Bass initiation, and a sad good by to a real hero...

Our first gig with our new bass (New Dave) was Saturday and it couldn't have gone better! We headed out in the heavy snow and bitter cold in our tuxes to sing for a birthday at the Grosse Pointe Club - a very ritzy and exclusive yacht club in one of the richest neighborhoods in the metro area. The wonderful lady that hired us had everything timed to a tee and the small gathering was VERY appreciative and responsive. We started out in the club's bar singing for the patrons. To my great joy and surprise, we were ringing more chords than any group with a band new member has any right to! Our banter (as we almost never script any) was fresh and off-the-cuff, our sound was tight, and the patrons were attentive and smiling.

The small group of close family to the birthday girl was even more engaged, chatting with us, joking, and laughing between songs (which was good, as we weren't sure our set list was long enough to do the whole gig). With all the friendly chit-chat aand occasional breaks as we moved from bar to dining room, we easily made it through the hour and a half engagement nd recieved some WONDERFUL compliments! We were even asked for busniess card a few times, which we were more than happy to provide the well-to-do folks who never seem to flinch at price. ;)

We have rehearsal tonight and plan to work almost exclusively on our show tune, the Flying Sinatra Medley. This one's a bear of an arrangement by Ed Waesche, but has some great transitions, a great tempo, and a KILLER tag. I can't wait to get this one polished up!

On a sadder note, my mom's friend, Charlene Pushman died last Friday. She was a wonderful woman and my mom's roommate for several years. She struggled with her weight, like my mom, but was always more motivaated to do something about it. She was a great driving force in getting my mom to go to the Y and swim, get moving, and always a friendly listening era. She was sweet, but honest, a joy to be around, and - quite simply - saved my mother's life.

A few years back, after she moved out on her own, I got a calll from Charlene at about 11:30 at night. She had just gotten off the phone with my mother and was concerned that she didn't seem particularly lucid. She asked me to go check on her, as my mom only lived a mile from me. When I got there, she was barely conscoius, lips bluue, and gasping for breath - she was havving heart failure. I callled 911 and she spent the next 3 weeks in the ICU at Beaumont. Scariest point of my life, bar none. If Charlene hadn't called me, my mom wouldn't have made it through the night.

I was gooing to take my mother to the viewing last night, as I'm working today durring the funeral. I got to my mom's and she was up, dressed, ready to go, but had just attempted to get down the first step of her hoouse on her new walker with the assistance of her physical therapist and had a lot of trouble. I commended her sincere effort (along with the coroboration of the therapist), had dinner with her, and went to the viewing alone. I shared my condolences with her friends and family and shared my story. They needed to know.

I'll always be indebted to Charlene for my mom's life. She will be sincerely missed.

The Final Countdown...

BIIIIIG weekend...

Friday...well...sucked. We got blasted with about 8 inches of snow early Friday morning. While the kids got the day off, I didn't. Driving sucked. No witty analogy, no clever euphemism - just sucked. Getting to work wasn't that bad. The roads were snow covered, but passable. On my lunch break, I decided to get some gas so I wouldn't have to delay myself anymore than I inevitably would anyway on the way to Blockbuster for my shift there. After trudging through calf-deep drifts to my car and gunning the engine to get the momentum to get out, I managed to crawl to the gas station 2 blocks away. I knew it would be bad when I saw a tow truck pull in, skid, nearly hitting my car, and get stuck a mere 2 inches from my bumper. I threw in 5 bucks and crept out to the streets. Due to f*cked up traffic patterns, I ended up having to try turning around in the parking lot of a strip mall - an unplowed parking lot.

I pull into what I presumed was a parking space and immediately got stuck in a snow drift. For the next 15 minutes, I tried rocking the car, turning the wheel, and shouting expletives at my tires (ya know, for traction). I finally gave up and went inside to the Coney Island for lunch. I had a nice chat with my dad on the phone, and then called work to tell them I was stuck 2 blocks away and would be late coming back. I then spent ANTHER 15 minutes trying to free the Blue Bomber II until I manage dot move enough snow to get out. My tires are now smooth as a baby's bottom, necessitating REDICULOUSLY careful driving until I replace them. Chalk up another item to the Christmas Wish List...

