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
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