assignment. I do understand that many parents are not comfortable helping their kids with algebra or calculus, but please. for all our sakes, set a positive example and show your kids how to get help rather than throwing  up your hands and giving up. If you as a parent are really struggling to do the math of your elementary school child, please talk to the teacher and let them help you. Education isn't just for kids :-)
• Students who do homework during recess because they have so much to do after school that they can't get it all done. I am not one to believe that school work should be the only thing any child does, but a little balance is necessary. Sometimes, a little sacrifice is necessary. In the case of some kids, they sacrifice their recess time when they really need to stretch their bodies and refresh their brains. In the case of other kids, they sacrifice the practice that comes from doing the homework because they  have "no time". I'm not sure I believe that there is "no time" to do homework, but I do believe that sometimes we don't think about the choices we force our kids to make. Certainly my kids got adept at doing homework in the car as we drove to drama or karate or out to dinner. I did set a reasonable limit on how much time each night I would let my kids do homework but it was predicated on honest effort on their part. I never counted time they whined or fidgeted but I did count time they were actively trying to do the homework. Sometimes they had too much to do and we wrote a note to the teacher to that effect. When I worked with the high level kids, they almost always had all or some of the homework done. When I worked with the lower level kids, they often didn't even have their names on their papers nor had they even looked over the homework to see if they understood it or not.
• Practice makes permanent, not perfect. Kids do  need to do homework to practice skills. If a 1st grade child reads 100 words a day outside of school, they'll have read 36,500 extra words by the end of the year. For a struggling reader, this adds up quickly to help them be successful but they fall farther and farther behind the average reader who is reading 300 words a day. As the  years go by, the divide gets bigger and bigger so the kids who are behind grade level readers in 2nd grade end up being a whole grade level below by mid-4th grade. Believe me, I'm happy to have them read at all but imagine how many more words they'd read in a day if they helped grocery shop to find items or if they worked their way through finding out what the toy in a box of cereal is or learning how to read a map. The more words they read at a younger age, the less catching up they have to do later. Whether it's math or reading or spelling or whatever, spend a small amount of extra time thinking about the skill areas that aren't as strong and figure out ways to make them feel successful rather than failures.
• Anyone who thinks class size is irrelevant has never had to chaperone a birthday party alone. People work better where they feel valued regardless of how old they are. It's hard to feel valued when there are so many students that they can't stretch at their desks without accidently hitting someone. It's hard to have a great relationship with a teacher when you have to wait 10 minutes to get every question answered. It's hard to feel valued when you work 7 hours in the classroom, then another 6 hours planning and grading before the next day only to go home and find out the school district has to cut funds again. Would you assign a really creative assignment that encourages the kids to think if you knew you were going to have to grade all 30 (or 60 in junior high or 90 in HS) of them over the weekend? Teachers want to be good teachers but many teachers have to go into survival mode in order to make it through the day. For your sanity, you give the kids boring, cookie-cutter assignments because they can be graded more efficiently. Bringing class sizes down small enough for teachers to form relationships with the kids that are close enough that the teacher can augment assignments to take advantage of the class she has this year rather than the classes he's had for the last 10 years.
