Monday Night, March 30, Practice

We had a good turn out for practice, with 11 men. Mark Hatfield started with stretching exercises and then moved into vocal warm ups. Next week I'll be leading the physical exercise and Paul Hixon will lead the vocal warm ups. We worked on Shine on Me (with the verse), Take Me Out to the Ball Game, M-O-T-H-E-R, and Oh, How I Miss Her. We then broke for an organizational meeting while the rest of the men sang Tags. Finally, we did some, quartetting. I'm on the hook to get us 20 copies of The Star Spangled Banner. I've ordered them, and we should have them for next Monday's practice. Mark H. handed out CDs with some new Tags on them. I listened to them and I think "Hello, Hi", is going to be great.

Mark H., Paul, Mark P. and Gene blend in a quartet. Lot's of fun!

Chorus Organization

CHORUS ORGANIZATION...............I am discouraged by the blatant dues increases for 2009 by the Society and District in these economic times. (50% by the district.) I don't feel many folks in this area would be willing or able to spend in the neighborhood of $200. a year when most of that goes outside the Chapter with minimal value in return!
The expenses to purchase music and learning discs, hire a director, and operate as a non-profit business in my opinion could be about $3000. a year. This is in the same range as the expenses for a 50-75 member chorus. The larger chorus can cover this by charging $30. dues and doing 5 engagements at $300. each. At our level (10-12 people) and $100.-$150. an engagement we would need 25 engagements a year to survive.
It seems to me that the logical way to proceed is to charge a dues of about $50., pay the fees to allow us to operate as a non-profit business, defer Chapter chartering, and make Society membership optional for the chorus participants. If enough people become Society members on their own, we can revisit chartering at that time. Comments please!!!

CHORUS DIRECTOR...I contacted David White, the South Central Ohio POC for the Ohio Choral Directors Association. He advised me that a search can be done through the American Choral Directors Association and we might expect to pay $75. - $100. for a rehearsal. I checked the ACDA site and saw several Sweet Adelines ads in major markets with no wage mentioned. David also said that a lower key effort could be done with local advertisements. Best guess from another local source indicated that $25. an hour ($37.-$50. a rehearsal) or less may be reasonable for this area. More discussion among the chorus is required.

Lyle's Learning Lounge

Here's a site I stumbled upon. Lyle's Learning Lounge, It will be especially valuable to you new folks. It's got all the Pole Cat songs, along with a lot of other valuable info. Enjoy! I've also added it as a link.

Monday Night, March 23, Practice

Well, another practice under our collective belts. It was pretty well attended, but we were short a lead, baritone, tenor and bass, assuming Dick Bradford will be coming back. Guys, we miss you!

We had another visitor tonight. Mike Henry, a bass. (I think maybe I should switch to baritone). We rehearsed, Oh How I Miss Her, The Star Spangled Banner, Aura Lee, Take Me Out To The Ball Game and....... We all should be working on those songs for next week.

Chorus Members, left to right. Dave Tenor, Chester Collins, Paul Hixon, Bob Cook, Mark Poyet, Mike Henry (guest/new guy), Gene Hoyet, and Jamie Rout. Mark Hatfield took the picture.

And just so he won't feel left out...........here's Mark Hatfield on the left.

Apple Corps Info is Now Available

The Spring edition of the Cider Press has just been published at the JAD web site. It has all you ever wanted to know about Apple Corps. Below is a quote from the Spring edition of Cider Press.

What to Do - First of all, Apple Corps Music Camp is a wonderful weekend of barbershop singing, fellowship, and fun, with a bit of music education thrown in. Apple Corps is held on the beautiful campus of Kenyon College. The campus of Kenyon is located in the town of Gambier, Ohio, or maybe the town of Gambier is located on the campus of Kenyon. Either way, the two are virtually indistinguishable. The college itself was established in 1824 and most of the buildings are original.

