// BLOG
Heading to Houston: Tuesday Tour Puzzle
By Lustre • October 8, 2011 • No comments
This week, on our international preparation tour, Tuesday night had us dropping in on the Chorus of the Chesapeake rehearsal in Dundalk. Then it was off to Silver Spring to visit our sisters at Capital Accord Chorus.
The Tuesday Puzzle Map
- Our starting points:
- Kate – at home in Silver Spring
- Lead Lori – at home in Dundalk
- Jenny – at home in Elkridge
- Bari Lori – at work in Lanham
- Our destinations:
- Dundalk, Chorus of the Chesapeake Rehearsal
- Silver Spring, Capital Accord Rehearsal
- Our park and rides:
- 95 & 495
- 695 & 295
The 13 steps:
- Bari Lori and Kate meet at the park and ride at 495 & 95, leaving Lori‘s car there.
- We are running a bit early, so the two go to the BP convenience store to get water (and some strange looks from the cashier wondering why we were dressed exactly alike).
- Kate drives to the park and ride near 695 & 295, picking up Jenny there.
- Kate drives all Lustre’s harmony parts to Dundalk Government Center, meeting up with Lead Lori.
- We warm up and sing a couple songs
- Jenny and Lead Lori hop in Lori’s car while Kate and Bari Lori hop in Kate‘s car and off we go back to the park and ride at 695 & 295.
- Lead Lori and Jenny hop in with Kate and Bari Lori, together again.
- Off we go to the park and ride at 495 & 95, where Lead Lori and Bari Lori hop inBari Lori‘s car.
- We meet up again at Capital Accord rehearsal.
- We sing a couple songs, change clothes, sing a couple more songs, then change clothes again.
- Jenny and the Loris wave goodbye to Kate and head back up the road to the park and ride at 695 & 295.
- Kate heads home from there.
- Bari Lori delivers Jenny and Lead Lori back to their cars and all head home.
Facts about the trip:
- In the course of the evening, Jenny rode in every car owned by the quartet
- Total park and ride stops : 5
- Car duets during the course of the evening:
- Bari Lori & Kate
- Lead Lori & Jenny
- Kate & Jenny
- Lead Lori & Bari Lori
So, the evening was more difficult to organize than our typical “meet at Jenny’s and go”, but we managed it beautifully. I don’t think we could have accomplished it in a much “greener” way either. What do you think?
Heading to Houston: The “Tour”
By Lustre • October 2, 2011 • One comment
As much as we love to sing and perform, stage fright and nervousness has been a challenge for each of us to varying degrees over the years. As part of a strategy to combat the nerves, we have created a tradition of performing our contest material in front of live audiences as many times as possible in the weeks prior to the contest date. We create our own “tour”, calling up local SAI and BHS choruses and asking permission to drop by and sing for them during their rehearsal nights. The first year, we even created our own tour t-shirts advertising the dates and locations of that year’s “Knock Out the Nerves” tour.
This strategy has served us well. Prior to this year’s regional contest in April, we sang in front of audiences no fewer than eight times in the three weeks prior to the contest. Six of those times we had the opportunity to wear our contest costumes for the performance. This was fantastic rehearsal, because we became accustomed to wearing the dresses and being comfortable in them, and then on the day of the contest itself, the feeling was less nerve-wracking and much more “Oh, ok, we’re going to sing again.” The comfort and familiarity of the contest costume was a big factor in feeling confident on stage, and contributed to our winning performance, we’re sure.
So for our debut performance at the international contest in Houston, we are falling back on the strategy that has worked for us before. We will be visiting some local SAI and BHS choruses in the next two weeks to sing during their rehearsals. We won’t be able to visit as many as we’d like due to constraints on scheduling, but we are grateful for the welcoming response we’ve gotten from those that we’ve contacted.
We’re looking forward to seeing our friends in the following local choruses. If you are in the area and can join us on any of these events, we’d love to see you!
Fall 2011 Tour Dates:
Monday Oct 3: Upper Chesapeake Chorus Friends and Family Send-off to Houston
Tuesday Oct 2: Dundalk Chorus of the Chesapeake (BHS) rehearsal night
Tuesday Oct 2: Capital Accord Chorus rehearsal night
Wednesday Oct 3: Harbor City Music Company Show Chorus Friends and Family Send-off to Houston
Monday Oct 10: Pride of Baltimore Chorus rehearsal night
Heading to Houston: The Clothes
By Lustre • September 26, 2011 • One comment
Sweet Adelines is pretty much the only organization I can think of where grown women actually choose, willingly and sometimes even eagerly, to dress alike. I don’t mean only on stage – that’s a given – and not only in the convention hall – that’s perhaps expected – but out in public, walking along the avenue, at restaurants, and at tourist spots around the city. It’s true. Lustre will spend Tuesday through Saturday dressed alike every day, all the way from our identical tops, pants and jewelry down to the color of polish on our toes. In fact, some of those days we’ll change clothes once or twice, all the while maintaining our matching wardrobe. It’s quite a fashionista’s dream-slash-nightmare to outfit four women for an SAI convention.
First to worry about are the performance costumes. Not only do they need to match, but they are judged as part of the Showmanship category – so they have to be right! Nothing should pull or tug, nothing should wrinkle or crease, and nothing should gape or reveal. The fit and style needs to flatter all four women. The color needs to be vibrant on stage under bright lights. The jewelry needs to highlight the face, and the shoes need to match the style of the costume and be comfortable enough to put the singer at ease. For our performance costumes, we are so very fortunate to have a fabulous seamstress in our midst. Bari Lori made both of our contest dresses, and in both cases, she took a pattern and customized it to our precise needs. Both dresses turned out beautifully!