• People learn more through play than through rote. Which uses higher thinking skills: memorizing 6x8=48 or working out the problem because you know that 6x8 is really 6 groups of 8 so if 5x8 is 40 you need one more group of 8 to make 48. Memorizing is faster but it demonstrates much less mathematical understanding than figuring out the answer. It can be a real challenge to get kids to memorize flash cards of multiplication or words or whatever but if you turn it into a game, kids tend to play longer and remember better because it is connected to them. Want to teach your kids the multiplication facts? Play multiplication war. Want to help your kid learn to spell? Have them write the words on one side of a flash card with consonants in one color and vowels in another. On the other side, draw blank lines using the right colors for the letters and draw a weird picture. Have them try spelling the words backwards or just the vowels or just the consonants. It's challenging even for the adults which makes it even more fun for the kids. There are lots of ways to make the homework fun or enjoyable but it does take effort.
• I've never met a kid who didn't want to learn but I have met kids who didn't want to work. When I can show a child why they are being asked to do this work and when I treat them like respectful and responsible individuals, they always respond, even the kid who is constantly in the Principal's office. When I can get a child to relax about whether they got a problem right or wrong but instead focused on whether they understand why they are doing what they are doing, I get a child who starts to pull his/her learning from me rather than me trying to push it into the child. I have had to teach kids how to handle frustration (which helps the problem child tremendously elsewhere) and I have had to teach kids confidence which I find much harder to do.
• Math is a foreign language. We forget that when we teach kids but if you think about math that way, particularly in the junior high school setting, it explains an awful lot. In elementary school, kids are learning English but that's not too bad because most of them have spoken it their whole life. Those students in bilingual education are often learning the second language. This is great long-term, but it tends to slow down the acquisition in the short term. When we teach them arithmetic (+,-,* and division), we teach them a huge vocabulary of words they don't tend to use outside of math class. When kids go to junior high, many of them get into their first real math class, usually some variant of algebra which uses a completely new set of vocabulary terms and way of using and manipulating numbers. In essence, we're teaching them a foreign language at a time when their adolescent brains are scrambled from hormones and reorg and often they are learning another language like French or Spanish. Is it any wonder why so many kids get to algebra and throw on the breaks? When kids hit calculus, they learn a third and (mostly) final language. There is some similarity to the languages of arithmetic and algebra but many terms are used in completely different ways and the ways of manipulating equations is very different. Learning these languages is a fantastic thing but it needs to be realized how challenging we are making their lives.
• Arithmetic and math are not the same thing. Many kids believe they are lousy in math because their arithmetic skills are subpar. In many cases, these kids have excellent math skills and intuition, but they can't do the addition correctly to show their knowledge. I just don't understand why we punish these kids so strongly for not being fantastic at arithmetic when there are calculators that can check their work. Yes, they should do the problem for the practice, but rather than force them to use the "traditional" methods of solving arithmetic problems, can't we brainstorm different methods that help the child be more successful?  There is an awful lot more math in the world than arithmetic. Using a calculator should be no more shameful than using spellcheck. We should all be good at arithmetic and spelling but at least give us credit for knowing we should check our work.