Monday Night, March 16, Practice

Well, quite a few of the guys were unable to attend last night's practice. But we made some progress on the verse to Shine on Me and Oh How I Miss Her. We had a visitor, Dick Bradford, a Bass, we determined. Dick has not sung in a group before. By the end of the night he was sounding pretty good. We hope Dick will become a regular member of the chorus.

Dusty Rhoades once again joined us and offered his usual, expert, advice. We all really appreciate it Dusty.

Members in photo above (left to right): Jamie Rout, Chester Collins, Dusty Rhoades, Gene Hoyet, Paul Hixon, and our visitor, Dick Bradford. Looks like Dick will be a real performer. Bob Cook was taking the picture.

Tag Learning - What is a tag?

For those of you unfamiliar with barbershop, a tag is defined as:

"the last section of the song. Its rough analog in Classical music is a coda. Tags are characterized by a heightening of the dramatic tension of the song, frequently including a hanger, or posted note. In addition, good tags can be sung as short, stand-alone works. Tags may be soft and tender but are typically characterized by loud, "paint peeling," ringing chords. According to the competition rules of the Barbershop Harmony Society, every song entered for a competition must have a tag. Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tag_(Barbershop)," 09/07/2008.

Want to learn a few tags:

Click Here


This is one of my favorite barbershop tag videos:



Come out and be with us and we can sing a few together.

See you soon

VLQ Performs at Bell Tower Mission in Bourneville

On Saturday, March 14, a VLQ (Very Large Quartet) performed at the Bell Tower Mission in Bourneville, OH. We provided the entertainment for the ladies of Delta Kappa Gamma Society, the professional honor society of women educators. We performed for about 20 minutes. I think the ladies enjoyed us. And the kitchen staff said we sounded good from their vantage point. Of course they had a closed door they were listening through. Chorus members performing were, from left to right, Dan Lusher, Len Sabatini, Paul Hixon, Bob Cook, Gene Hoyet, and Jeff Hadley. I think all the guys enjoyed themselves, too.

Chillicothe Visits Xenia Chapter

On Thursday, Mar 12, 2009, Bob Cook and Paul Hixon visited the Xenia, OH chapter of the Barbershop Harmony Society. Their chapter name is the Xenia Hospitality Chorus. We were welcomed by Ron Reynolds.

Warm up was led by Dewayne Grooms. ME MEH MAH MOH MOO plus a couple of other vocal exercises. Things sound a bit different with 20-25 guys singing compared to our Chillicothe group of 8-10. We then broke into groups of baritones and basses in one room and leads and tenors in another room for some learning/practice. Each room had a piano and someone who could play. I found singing along with the piano really helped me. After about 25 minutes we recombined and sang the song together. It sounded pretty good. This portion of the rehearsal was led by Don McAdams, the chorus director.

After singing tags and ending with "Keep the Whole World Singing", Paul and I hung around and talked with some chorus memebers for a few minutes.

Left to right: Dewayne Grooms, Bobby Knisley, Ron Reynolds, and Paul Hixon.

All in all, the visit was very enjoyable. The chorus members made us feel right at home.

Join Us for Singing

This is the beginning of the First Capital Barbershop Chorus Blog. If you'd like to join the Chorus, we meet for practice every Monday evening from 7:30 pm to 9:30 pm at the Carver Community Center, 165 W 4th St. , Chillicothe, OH 45601. The Chorus is open to all men who enjoy singing. If you are just thinking about singing, stop by and listen to see if it might be for you. We sing A Cappella (no musical accompaniment). You don't have to be able to read music. We provide sheet music and learning CDs.

While our Chorus is not yet a formal Chapter of the Barbershop Harmony Society, we are working on attaining formal Chapter status.

We recently performed for the Chillicothe Gallery Stroll on February 14, 2009. We were sponsored by Lloyds Sweet Shop.

Photo courtesy of Michael Warth Photography and Lloyds Sweet Shop