Saturday was spent clearing stuff out of the house and cleaning. I made a HUGE drop off to the Salvation Army of old clothes, unplayed with toys, and other odds and ends, finally packed away my summer clothed, did some dishes, and ran some items to the shed. With the plan to have Christmas Eve in our own house for the first time...well, EVER...we want to have place as uncluttered and functional as possibly by Wednesday.

That night I had a gig with the quartet to do a private Christmas party at a home in Rochester. In order to get weekend nights off of work at Blockbuster, I often barter the quartet's services to my manager by offering to sing there before the gigs. We met there and were greeted not only to the usual mele of customers, but my sister, uncle, and an old friend, Chris, from my drum corps days who saw my posting on Facebook! We tried out a few of our songs and sounded great. MEGA thatnks to ur "groupies" who came to cheer us on! (And I hope I didn't traumatize Chris's son, who burst into screaming terror at my enthusiastic greeting.)

From there, we headed out to Rochester with the help of Lou's GPS system. We decided to take Rochester Road straight up, which was a fine and logical idea - until we hit about Auburn Road or so. I had never heard of the Downtown Rochester Light Fest. Apparently, all the stores in Downtown Rochester cover themselves in sheets of lights. Quite a spectacle, to be sure, but not nearly as bright as the fury on my face as we got caught in the 3 mile backup with no way out. We got there about 45 minutes later than planned, but thankfully, the hostess was more than understanding. We proceeded to do a GREAT set (about 15 minutes more than we had planned) for the enthusistic and responsive crowd of about 15 people. She offered for us to saty a bit and enjoy some of the great food, wine, and conversation. We had a great time, finding plenty in common with the other party patrons and even sang a few extra songs. It was an absolute blast and we likely made another few future customers. From there we headed back to Blockbuster to get our own cars and I met Sonya, her brother, and his friend at the Coney Island. Sonya spent much of the time I was singing, cleaning the carpets, and wanted to blow off some steam with fun people. Thus rounded out a VERY good night.

Sunday started out with very little motivation, but we got moving eventually, as the kids were now with their grandparents in Flint. We tidied up the living room, and did a HUGE blitz of the kids' room. The house is starting to feel MUCH better.

Happy Hanukkah to all of my Jewish friends! More on the uncoming Christmas Mele to come!

Giggidy-Goo and Thanksgiving, too!

So we had the gig at Goldfish Tea. Not or best venture. 7-9pm on a Sunday isn't exactly "tea time", I guess. Probably why the owner wanted some entertainment - to draw people in. She may have broken even...almost. We had about 10 people of ours show up, and that was almost the entire clientele for the evening.

We sang...okay. It's been a while since we've been in the groove of real practicing, so there were plenty of brain farts - forgotten lyrics, mixed up verses, couple of sour notes, etc. The past few rehearsals were mostly spent on learning our next chapter show feature song, which we are to debut for the chorus tonight. It's long, complicated, wordy, and fun as hell. KILLER tag to it!

This week is going to be interesting. We're going to the in-laws' in Flint for Thankgiving dinner with the family. Sonya's making rumblings of trying to hit the parade downtown. I love the parade, but am not so keen on getting up at the butt-crack of dawn to stand in the cold for 3 hours. I have a few friends (band directors, mostly) in the parade, but I'm just as happy to wave at them through the tv screen while snuggled under a warm blanket.

Black Friday will be NO picnic. The office is open, but all are welcome to take the day off. However, you must use vacation time to do it. As I will need to use 1.5 days of vacation time for Christmas Eve and the day after Christmas (office is closed both days, but as a newbie, I'm forced to use vacation time), that leaves me only one vacation day left. I want to use that the Monday after Christmas for a 5-day weekend. So Black Friday, I work from 9-6 at the office and 6:30-11 at Blockbuster - a 14 hour day with no time to shop...yay.

Other than that, no big news from me this week. Happy Thanksgiving to all of you. Special shout-out to the Mays. You'll be in my prayers, as always, guys.

Doin' The Barbershop Strut...