Ok, enough of my thoughts. What do you think? What do you see in your schools aside from the too-little-money problems?

More Than Ready for Competition

Yesterday was AJoy's Friends and Family concert. We scaled it back this year because last year we had people standing in the entryway of the church and it was a wee bit of a fire hazard. I remember being so proud of how well we sounded last year, truly amazed at our progress since the year before. Contest was in mid-April in Alaska and by June, the chorus had improved so much that watching the contest videos was painful. By September, the June videos were too painful to watch. We haven't stopped that pace, and last night was the culmination of all our hard work.

We kept F&F small this year and required tickets for entry. The tickets were free but it meant that we didn't advertise the show to anyone outside our families and the church. Our audience ended up being about 200+ people excluding the 40ish members of the chorus. It meant that everyone had room to sit and nobody was squished. It also meant the chorus could sit down during the quartets.

AJoy started off the evening by singing our two competition songs. They felt strong and fabulous on the risers and from the reaction of the audience, they liked it. I liked that the building rang with our chords. The architect of the church's sanctuary did an amazing job creating a room that rings with energy naturally, and when we sing well and create the overtone, the building rewards us by humming along. Think of it as positive feedback every time we sing it right.

AJoy filed off to the left, and I filed off to the right to join my quartet-mates since we were next in line. This was definitely our best F&F concert of this season. We'd sung last Monday at Jet Cities' F&F, then again on Saturday at PSC's F&F, so this was our third performance in a week and everything just felt like it came together. I was nervous before AJoy unlike at Jet Cities or PSC - I guess I care how well I sing in front of my peeps moreso than when I sing in front of other people's peeps - but since we started with our uptune, I could direct that energy into our performance. I'm really liking starting with our uptune but we'll talk about our song order during tomorrow's rehearsal. Next up was our ballad. We started the chorus a wee bit too soft so there was no where softer to go for the next phrase, but other than that, I think we sang it as best as we are able. Since we had the option of singing a third song, we brought out "Codfish Ball". It's a funny song and we're still getting the choreo down while keeping the sound up, but the audience really seemed to like it. It's competable so maybe we'll perform it at competition next year but we're going to perform it this year at the Thursday night competition kick-off meeting.

Next up was Frenzy. Can I just say that I want dibs on their first CD? They don't sound at all like they did two weeks ago when I thought they were amazing. They've transformed in these two weeks from a region-winning quartet to a quartet worthy of being on the international stage. It's a monumental change and I could have just melted last night while listening to them. Larry's comment was that the bass' voice was like buttah - it just enveloped the sound and provided that perfect feeling that the other voices could layer their flavors on top of. The tenor's voice is so quiet and unassuming until you realize that she's singing those high notes so perfectly that you weren't even aware of them as separate notes but rather as just part of the notes the lead is singing. When she brings out her voice on the gospel song (whose name I should know but don't), you are suddenly laser-focused on how amazing she is - and how amazing she's been without you realizing it before. Nikki, the lead, has a voice that I thought I knew very well but when she sings with Frenzy, her voice is transformed into a sound that weaves seamlessly into the other voices so it becomes difficult to pick hers out of the mix. She is still undeniably the leader of the group but its more her presence than her sound. Having learned how challenging bari parts are - challenging note progressions and constantly rebalancing each chord to make it work - I have nothing but admiration for how seemlessly it was done. I think this Frenzy gestalt is the real difference from Frenzy two weeks ago. They were 4 fabulously talented singers singing really well together but now they are far surpassing what they can do individually. It's been an amazing transformation and I am privleged to see it happening.

Next up was Sunbreak, a brand new quartet. Not only is the quartet new, but two of the people have been singing barbershop less than a year and a third member has been singing for barely over a year. The fourth member (the bass)  is experienced but that's quite a load to take on. The good news is they are all fantastically talented. I learned last night that the lead wrote their humorous tag song! The bad news is they had a coaching session three weeks ago where the coach basically told them to change most of the way they are singing. While they are all talented enough to make the changes requested, they are under significant time pressure with competition barely two weeks away. They sang really well but they are clearly still thinking about the mechanics. Overall, I think they are a better quartet than Champagne but we have more experience. They have a good chance to win the Novice Quartet Award if Frenzy doesn't qualify. I'm sure they'll be in the top 25% next year but this year is harder to tell because they don't yet have a lot of consistency in their performances yet.

Finally, AJoy took the stage again and sang our competition songs followed by "No More Sorrow", "Come Fly With Me" and "Happy Together". The last song is a really hard arrangement that Nikki thought would take us five or six weeks to pull together. Two weeks later and 15 minutes of sectionals, we were ready to add choreo :-)  AJoy has worked so hard this year and we are really building on the firm foundation of basics we've been studiously getting down for the last few years. I don't know that we'd win the region but we are at least contenders and that's a good feeling. It's also a great feeling that nobody is getting anxious about scores. We don't have to score X in order to be happy. We're fairly consistently singing at 95% of our best and that is a great mindset to enter contest with!

Let's Twist Again, Like We Did Last Summer

Actually, I'd rather not. The performance went OK but during the choreo for "Codfish", I twisted my ankle slightly then almost fell when I had to support myself on that foot later. I'm jumping the gun though so let's get back to basics.