Next, we need to have “walking around” clothes for four to five days. Our criteria: These clothes should be comfortable for all four of us to wear and feel good in, they should be flattering to all of our shapes. They should convey our quartet personality of “serious about having fun together”, if that makes any sense at all. We want to look put together but not formal or stuffy, professional but not business-like. Relaxed and casual but intentional. Comfortable but not slouchy. Easy on the glitter and rhinestones, but showier than normal clothes. Some of them need to be a little dressier than others, to cover the variety of occasions that we will attend during the week.
Oh sure. No problem. (Help?!?!?)
The criteria might be easier to meet if we all wore similar sizes or had similar body shapes even of different sizes. But among us we have regular misses, tall misses, and women’s sizes (bordering on petite women’s). Not very many stores cater to the needs of women in our many size ranges.
We’ve found that JCPenny typically suit our needs for pants and sometimes tops, and they have great coupons and sales that are easy on the budget. We’ve found some fantastic bargains at Coldwater Creek, which is normally very pricey. We’ve found cheap clothes on the clearance racks at Fashion Bug, and we’ve scoured Dress Barn for hours. We shop online a lot, using Chadwicks for basics. We’re not too proud to look in Walmart for very casual items. We found one of our outfits unexpectedly at the BHS (Men’s barbershop society) International Convention! And one of our tops came from a choral performance wear outfitter which we found online. When forming the quartet, we did not expect to shop together nearly as much as we do!
The good thing about this situation is that there’s no question or worry about what we have to pack for this trip. The packing list is very long and very detailed, and outlines every outfit down to the most foundational detail (including foundation undergarments!). There’s absolutely no stress about “what will I wear” on this trip – it has been scheduled for weeks in advance, assigned to a particular day, and included in the quartet schedule that will be posted on the wall of the hotel room. No guesswork, no worries. Just check the items off the list, put them in the suitcase and go!
This hobby is phenomenal in a lot of ways, but the opportunity for shopping! Who knew?
Heading to Houston: Coaching
By Lustre • September 25, 2011 • One comment
One of the first things we did after we won the Region 19 Quartet Championship is pull out the calendars and we set up our coaching schedule! We knew that we were going to want and need some really strong coaching in order to put our best effort on the stage in Houston.
Some quartets like to stick with one coach, others like to work with a wide variety of coaches who bring different approaches and different strengths. We tend to take a middle of the road approach. We work with two coaches who are in our local area, and then we also take advantage of out-of-town coaches who come into the area if we can work it out.
This summer, we had the great pleasure of working with Jean Barford, Betty Clipman, and Ruth Ann Parker, all of whom are legendary quartet coaches in the Sweet Adelines world and came in from across the country to work with SAI singers in the Baltimore area. We had Jean in June, and Betty and Ruth Ann in August. So that left us May, July and September to schedule our local coaches, Leslie Wodday and Michael Gellert. We also took advantage of our Region 19 educational opportunity, FLASH, and received coaching at that event. All told, we had eight different coaching sessions from six different coaches during the last five months.
Excessive? Some quartets would say so, but we say no!
We have learned something unique and something valuable from each of these people. And at the same time, they all have reinforced each others teachings so that each of our sessions builds on the others, and makes up a strong educational basis for us. Because SAI has such clearly defined judging criteria, the coaches are all able to work within the framework of those criteria to point out certain aspects and concentrate on certain areas of the musical performance without contradicting each other and without confusing us. (this last bit is very important!!!!)
After each of these coaching sessions, it’s then our job to take what they have taught us and put it into our regular performances in a consistent manner. We typically make digital voice recordings of the coaching sessions, and then individually play them back multiple times to make sure we have caught all the instruction, and to make sure that we remember the information as we continue to prepare our music. And we hold each other accountable for performing as instructed. Often during rehearsal, one of us will say something like, “Remember at this spot Jean wanted us to sing this phrase with more of a ballad feel,” or “Is this the place where Betty asked for more focused sound?”etc. We’re still learning this barbershop craft, that’s for sure. We’ve worked out a pretty good habit of doing our homework after coaching, remembering it from week to week, and incorporating the lessons into our new, better “normal.”
We imagine that all of the other quartets who will cross the stage at the International contest in Houston have had similar experiences this summer, with calendars full of coaching sessions and rehearsals that reinforce those coaching lessons. We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again – this hobby has a WONDERFUL focus on education and growth that just can’t be matched in anything else we’ve seen. We are having a blast!
(Hey Leslie, we need to get a photo taken with you!!!!)
Heading to Houston: A Blog Series
By Lustre • September 25, 2011 • No comments
In just three short weeks, we will be flying down to Houston to participate in the SAI International Quartet Competition for our very first time. It’s hard to believe, but it’s true – we will be walking across the stage and competing with 45 other quartets from around the world, all of whom are at the top of their game and are the best there is in women’s barbershop music. Wow!!!
As we head into these last few weeks, we thought we’d share with you some of the ins and outs of what it takes to prepare for this competition. Mind you, we’ve never actually competed at this competition before, but we feel pretty well prepared, because (1), we have been to Regional competition lots of times and we have a pretty good system worked out, and (2), we have lots of friends around us in our local region who have been to this contest and they’ve all been so helpful to us.
So in the next few days, look for a series of articles about how we have prepared musically, logistically, mentally, financially, and emotionally for this upcoming event. As we’ve said before, “It’s all about the journey.” And what a journey it has been!