The try-out went... (wait for it)... GREAT!!!! I couldn't have felt more comfortable. I had a great rapport wit the guys. As soon as I stepped in front of them, all the years of teaching marching bands came back - the good and a tiny bit of the bad.

The bad was mostly just a few conducting techniques that work well for marching band, but not so much with chorus. My baritone, Dave, who has two (count 'em - TWO) vocal music degrees, dropped me an e-mail the day before, reminding me of some of the differences (left hand for expression & cues, no mirroring, eye contact is MANDATORY, etc.) and I started off with a couple of the old bad habits, but quickly remembered them. I was comfortable enough with the guys to tell them to call me out on those things, but fortunately, they didn't need to again. I empowered chorus, humanized myself to them, created better mutual communication, and best of all reminded myself enough to not make the same mistakes again.

I had a "lesson plan" in mind on my way up, which I went over in my head several times (in my ice box of a car). When I got there, however, they went through "I'll Fly Away" and I saw some great ways to improve that. As their interim director/bari section leader stepped down, I asked him if I played with that one a bit, with the understanding that I tell the chorus that whatever I teach is subject to "unlearning" after I leave. He said to go for it - so I did.

I had planned to work on moving ending consonants to the beginning of the next word - a good and simple trick to smooth out phrases, line up attacks, and make awkward skips easier. I did go over this, but while singing "I'll Fly Away" with them, I noticed the interim director trying to find spots for unison breaths, and there simply aren't many good ones in the music. I stepped up and taught them stagger breathing. after about 1/2 hour, a little sectional work, and calling out an individual or two (with a friendly grin, of course), we had 2/3 of the song sounding a billion percent better. Even their facial expressions and body language improved and that's not even something we covered!

As they got better, so did I, making more eye contact, using my left hand more for dynamics, moving around, mouthing words and using facial expressions. I started having more fun than I EVER had in front of a marching band!

I didn't think I stood a snowball's chance at this gig when I first e-mailed the guy in charge of the search committee. Now....I want the hell out of this job. If I could do this for free, I would. It went better than I could have possibly imagined. They spend the next several weeks trying out a couple other directors.

Now begins the waiting game. This suspense will KILL me!!!

Oh, the Weather Outside is Frightful...

The first noticeable snowfall of the season! I headed out last night to pick up some milk & pop, and I could hear Suzie Snowflake tapping on my window. Pellets of good ol' Michigan "snain" were tap dancing on the hood of my car. When I awoke this morning, it had changed to full-fledged snow. Not much, mind you, but enough to add a festive canvas for colored lights and holiday music on the radio.

Thankfully, I don't have far to commute to work, and it's all surface streets, so I was more fortunate than many of the other commuters on the roads today. I started out listening to the local "All Christmas, All Season Long" station, but switched to my usual "All News, All The Time" station to see what what's up with the world this morning and heard the longest traffic report in a long time. Seems we Michiganians are a bit rusty with the winter driving. Be safe out there, folks. Better late than dead.

The quartet had a rehearsal last Thursday. It used to be, I would look forward to quartet rehearsals, but with some trepidation. I enjoyed singing and harmonizing, but much of the rehearsal was spent bemoaning personal lives, arguing over repertoire and interp, rehashing tips from chorus coaches (which rarely applied to quartet), going over boring standards, and fixing wrong notes (or cringing and ignoring them) in one or more parts. These days, with this new(er) configuation of the quartet, the repertoire is more challenging, the chords ring a LOT more, the songs MUCH more fun, and we can pick up new ones VERY quickly. I LOVE rehearsals again! We can easily start around 7pm, and the next thing you know, it's 11pm and we have to force ourselves to break it up.

Lately I've been introducing songs I've recorded for my client quartet in Nevada. I've always been a Sinatra fan, and their quartet - aptly named Rat Paq - focuses on tunes of that ilke. With our next chorus show focusing on songs of the 50's, there were a few tunes I recorded for them that fit squarely in that box. Being cool songs, with great arrangements and with learning tracks provided by yours truly, I though this would be a good idea.

