My kingdom for a Lead
I am not a sore loser, and I don't normally point fingers, but I have got to get this off my chest
Our quartet- newly renamed Dysfunction Junction is made up of four voice parts. These are the Lead, the Bass, the Baritone, and the Tenor. I have listed them in order of importance to the success of the quartet. Basically, if you don't have a good lead, you are cooked. Great leads have been known to carry a quartet. It is VERY rare that a quartet can be good enough to carry a poor lead and have any success.
Our lead is driving me crazy. We have been together as a quartet since March of 05. When we started to get serious about the quartet, we started getting a lot of outside coaching. One of the things that the coaches have constantly said, is that our lead is singing too hard, and needs to concentrate on an easy production of sound. Barbershop songs are known for having high, loud endings, called tags. Singers that do not have good training or good discipline tend to scream these tags. A trained ear can hear this in a minute, and will recognize that as a singing error.
When we had our first rehearsal in WV, our lead mentioned to me that he was looking forward to singing tags at the parties after the contest. He was really going to "crush" some tags is what he said. I told myself that will still needed him for the contest, so I didn't kill him on the spot.
Lead had brought his girlfriend along on this trip. The rest of us thought that this was not a bad idea. She might have been a calming influence on him, and she is a nice girl. We like her.
What we didn't realize was that Lead was going to treat this trip as a honeymoon with her. I swear he could not go 5 minutes without having his hands on her somehow. It really got nauseating after a while.
The mindset during a quartet weekend, especially at contest, is that the quartet is totally focussed on the performance, and they will spend 95% of their waking time together. This time is spent rehearsing, or talking about the performance, or listening to other performances, or whatever. The purpose is for the quartet to bond. This bond will show through in a performance, and is one of the intangible things that separates the good from the great quartets.
Our Lead has family that lives in WV. He announced that he was going to have dinner with them Saturday night. Now, granted, that we were not going to perform again until late that night, and our contest was already finished, but there was work that we could have done. This all would have been acceptable, except for the fact that he had blown off a coached rehearsal just two weeks ago, to be with this same group of his family. Baritone nearly lost his mind when he heard this.
Now, our contest performance is only two songs. Maybe a grand total of 7 minutes on stage. We have been working nearly 8 months for this moment. The last week before contest, we met 5 times to rehearse. We would have met that way for the two weeks prior to contest, except that Lead had a family vacation that he could not get out of. To make matters worse, on Friday, our travel and first round day, he still had to go into work, since he did not have any vacation days left. Oh, and did I mention that Lead has to be at work at 4 30 AM? So, his interary was work from 4-12. Then drive 4.5 hours to WV. Then rehearse, then go to dinner, then get dressed, made up, and rehearse again, Perform at 9:57, PM, and get our ass kicked by the judges.
He said he was a little tired. You think?
We slipped from 11th place to 20th place. We were beaten by three seniors quartets whose combined ages have to average 60 years old!
Continued tomorrow.....
Our quartet- newly renamed Dysfunction Junction is made up of four voice parts. These are the Lead, the Bass, the Baritone, and the Tenor. I have listed them in order of importance to the success of the quartet. Basically, if you don't have a good lead, you are cooked. Great leads have been known to carry a quartet. It is VERY rare that a quartet can be good enough to carry a poor lead and have any success.
Our lead is driving me crazy. We have been together as a quartet since March of 05. When we started to get serious about the quartet, we started getting a lot of outside coaching. One of the things that the coaches have constantly said, is that our lead is singing too hard, and needs to concentrate on an easy production of sound. Barbershop songs are known for having high, loud endings, called tags. Singers that do not have good training or good discipline tend to scream these tags. A trained ear can hear this in a minute, and will recognize that as a singing error.
When we had our first rehearsal in WV, our lead mentioned to me that he was looking forward to singing tags at the parties after the contest. He was really going to "crush" some tags is what he said. I told myself that will still needed him for the contest, so I didn't kill him on the spot.
Lead had brought his girlfriend along on this trip. The rest of us thought that this was not a bad idea. She might have been a calming influence on him, and she is a nice girl. We like her.
What we didn't realize was that Lead was going to treat this trip as a honeymoon with her. I swear he could not go 5 minutes without having his hands on her somehow. It really got nauseating after a while.
The mindset during a quartet weekend, especially at contest, is that the quartet is totally focussed on the performance, and they will spend 95% of their waking time together. This time is spent rehearsing, or talking about the performance, or listening to other performances, or whatever. The purpose is for the quartet to bond. This bond will show through in a performance, and is one of the intangible things that separates the good from the great quartets.
Our Lead has family that lives in WV. He announced that he was going to have dinner with them Saturday night. Now, granted, that we were not going to perform again until late that night, and our contest was already finished, but there was work that we could have done. This all would have been acceptable, except for the fact that he had blown off a coached rehearsal just two weeks ago, to be with this same group of his family. Baritone nearly lost his mind when he heard this.
Now, our contest performance is only two songs. Maybe a grand total of 7 minutes on stage. We have been working nearly 8 months for this moment. The last week before contest, we met 5 times to rehearse. We would have met that way for the two weeks prior to contest, except that Lead had a family vacation that he could not get out of. To make matters worse, on Friday, our travel and first round day, he still had to go into work, since he did not have any vacation days left. Oh, and did I mention that Lead has to be at work at 4 30 AM? So, his interary was work from 4-12. Then drive 4.5 hours to WV. Then rehearse, then go to dinner, then get dressed, made up, and rehearse again, Perform at 9:57, PM, and get our ass kicked by the judges.
He said he was a little tired. You think?
We slipped from 11th place to 20th place. We were beaten by three seniors quartets whose combined ages have to average 60 years old!
Continued tomorrow.....
posted by Troubador @ 11:30 AM
1 Comments:
At 7:54 PM ,
smallpantomime said...
Man, I've played with folks who have the same attitude as your lead. It sucks, and I usually drop them like a hot potato.
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