Re: Role of music in UBF -- RSQUBF discussion forum

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Date Posted: 23:02:18 09/05/04 Sun
Author: PSUDAB
Subject: Re: Role of music in UBF
In reply to: Chris 's message, "Role of music in UBF" on 10:44:54 09/05/04 Sun

>Maybe you can share your thoughts about the role of
>music in UBF. How much did it influence you?

In my case, my entire life changed because of the role of
music in UBF. I had grown up in a very musically minded
family. There have been, to date, 36 teachers in my
mother's side of the family alone. Many of them were music
teachers, and those who weren't were still involved in
music in one form or another. My Aunt Liz gave profes-
sional instruction for years. I also received professional
instruction, however, by the time I entered college in 1987
music was not in any aspect of my life.

After several years in UBF, I became the Music Director at
the Penn State chapter. It certainly was a tremendous
challenge, because of the size of our chapter. We had no
instruments, not even piano accompaniment, in our chapter
for the first 7 years I was there. In the beginning, we
only organized "special music" for regional Spring/Easter
conferences and the Christmas Worship service shared with
Columbia and other New York and New Jersey chapters.

Later on, I was asked to gather together "special music"
for every single SWS. In these times, I was already under
serious emotional strain because it had been two years
since my mother passed away, and it wasn't getting any
easier for me. In fact, it was getting a lot worse,
because I had graduated college in 1997 and was left with
a lot more time on my hands to "think" about things.
Because we had no instrumentation to involve in our special
music, we worked with what we had -- a cappella singing.

The height of the complexity of my work came in 1998-1999.
Dr. Joe found some old music for four male voices for our
1997 Christmas Worship Service, and the rest of us thought
it seemed a good idea at the time. It was a barbershop
arrangement of "O Holy Night", as produced by a popular
Barbershop Harmony Society from the 1950's.

It was Dr. Joe Schafer's decision to "leave the girls
alone" for a while and concentrate on a men's quartet. So
Dr. Joe, Dr. David Lemmon, Mark Casamento and I formed what
would become the ever-famous "Bibleshop Quartet" for our
performance in the 1999 MSU conference.

We did A LOT to prepare this number we performed. Firstly,
I joined a local chapter of SPEBSQSA, Inc., the Society for
Prevention and Encouragement of Barber-Shop Quartet Singing
in America, back in February, 1998. The purpose was to
learn the true dynamic of this particular style of a-
cappella men's singing. It's immensely more complicated
than it appears, believe me. So, with this chapter of
SPEBSQSA, I attended local meetings, weekend workshops,
performances, and even a week-long music conference where
I learned principles and properties of arranging for quar-
tet. I also traveled to New York to visit a WORLD-famous
music arranger, Walter Latzko, who was the arranger for
our powerhouse version of "Wonderful Grace of Jesus"
(which, I shouldn't neglect to mention, has a difficulty
rating of 3 out of 3 on the SPEBSQSA scale). After that,
we ordered fabric that would eventually make up the blue
vests that we wore for the 1999 MSU performance. Sharon
S. made the vests. To add, Joe S. and I also traveled to
New Jersey to the store from where we ordered the other
parts of our tuxedos that were worn for that time. Mixed
in with all of this was the 200+ hours of rehearsing for
this ONE SONG. Joe and David needed some work on their
voices, but at the very least, they were ready, willing
and able to put the time in for the rehearsals, so... I
had no opposition from that end. Mark, on the other hand,
was a CONSTANT difficulty. His vulgar displays of temper
were one thing for Joe to deal with, since Joe was the
chapter director, but for me??? I'm like 'hey, I'm only
doing what I'm supposed to be doing, I don't need any
grief from you.' Needless to say, I was immensely grateful
when the performance was finally over. We had reached the
peak of essentially 6 months of concentrated work.

Equally as hard were the months that followed, but for a
different reason -- I didn't know what to do for music!
I had become very accustomed to surrendering my weekends
for "special music", but I'm a very VERY emotional and
sentimental type of person. I always deeply missed the
relatively peaceful enjoyment I had by myself on Saturday
nights, but those times were long gone.

Truthfully, I don't know how all those months passed, from
Summer 1999 to mid-Fall 2000, when I ceased being the Music
Director. Actually, when I came back from the Russian
Summer Bible Conference, I hit this point where I didn't
want to involve anyone else with working on "special
music". I did it all myself, singing Russian songs as
solos, with piano accompaniment (which had really started
somewhere in 1999). Somewhere in late October 2000, I
snapped completely, and I stopped basically everything
except one-to-one Bible study and attending the SWS.

Sometime after the big 1999 MSU performance, I quit attend-
ing the local Barbershop chorus chapter. I quit on my own,
but the story Dr. Joe always told was that he said that
"it was time" to stop attending. He also used to say that
he "sent me there", as if on a mission. Truth be told, I
joined the chorus because I wanted to.

Finally, it was sometime in mid-2001 that I stopped all
involvement with UBF, on personal reasons.

Even though I got really sick and tired of dealing with the
old people in the Barbershop chorus, I still contend that
it is the greatest form of small-chorus and quartet
singing, bar none. That comes basically from all of the
training that I had. But had it not been for that initial
research on Dr. Joe's part in picking out a tune for one
Christmas Worship Service, I'd have never known about this
big Barbershop movement in America today.

PSUDAB

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Common practice -- Mike K., 06:17:55 09/06/04 Mon