It wasn't a good idea, it was a GREAT idea! We tried a tune called the "Flying Sinatra Medley", utilizing "Fly Me To The Moon" and "Come Fly With Me". After MUCH convincing of our lead (who wanted to do something rock n' roll), we tried it out and it sounded promising. Rough, but promising. This week, at the behest of our bass, we gave "In The Wee Small Hours of the Morning" a try and it RAAAAANG! There are some great chords, wonderful room for interp and dynamics, and it's just a sweet balad. After 2 runs through, we found ourselves talking about a new contest set.

It's going to be a busy season for the quartet. We have a gig performing with the chorus at Henry Ford Village this sunday, another at the Goldfish Tea in Royal Oak on Sunday the 23rd (7pm-9pm), and the Hazel Park City Hall on December 13th (6pm-8pm) for a neighborhood enrichment event. We're brushing up our Holiday tunes for these and sounding good. I'm hoping this may lead to a few more gigs, so I have to print up some more business cards. I'm realy looking forward to getting out and performing with these guys again. It's been over a month and I'm jonezing.

Work is getting a bit...discouraging. Sales is not a good line of work to be in at this point in our economic history. The family budget is getting strained, bills are piling up, and our savings is getting tapped more than I'd like before the Holiday season. Hopefully, the Christmas shopping rush will hit soon and things will pick up. It would help to be given the tools to be able to compete, but that's a rant for other venues (non public). I may need to look for a 4th job. I'm not sure where I'll fit it into my 55 hour work week, plus family commitments, recording tracks, and quartet gigs, but I'll do what I gotta do. There's still the potential of the directing gig in Lansing, but that won't even be decided for a few months.

Okay, time to head to work and hit the phones. Gotta keep the heat on and food on the table.

Stuff, Stuff & More Stuff...

Been a busy week. This is the first time I've been able to grab a cup of coffee in the morning and sit and blog. I usually try to get some "me" time a couple times a week to sit at either the Caribou in Royal Oak or the Bigby Coffee in Madison Heights to either catch up on my blog reading or blog myself, but I've just been too tired. To be honest, I probably could have used the extra hour's sleep, but mental health is important, too.

Saturday and Sunday I spent hanging with my sister, helping with her garage sale. About half of the wares in her driveway were mine, but it was mostly her stuff that sold. I brough some instruments I needed to clear out, which gleaned a lot of interest, but was asking REAL value instead of "garage sale deal" prices. Still, it was fun to hang in my sister's driveway, chatting and catching up with her while catching up on e-mail on my laptop. We're planning our own garage sale for next weekend, for which my sister will be bringing her leftovers so we can return the favor.

School's drawing near for the kids and I'm not exactly looking forward to it. Courtney starts all-day kindergarten next week, which means mornings are going to be kind of crazy. Last year I just had to get Liam ready for school in the mornings, drop him off, and would get to spend some time at the coffee shop before heading to work at 10am. Getting one kid out the door on time was hard enough, but now with TWO kids to get out the door and my new job starting an hour earlier, I expect mornings to be crazier and my coffee time to be shorter. On the upside, Sonya will have some more time to get her stuff done.

School also means Cub Scouts is starting up again. Sonya is extremely involved in the troop and has already been spending a lot of her time planning and attending meetings, as well as organizing popcorn sales, campouts, and agenda. This is going to be a crazy fall. I suppose it's a good thing that I'm not working with a marching band again this year, but I still get that pang of regret when I wake up to a cool, crisp, sunny morning and think, "this will be a GREAT day for rehearsal!"

The quartet has been getting paid gigs a bit more lately. We had a party to sing for last week and it went VERY well. We haven't had much time to rehearse lately, but that doesn't seem to affect us much. We were supposed to rehearse last night, but our baritone didn't seem to think we were confirmed. After hauling myself and my lead to Livonia (about 20 minutes drive) and waiting 20 minutes for him to show, we called him. Living a good 30-40 minutes away, we decided to cancel and go home.

I hadn't been home more than 20 minutes when I check the quartet's e-mail and find a request for our services - a 2 hour stroling gig at Henry Ford Museum. Cool! I call the guys and e-confirm. 5 minutes later, our chorus treasurer calls me with ANOTHER gig, a novogenarian's birthday party. We may have to take a bit of a rate cut on that one to fit the client's budget, but to be honest, if it's close by, we'd sing for free (but don't tell our clients that).