Champagne, my quartet, had a fabulous time coaching with Lea yesterday. The two hours just flew by! Lea managed to help us tweak our two contest songs just a bit without overwhelming us with details. She's such a supportive person to start with but she has an innate sense of how much to push without being overwhelming. She did suggest that the lead and bari exchange notes on the last note of our ballad. The note is the one crack note our bari has and the chord wasn't balancing. The lead and bari are great musicians and were able to make that change easily and perform it later flawlessly.

The Pacific Sound Chorus' Friends and Family concert was packed well past overflowing. People had to stand in the hallway to hear quartets. It's a good problem to have but I kinda hope that AJoy, PSC and Jet Cities can coordinate into one Friends and Family night next year. Yes, it would mean fewer opportunities for the quartet to practice, but we could perhaps get a real stage so that it would be more like contest. PSC was sounding the best I've heard them. They had a relaxed energy about them which made being a guest a pleasant experience. In the past, they've often  had a frantic or fearful feeling about them and it was nice to see what they could do when they were relaxed. They also had more character and engaged faces that made them so nice to watch.

I am majorly bummed that I didn't get to hear much of Sunbreak. They're a new quartet filled with superb singers and but they are mostly all new to barbershop. They've come a long way since they started and I like listening to their progress. Airwave was one of the other quartets that is largely a reconfiguration of two previous quartets. I think I like the sound of Airwave better than either of the two previous quartets so here's hoping they score better at competition. I think that would put them in the top 5 of the region  (out of 22).

Frenzy was down having a rehearsal weekend and they came to see the PSC show. I'm sure they were ready for a break after all their hard work, and it was really nice of them to come watch. I'm glad I'll get a chance to hear them on Monday night at AJoy's F&F night. It's interesting to me that there are some quartets I could listen to hour after hour and others that I find challenging to listen through an entire song. Their level has nothing to do with it; I'm talking about the top fifty quartets here. I find it fascinating that quartets can have such a wildly different sound from song to song, too. I don't hear that inconsistency at the world-class quartets so I'm thinking that is one of the hallmarks of an international-ready quartet. In any event, Frenzy is one of those quartets whose sound I find very cozy and warm.

Kay, their tenor, sent me a really sweet note after the PSC show telling me I have a voice similar to Shannon Harris. Nope, I didn't have a clue who Shannon Harris was but I discovered she was the bass of Brava!, Sandy Marron's quartet that won international. It was an inspiring comment that I have to live up to but not yet :-) I have a lot still to learn and another child to fledge, but I think I'd like the experience of winning regional and having the opportunity to attend international as a participant. I have a long way to go and so much to learn but I'm  a sponge.

We're off to see "Iron Curtain" at Village Theatre today. It's billed as a communist comedy and since Village has a history of doing fantastic shows, I'm excited for an opportunity to turn off my brain and enjoy  a good show. I won't be able to see much of it. I tried a new mascara last night and my eyes are not happy with me today. Good thing I'm a touch typist else my daily blog would have died in under a week :-)

A Day's Work is Better with a little sleep

Too bad I didn't get much of it.  Personally, I think I'm just trying to channel the Heir :-)

I got home very late last night after the drive from Green River CC and for some reason woke up at 4am. Yes, I can handle a day of coaching and a performance on too little sleep. Call it my version of a beta-blocker. I think I might be afraid to see the video later (if anyone videotapes it). Part of learning how to perform is learning how to put life and thinking aside so I can just perform.

I'm still looking forward to the day. It's hard to believe that in two, very short weeks, the quartet competition will be OVER. We are sounding good and we've worked very hard for our improvements. I'm not sure that all of us are over our obsession with the numbers from the judges but I sure am. It's only 6 minutes of my life and if I try to live every six minutes of my life as if they'll be judged, I'd become too afraid to try anything; I'd only do what I knew I could succeed in doing. That's not a bad thing when you are competing. Show the judges what you do well and don't show what you are still learning to do. Of course, they care about the sound first so even if you can tap dance while singing, they don't care if you can't ring a chord. Remembering those sorts of things helps keep my singing priorities in order.

