Events Outside of School

A few months ago, I went to an event in Boston called Acapella Live. It is a concert that is hosted by a college that invites other college acapella groups to come and perform as they are judged in a competition. It was so cool to see people sing on a college level, they had a lot more sophisticated and complicated harmonies and rhythms than what we sing at the high school now. Each acapella group explained a little about themselves, and it was nice to find out that most of the members that made up the groups were regular people who were not in college for music, but just sang for the fun of it. By just watching them onstage, I could tell that the groups were having a lot of fun, because they were smiling and engaging with each other which made the concert more enjoyable. In the years to come, I think that our chorus should try and achieve a better stage presence, because the groups that did well in the competition were always the ones that looked like they were having the most fun and who were the most engaged. Also, it was great to see that there were more guys in every single acapella group than girls, some groups were even all male! Hearing a concert that was dominated by male voices was very different from our concerts, which was refreshing. Finally, listening to acapella music was so cool, because the performers were able to make all these cool noises that sounded like percussion, when it was really all voices. This factor takes singing to a whole different level, because its another thing that the singers have to think about. Attending concerts like Acapella Live is important because we need to see what other choral groups are doing, not just our own, so that we can see what's out there and learn from them.