Wednesday was Sonya's birthday. She rarely makes any real PLANS for her birthday or decides how she'd like to spend it in time enough to get and inviting or prep done. This year, she bought a swing set on Craig's List for the kids. Between Cub Scout meetings and my work schedule, the only time we realy had to get it was the evening of her birthday. I managed to get Lou to convince his girlfriend, Linda, to help us and use her pickup truck to get it all the way from Clinton Twp. (30 minutes by freeway). I told Lou to meet me at 6:30 at my place. Lou gets the time wrong, and he and Linda show up an HOUR early. I get home at 6:30, change, and Lou, Linda and I head out in 2 cars to start dismantling. We get there to find it's a very large (not quite huge), but VERY heavy and sturdy wood playscape.

"Oy....this will be daunting."

After taking off the slide and monkey bars/swings off (destroying more than a few VERY rusted bolts and screws in the process), we managed to find about 6 of us to haul the fort section to Linda's truck, with a GREAT degree of strain and difficulty. We spent the next hour or so trying to figure out how to balance it in the truck bed and secure it with the least amount of damage to Linda's vehicle. We put the monkey bars and slide in my car's hatchback and left the ladder section for me to grab on Saturday, as it was about 8 feet tall AND wide and it was too dark to dismantle at that point.

About 9:20pm we finally hit the road and take surface streets at about 30mph to get the monster home, flashers a-blinking. On the way, I call my friend/customer, Dave, to join us for a small gathering/party-ish shindig at my place upon our arrival. We get home, unload the fort from Linda's truck and accessories from my car. Dave arrives just in time to miss the major work and I head out to grab beer, rum, and pizza.

The rest of the evening was just plain fun. We sent the kids to bed after a slice of pizza and sat around in the backyard talking, eating, drinking, and just have a good ol' grown-up time. The evening started with some good productivity and ended with some great socializing. Sonya was pleased...which pleased me.

The weekend is sure to be a flurry of activity as well. The swing set will be assembled Saturday morning, Sonya plans to head to the in-laws' cottage with the kids at some point, I work Ye Old Video Shoppe, and get some recording done for my adopted Nevada quartet to rake in a few bucks, then head up to the cottage afterwards. Hopefully Monday will just consist of just hanging with the family on the beach, maxin' an' relaxin'.

In Perpetual Motion...

What a week! Seems like I haven’t stopped moving over the past several days. Aside from my regular duties at work, fate has conspired to fill up almost every minute of my day, with a few evenings of sheer boredom.

Last Monday I went to chorus and to my delight, one of my favorite clients from work took my suggestion and came as well! He was a bit self-conscious, being more an amazing keyboard player than a singer, but he did manage a few bars here and there. After rehearsal, he and I, along with my friend and quartetmate Lou, went to Four Green Fields and had a great time swapping stories about gigs, women, life and such over a couple beers. I hope he comes back. Not only did I have a blast, but it’d be great to get another real musician in the chorus. He’s got a great bass sound.

The following Wednesday, my quartet got together for the first time in almost 2 months to rehearse for a couple upcoming gigs we lined up for the weekend. We ran down a list of songs we knew well, ones we sorta knew but needed to brush up, and ones we need to learn. I was pleasantly surprised at how many we actually knew well. We had a disappointing gig several months ago for a birthday party. We generally charge $260/hr with a 1-hour minimum, and we were hired for an hour. Now, that usually (especially at birthday parties) involves about 30-40 minutes of actual stage time with some banter included. THESE people put us on a stage and expected us to sing for the full hour. I hadn’t expected that and we weren’t terribly prepared. About 40 minutes in, we ran out of material (we sang a bit fast and banter was rushed). We managed to eek out a couple shakier songs to fill the time, but it wasn’t pretty. Lesson learned.

NOW we had AT LEAST an hour’s worth of music. We went to our first gig (a birthday party) and did wonderfully. Only glitch was that it was an outdoor party and there were some passing thunderstorms. They had canopies, so we stayed mostly dry, but one lightning bolt hit what must have been about 3 houses down and nearly gave me a heart attack! Still, we sang on and everyone was pleased with us.