Oh well, off to turn myself into a streetwalker so the audience can see my eyes.

SingSpiration

Yes, I know it's the name of a quartet but after listening to all the Div2 quartets tonight, I feel inspired. It was a way-too-long drive complicated by a lot of "you can't get there from here" at the Green River College Campus, but it was worthwhile.

None of the quartets were clinkers, some were very good, and most had people I have seen/heard before. It was lovely seeing how much some of the quartets and individuals have improved since I saw them last in Portland. The whining of the air system was incredibly annoying but wasn't nearly as bad as the smell from the oil the maintenance guy used to "fix" the problem. It didn't alter the sound or the frequency but did give the room a slightly nauseous feeling. The quartets muscled through and did their best to ignore the distractions. I wish I could go to the chorus competition tomorrow and then to the quartet finals and show of champions but my quartet is singing on the Pacific Sound Chorus Friends and Family show so I get to miss it.

Another highlight of the evening was having a (way too late!) dinner with Jen. We tried to find a Mexican restaurant that my GPS said was only 1.8 miles away. More than six miles later, we had driven round the hill and through CasinoLand but the restaurant was closed up tight. We found our way back to highways and a Denny's where good conversation was punctuated with OK food. I so rarely take the time to talk to people in the chorus. I'm moderately anti-social but usually there is just too much going on or it is getting much too late. Jen's a neat lady and I've always enjoyed by heretofore brief conversations with her. It was nice having some uninterrupted time to just chat.

Speaking of which, more later. I have a coaching later today and a show in full competition makeup and costume. Well, almost. I don't have to use the formal stage base so that'll save me 3 hours: 2 hours getting it on me down to the clothing line and another hour trying futilely to remove it at the end of the evening.

Puffing Your Peeps

 I’m a geek and sometimes I don’t quite get analogies. At a recent chorus coaching, the coach, Beth, kept talking about "puffing your peeps" as a way to think about growing our sound and sharing it with others. I could envision what Beth was talking about with her “puff your peep” analogy, but I decided I really needed to try it for myself to really understand it. After enduring the scorn for bring home Peeps because no one will touch the things in my house, I told the rest of the family that Evil Nikki, the chorus director, and her partner in crime, Bodacious Beth, had given me homework. No surprise, the whole family had to watch this.

Beth and Debbie, another chorus member,  were quite adamant that peeps could be puffed no more than 5 seconds else the wrath of the world would descend upon us. Being the cautious type, I carefully placed 1 peep onto a plate, put it into the microwave, and watched my peep as the timer counted down: 5,4,3,2,1, OBNOXIOUS. Well, to be honest, I didn’t see much puffing going on but sure in my faith in Nikki and Beth, I dutifully popped the peep and grimaced. It was still that icky, sticky peep, now just vaguely warm and gooey.

Well, at least I’ve provided a few minutes of laughter for the family as I struggle to eat it. After all, a mom who says to her children “once the food goes in your mouth, you have to swallow it” can’t exactly break her own rule…

But there are four more Peeps looking forlornly at me. They are cute, and well, part of being a geek is understanding just why a rule exists. So, I dared to try again for 6 seconds. As I watched, I detected a small slight crackling in the pink exterior and a slight bulging around the belly. Ok, I guess I’ll eat a pregnant Peep with stretch marks. It was better than the first one, but honestly, there were only hints of goodness. At least there was somewhat less laughter at my weird faces this time around.

Ok, now I’ve broken the magic 5 second rule with no evil consequences, endured eating two of these vile things, and understand even less than I did before I started. Once more into the microwave went a Peep to be sacrificed to science. We went a daring 7 seconds this time and I watched as the Peep’s belly swelled to quints at 9 month proportions. There were stretch marks up to the little duck’s beak but the stretch marks promptly turned into wrinkles as her pregnant body collapsed in the cool kitchen air, and she hadn’t heard a scream from them yet, much less tried to get them into their snow gear. Putting her out of her misery, I popped her into my mouth as my family watched eagerly to see what faces I’d make this time.