From there, we went to the Relay For Life at Ferndale High – a benefit for cancer research. We were supposed to be ambient entertainment on the track, but due to the weather, we were moved to the gym. After singing at the entrance for a few of the high school kids there (who, not surprisingly, were extremely impressed with our choice of footwear), we moved inside the gym. At first, we figured our sound would be completely sucked up by the ambient noise and echo, and we’d be barely heard. Acoustics are a funny thing. We started out with “Zippidy Doo-dah”, one of our better songs and has a great barbershop 7^th just before the tag and a big cut-off. We’ve gotten REALLY good at ringing chords lately and LOVE holding that one at full volume because we do it so well. We get to that chord and as we sang it, we heard the wavelengths reinforcing each other in the echo. It got louder and louder as we held it. We cut off and it just RANG FOREVER! We look at each other with the biggest shit-eatin’ grins you ever saw, finished the song, and never had another worry about being heard in there.

Sunday was Liam’s belated birthday party for his friends. Planning Liam’s party is always tricky, as his birthday lies almost always around Memorial Day weekend, so we usually put it off a week or 2 so more kids can attend. This year, the planned weekend for his party coincided with one of his classmates who had invited his entire class. Rather than try and compete for guests, Liam went to his friend’s party and had fun with his friends while collecting a few phone numbers for his own guest list. After several calls, it turned out that only one of his friend from Cub Scouts, Lucas, and our friend Jenn’s 4-year-old daughter could attend. Being a small party, we decided to have it at Civic Park in Madison Heights; a WONDERFUL park with lots of room, facilities, and even a skate park. That was the clincher for Liam, as he’s been having a blast tooling around on his new Heelies and roller blades lately. The teens that usually hang out there are absolutely great, making room for him, encouraging him, and giving him tips along the way. He brought his unicycle along and impressed the teens there with that as well. We were there for over 4 hours, talking with Leigh, Jenn, and Sonya’s parents, eating pizza, and watching the kids play. Sonya made cupcakes in wafer cones and airbrushed Transformer logos on top, as well as using the same stencils for food coloring tattoos for the boys. Despite the low turn-out for Liam’s friends, he said it was the best birthday party ever. Mission accomplished, largely thanks to Sonya.

All this week, Liam has been spending his entire day at day camps, starting at the Cub Scout day camp from 8am till 4, then heading to Flint with Grandma to catch their church's Vacation Bible School. It's been very long week for Sonya as well, as she's been getting up at the crack of dawn to help the Cub Scouts set up and helping with the very high-energy kids and activities. They're both exhausted. Thankfully, the Cub Scout camp only ran through Thursday, so they get to sleep in today and relax a bit before heading to Flint for the final session of Vacation Bible School.

Monday night was the annual Detroit Target Fireworks along the Detroit River. Sonya, the kids and I will often join Sonya's parents for the event by parking at Sonya's parents' place in Corktown and walking to the embankment by the Lodge Freeway to watch them. The view is a bit obscured there and we catch maybe 1/3 of the show through trees and between buildings. This year, I took my sister up on her offer to join her on the 40th floor of the Comerica Building to watch them from one of her law firm's offices. I was hoping to take Sonya and the kids with me, but the kids didn't get back from Flint in time to leave and Sonya was to exhausted to get moving quickly, so I left solo. It was a small gathering including myself, Valerie, my friend Paul Bastian, and a couple of Valerie's friends. The view was AMAZING and I had a blast.

The rest of the evenings this week have been rather dull. The kids have been in Flint for all or much of the evening and Sonya has been tired and sore, so most evenings have been spent coming home, doing a few chores, making or buying dinner and vegging in front of the TV. This is rare for me, as most of my nights are filled with errands, rehearsals or work. It's been a bit boring, but a welcome change of pace.

On the docket for the next few weeks are trips to the cottage, quartet gigs, more camps for the kids, and of course work, work, work. It's going to be a BUSY summer.

Coming up next: "It must be Thursday. I could never get the hang of Thursdays"

Have I mentioned…I LOVE THS QUARTET!?

Once again, Coda Honor graced the Applewood Estates in Flint with our glorious presence this past Saturday and had a great time singing for their annual Fall Festival.

The Daves and I headed up about 10:30 and met Lou and his girlfriend Linda at Haloburger for a bite before the gig. We sat around and talked about convention, tunes, and such and did a couple of songs for the employees before we left. After arriving at Applewood, we started in with our usual stuff, strutting around the grounds and ringing chords for the folks.

The thing I love about singing for this organization is that it's almost always a strolling gig. There's no pressure or spotlight. We just wander around, enjoy the festivities, and sing what we want, when we want. The thing I like best about the low-pressure environment is that we can play around a bit.

I've always wanted to be in a group that can woodshed (lingo for "improvise") really well. We only have a solid repertoire of about 13 songs, and repeating them over and over can get awfully dull after a 3-hour gig. I usually bring my ukulele to fill out the song list a bit, and inevitably, the rest of the guys will join in whatever song I'm singing and flesh out the sound with harmony. It's great fun. Even better is when we get requests for songs we don't know and try them out. No music, no arrangement, just us doing our best and relying on our ears and instincts to come up with full harmonies and avoid doubling parts.

We headed to the barn on the estate where the livestock are featured, sang a song or two in the larger of the rooms, and were met by a request to venture into the stables to sing for a couple special ladies. This lovely girl in a wheelchair and her sister, who we sang for at this event last year, wanted to hear us again. We wander on back and greet them warmly, eager to brighten their day with a song. We figure the most chipper and uplifting song we knew was "Keep Your Sunny Side Up", so we start into that one, ringing very well against the hay on the floor and cement walls.

Oops…

As we went through the song, and came up onto the end of the first verse, we realized the lyrics go, "Stand up on your legs, be like two fried eggs…". The gal is in a wheelchair. Singing this song almost on reflex, we caught the impropriety just ahead of the lyric and all somehow mumbled the words, getting through them quickly. Crisis (sorta) averted.

Nope.

The second verse has the phrase, "Stand up on your feet, give the world a treat…". CRAP! Same tactic. Mumble the lyrics, get through the phrase quickly, and try to stick the hell outa the tag!

We regroup and quickly go into "Zippidy Doo-Dah" to cover. They then request "Sing A Song" from Sesame Street. Not in our musical arsenal. I look at Lou, who says he knows the words. A quick glance to the other guys and we start singing. We get through a verse or 2 fairly well, just to appease the lovely young ladies. They then request "You Are My Sunshine". Again, not something we have sheets to. Once again, we start singing anyway and sound pretty good! I love this stuff! Nothing cooler than saying, "We don't know that one, but for YOU…" and busting out someone's favorite song.

Later we're in the garden by what was once the chicken coup of the estate, and we sing through "Whiffenpoof", which has references to being "poor little lambs" and "little black sheep". We sounded great, but a volunteer pipes up with, "but you're in the chicken coup, not the sheep stables!" With a smirk, I huddle with the guys for a second. We then turn around and sing "Wild Irish Rose", clucking and bucking like chickens.

We had the audience laughing as we finished and I turn to the guys and say in a loud steady voice, "Sorry guys, but I think that one laid an egg". Not missing a beat, with equal syrupy sarcasm, one of the listeners counters with, "Yea, that was pretty FOUL". Not to be outdone, I retort with, "Well, we'll wipe the egg off our faces and sing something else". And so the next few minutes went with pun after pun being thrown back and forth. We take a bit of a break to compose ourselves, laughing the whole time.

Yea, dad. That's your influence all the way.

This is why I LOVE doing this gig. The patrons are friendly and appreciative, the volunteers are helpful and chipper, and it's just plain FUN! THAT'S what I got into barbershop for!

…That, and the checks always clear.

For Love AND Money – Our first REAL paid gig...

I'm never keen on taking time off work. True, there are times I absolutely DESPISE that place, but as I'm paid hourly (and fairly well, considering the menial, yet specialized nature of my tasks) each minute takes a bit out of the ol' paycheck.

When I'm giving up my $15/hr in favor of earning $40+/hr to sing, however – hand me my car keys – I'm gone.