Wait a minute, this thing is good. Like boyfriend good. Like burning bridesmaid’s dresses good. Like perfect shoes good. Like I’ve been watching too many of those silly yogurt ads. Realization dawns: I have puffed my peeps and they are good! Even better, I have two more to puff!

Being a real daredevil, we go for 8 seconds. I watch that Peep puff, and puff, and puff before the OBNOXIOUS bell forces me to open the door to shut it up. Cold air hits the peep and all the puffing becomes Lake Peep on the bottom of the plate. Ok, we have officially achieved uggggggggllleeeeeee. Even my faith in Nikki can’t make me touch Lake Peep so I leave that in the sink for Sharron to clean up since it’s her week to do dishes.

I only have one more peep left, but now I know not only where ugly is, but I know how good one step back from ugly is. I also have crossed over the line set for myself and pushed beyond what I thought was right, proper and merely good  to the place where it is great.

Unfortunately, Sharron’s puppy eyes over my delight in the goodness of peeps and the torment of being saddled with the cleanup overwhelms my sense of righteousness and I puff the last peep for her.  My adventures were just a memory on my lips and another inch on my hips.

Hmmm, I wonder if the store might have another box of Peeps?

Yet another chorus fail

Last night was the Pathways concert at my daughter's high school. This is the concert where they start with the elementary school choirs which feeds into the junior high choirs which feeds into the high school choir. It's designed to show parents and the community how the choir programs integrate and to generate interest in choir. It's really not bad since every choir just sings 3 or so songs. We were done listening to 5 choirs in just over an hour's time. By the end of it, my daughter was in tears of anger and frustration but more on that later.

My kid's elementary school started a new choir program in January of this year. They've never had a choir of any type before but now they have two choirs. The Junior Choir is for 1st-3rd graders and the Senior Choir is for 3rd-6th graders. They did a bang-up job and even did a semi-complicated round. When the teacher said at the end that they'd only been rehearsing one day a week since their creation in January, I was even more impressed. They even managed to do "It's a Small World" alternating in English and Spanish.

Next up was another local elementary school where they have a long history of having choir. The kids rehearse twice a week during lunch recess and last year, they blew me away with how good they were. They were still good this year but their music was too complicated for them to execute very well. I could get glimmers of their good sound but this was a clear case where the music did not fit the choir very well.

There are several other elementary schools in the feeding pattern, but these are the only two of the eight elementary schools who have choir programs. For the most part, both of these choirs feed into one of the two junior highs. The junior high where my daughter attended gets very few students from either school with choirs. Their junior high school performance was pretty good. It was nice to see so many returning faces and having 5 guys in the choir of 25ish this year is a big improvement over last year's single male. Their choir program is also not helped by having a part-time instructor but more on him later.

The other junior high benefits from having all of the experienced kids from the established elementary choir program attend it's school, and it shows. Their director is a fantastic man who is clearly loved by his 35+ students but who also has discipline with them. They sang some very hard pieces and had a good time with the whole experience. There are enough students to merit a full-time choir director but budgets being what they are, their director also teaches other classes albeit at the same school. This allows for the good bond between the choir members and their director that we see demonstrated on stage.

The last performance was by the high school choir. They sang some hard pieces and actually did a decent job. The reason I hedge this is that I'd heard so much from my daughter about how unprepared they were, how so few members choose to rehearse, and generally about the lousy work ethic that exists. I should have learned with my son, but apparently I didn't: my kids are perfectionists who eagerly notice the icky stuff but tend to ignore the good stuff.