I love performing with a quartet. Even if I'm not getting paid, I love singing. The fact that we can – and have – charged as much as $260/hr to have this much fun almost seems obscene at times. At $65/hr per guy, if we could just find a way to book 20 hours worth of gigs a week, as opposed to the 2-3 a month (summer, mostly), we'd all be set for life.

But I digress… Back to the story….

Coda Honor has been performing at events for the Ruth Mott Foundation at Applewood Estates in Flint for the past 3 years. They usually call us about 2-3 times a year to sing for their Fall Festival, Holiday Walk, and some odd event in the summer. They were the first group to call on us after our first gig at the Corktown Homes Tour several years back and have been our most faithful and appreciative customers to date. We're always greeted with a warm smile and checks in hand. We love this group.

This year was no different. I was a bit nervous at first. We had been practicing with this gig in mind from the start. After FINALLY finding a bass, we had about a month – about 4 rehearsals - to learn as many songs as possible. I figured we might be able to get about 5 polecats ready, but for a 3 hour gig, I wasn't sure that'd be enough. The closer the gig came and the more we got together as a quartet, the less I worried.

We gathered at our bari's house about 4. I was the first to get there after stopping for some McD's (by the way, don't bother with their new iced coffee – it's crap). I was able to chat with Dave about music and his daughter's extremely cool job working for a Sci-Fi mag in Cali. We got the rest of the guys together and piled in Big Dave's van to head to Flint. On the way, we talked about contest songs, ran through some of the tunes, and came up with a list of what we knew. 8 songs that sounded good. Not bad for 4 rehearsals!

We get there and give a dry run for "Zippity Do Da", which we had just learned 2 days earlier in chorus rehearsal. Even with no practice, no music in front of us, and faking most of it, it sounded surprisingly good! 9 songs! Cool! I figured I'd bring my ukulele along just in case we needed some filler. I can plunk and croak out a fair repertoire, when the need arises.

We were met by a volunteer, checks in hand, and are given the rundown of the schedule. We have some time before the greeting ceremony, so we head to the rose garden and elicit some smiles and light applause in the rose garden.

For the greeting ceremony, I was contacted a week earlier and told we would be singing after the Chief Operating Officer's speech. The organizer, a lovely lady named Linda, asked what we would sing. I ran down our minimal repertoire. By sheer kismet, our set list fit perfectly. They have been doing construction to re-route the creek so the garden wouldn't be flooded anymore, so "If The Lord Be Willin' And The Creek Don't Rise" was perfect, and as their mascot is a frog, "Rainbow Connection" was another of her favorites she recommended. However, as the C.O.O.'s speech got a bit long-winded, she suggested we just wrap it up with the "Irish Blessing" so folks could get to their ice cream. We then sang for about 15 minutes for the folks in line, running through pretty much all of our repertoire. Then we hit the trails again to sing around the grounds.

As we strolled back to the gardens, I started plunking out a tune, just to pass the time. As I sang, the other guys joined in, in harmony, woodshedding some great backup! You'd think we'd rehearsed it! I started to get goosebumps. This happened several times throughout the evening.

When we got to the garden, we were met by a couple young girls who started requesting songs we didn't know like "Supercalifragilisticexpialidotious". Only having 9 songs in our repertoire, they started to look a bit disappointed. Suddenly we all look at each other, shug a bit, and start singing it. Completely unrehearsed, faking the words a bit, but sounding astonishingly decent!

We then ask her to sing and she starts crooning "This Little Light of Mine". We then start backing her up, layering "Do Lord" and harmony over her melody. My head begins to spin. Had I actually managed to get a quartet together that had this kind of talent!?

After the gig, we stopped at Mexican restaurant for dinner. We talked about everything from computers, music theory and history, sci-fi, stocks, politics, to possible songs for contest and other topics for well over an hour. We had an absolute blast.

I have always enjoyed being part of a quartet and making music. I've been a part of about 6 or 7 different quartets or variations thereof in my life, but to finally be a part of a group of guys that click so well, appreciate and respect each other, have so many common interests, and above all have REAL talent just blows my mind. If I could bottle this feeling of sheer joy and amazement, getting more guys into barbershop wouldn't ever be a problem again.

I
Love
This
Quartet!!!!!!!!!!!!