The high school choir was about the same size as the better of the two junior high choirs but may have been a little smaller. They didn't have quite the sound and togetherness of the junior high choir either. I suspect that a large part of this is that the director of the high school choir is also the director of the smaller junior high choir. The director is very talented but he is struggling to save the chorus program at the high school. Choir interest has been waning over the last few years so this year, this director is teaching the high school choir, two english classes at the HS and is the choir director of the smaller junior high school choir.

It's no wonder my daughter complains about the lousy work ethic of the choir: the director is being pulled in too many directions and he can't afford to alienate any of the students in the class else the choir program will cease to be. It's not a good situation for him or the students, and thus was born the Pathways concert. It's no surprise that the high school is having a challenging time getting students involved in chorus since there has been only one elementary school (of 8) who has had a choir program before this year.  Since the high school has a musical theatre program that routinely gets awards, the choir program should be filled with good voices and hard workers but most of them don't join the choir. I suspect they have more important things to do than to spend time in a group where many choose not to work and where there are few consequences for making that choice.

Needless to say, my daughter has opted not to do choir next year. This saddens me because she is not one of those kids who thrives on academics and homework, and she needs daily music in her life to help balance her. She wants to join my chorus after competitition and that's wonderful but a once-a-week rehearsal is not the same thing as a daily class. It also saddens me because someone who does have  decent work-ethic will not be in the chorus supporting it. I'm hoping against hope that the choir director can find enough students to join choir next year so it won't be cut, and he won't be teaching still more academic classes. While I'm sure he is a competent teacher, teaching English is not where his heart lies.

So why was my daughter in tears last night? In the junior high choir, she was praised for emoting and enjoying the songs they sang. She was a joy to watch but as you can imagine, one of the very few who was animated at all and definitely one of the two who seemed to enjoy the music. That said, since the rest of the choir was fairly static and petrified, my daughter's movements caught the attention of virtually everyone watching the choir and that's not always a good thing. She's tried to mellow her movements a bit this year in the high school choir, but she's still one of the 3 kids who looks anything but petrified and is really the only one to move.

In the middle of the first song last night, the director asked my daughter to tone it down to nothing: no movement. Having been rebuked in public, she did the only thing she could think of and became totally disengaged. No one except the other chorus members could hear the rebuke but that anyone heard it at all was enough to have her completely withdraw. When the song was finished, she turned to her neighbor during the performance and tried to get clarification on the movement allowed. When the next song started, she had a smile on her face and a bit of sway in her body but because she was the only one moving, she was once again asked to tone it down. She spent the rest of the performance completely disengaged and robotic but completely still.

Let me be very clear: because no one in the choir was moving or emoting, my daughter's movements and expression stood out very clearly. I do understand why he asked her to stop. That said, he's had her in choir for almost two years. If he'd asked her to be still just before she went on stage or any other semi-private place, she'd have been annoyed but complied. By doing it in public, she felt publicly humiliated and is now certain that she won't do chorus next year.

And yes, I'm not even going to press the point that when singers aren't smiling, their sound is  flat and dead which makes it virtually impossible to match notes or make a chord. I did kind of hint at it when I described the really good junior high chorus though...

Nothing to it but to do it

No, this is not an inspirational blog but rather a place to put my general musings down in a place to encourage discussion. I have opinions but I realize they aren't always right. I encourage civil discourse in an effort to enlighten me about your point of view. You may, or may not, convert me but you will educate me and I appreciate those efforts.

I'm a person who believes that when you stop learning you start to die. I'm far from ready to put a foot into the grave so help keep me young.

As with many things, this blog has been started by the desperation exhibited by one of my kids. The eldest fledged off to college last September. We gave him the choice of a weekly phone call or a (mostly) daily blog post. He chose the blog post without realizing that this meant communication would mostly be one-way. For a while, I think he was ok with this. College was daunting and somewhat overwhelming, and I believe he longed for the simplicity of home. Now he's got a girlfriend and is ready to hear more from home.

Here you go, kid. :-)