Acapella(320)

                By now most people have probably heard of the latest craze of performing arts; acapella. Thanks to new shows like the sing-off and movies like pitch perfect acapella is now very very popular. The meaning of the word acapella, from Webster’s dictionary, is; without instrumental accompaniment.  Because it had no accompaniment vocalist need to be able to recreate sounds of instruments with their voices, such as a drum hit, a high hat, or even a tambourine. These people are known as beat boxers and vocal percussionists, they are normally men who can sing very low and keep time very well. Actually everyone needs to be able to keep time very well. There are large acapella groups like of twenty to twenty five people, and there are smaller groups. One of the best known smaller groups is called Pentatonix. They have 5 members, hence the Penta part of the name. There are acapella groups that are all men, or all women, or mixed.

Many schools have acapella groups, which is the premise of Pitch Perfect.  In Pitch Perfect they practice with an all girls group to compete at three different levels of competition. Their biggest rival is the all men group at their same school. Although I do find the singing and the movie in general very entertaining I do not think that this is much like real life at all.

One of the college acapella groups I know about is called BYU vocal point, standing for Brigham Young University. They are an all male group and very talented. They competed on the Sing Off against the above mentioned, Pentatonix.

My personal opinion about acapella is that it can be very interesting and beautiful type of music. I like to listen to many singers on YouTube in my spare time.

If you would like to listen to some acapella here are the links to some of my favorites;

https://www.youtube.com/user/PTXofficial

https://www.youtube.com/user/vocalpointbyu

Lifts(414)

            One of the moves you have to get used to early in show choir life is a lift. In the early stages of show choir (Like middle school, freshman choirs, or even elementary schools) they don’t normally choreograph in lifts because you are not experienced enough to do it safely. So you tend to see lifts in show choirs made up of older kids, like varsities, that are made up of mostly seniors..

            The most basic type of lift takes three counts. It has the girl standing in front of her partner. On whatever their first count is they bend their knees, also known as a prep, on the second count the girl jumps straight in the air, keeping her hands on the guys, which are around her waist, and her legs straight. Also on the second count the boy lifts, just as if he was picking something up (hence the name of the move) and put it down, and on the third count the girl lands. My choreographer makes it a point to tell us that girls should be able to do this kind of lift motion by themselves. The boy is just there for a little more air time.

            One lift that my choreographer particularly likes to add into dances is called a shoulder sit. It’s pretty self-explanatory, the end product would be the girl sitting on her partners shoulder. This is a little more difficult than the aforementioned lift because it involves staying in that position for a certain amount of counts, also our choreographer likes to make couples that do shoulder sits turn in a circle. It has the same beginning as a normal lift; bending your knees on the first count. But on the second count the girl tucks her feet into the boy’s side and, after establishing balance, she puts her hands up in a “v.” The boy would grab the girl’s waist on one and on two he pulls her up and re-grabs onto her legs to help her balance.

If you have a lift, or a lot of lifts, in a song it would probably be a good idea to like your partner, at least a little bit. If you don’t like them it may make the lift a bit awkward. You also have to rely on your partner to know when to start the lift, how long to hold it, and when to end it. They are also relying on you to remember the counts. 

Partners(400)

One aspect of show choir that you have to get used to early in your show choir life is, having a partner or multiple partners. There are some songs or dances  were the choreographer chooses to not have partners either because it’s a song where just the boys are singing or just the girls are singing or it just makes sense with the choreography they have made for the song. But the majority of the time you get to have someone there to hold your hand or hold your waist or at the very least stand shoulder to shoulder with you.

                There are some times when having a partner is very necessary, like during a love song. It would be quite odd having boys and girls on stage dancing with themselves singing about how they are so in love with another person. I actually find it easier to dance with a partner then without one. But it’s also very awkward when you don’t really know the person and you have to act like you are desperately in love with them. My advice would be to get to know them. No, they don’t have to become your new boyfriend or even a good friend but if you feel comfortable saying hello in the hallways then you can be perfectly compatible dance partners.

                Of course there are times when you get pared with the one person in the whole group that you don’t really get along with. There are a few ways to react to this, by telling them that you didn’t want to be partners and have a bad relationship the rest of the year, just don’t say anything and have an awkward relationship for the rest of the year, or you can suck it up and be nice to each other. I would suggest the ladder, but it isn’t always possible to do. In that case my advice is just don’t be mean to one another. You don’t have to be the nicest person ever but you also don’t have to be straight mean to them.

                The perfect partner would be one that hits all the right counts, is nice to you, is friends with you, is strong for lifts, and one that respects you, but these aspects are not always attainable in one,  single person because they are just that, a person, who makes mistakes just like everyone else.

singing 101(405)

Today, children, I will be teaching you the art of singing. No. I’m just kidding. But I will be telling you some essentials of producing good singing habits. If you get good singing habits and build a strong base you can work up from there and experiment with your voice to make all different kinds of singing. You would not classify opera and pop in the same category, now would you?

The first tip to know is to sing from your diaphragm not your chest. Your diaphragm in a muscle underneath your lungs it expands downward when you take a good breath in. to explain it to little kids terms; your tummy should go out when you breathe in. your shoulders should not move because that means you are breathing with your chest, instead of taking a “good low breath” ad my teacher would say. Sometimes laying flat on the floor helps with breathing with your diaphragm. That brings me to my point, sitting up straight. If you slouch while singing that gives your diaphragm less area to expand resulting in a shorter breath, which could make holding out a long note, or adding crescendo to a note difficult.

Every time you sing a vowel it adds a slightly different shape to your mouth but in general it should all generally look like an O.  This shape lets the sound come out and makes it sound tall. A lot of the time directors will change the vowel sound of a word to awh. Like in the word amazing, it wouldn’t be uh-mazing, it would be awh-mazing.

During warm ups is a good time to practice vowel shape. Warming up before you sing is very helpful. If you warm up it will help you hit notes well just like a basketball player warms up before a game or practice. If you push yourself during warm ups it can help increase your vocal range, the range of notes you can hit well. But if you push yourself too much you might end up with a sore throat.

If you do get a sore throat or a cold some of the best remedies to get your throat back into tip top shape would be to drink tea with honey, have cough drops with you all the time, and drink soup. All of these things are warm and soothing to your throat.

That’s all for today children, class dismissed.

Cocoa and Carols (383)

 Cocoa and carols, yummy! To some people cocoa and carols sounds like maybe a church activity where they go from door step to door step singing off key, or maybe a heartwarming Christmas tradition between a family. But to me and my show choir family it’s another performance. My school invites kids in special choirs from a bunch of elementary schools and various middle schools to perform holiday songs on stage.  It gives these kids time to take a break from their show choir show, and think about something fun! Like Christmas!

Cocoa and Carols is nothing like our big show choir competition in February called “raise the roof” (a blog on that subject will come later.) There is not so much to prepare on our part. Of course we supply the cookies, so every student needed to bake three dozen, mine were m and m, and we have to figure out the skits we use to introduce groups but other than that there isn't much to think about. We also need to prepare what our show choirs are going to perform, but unlike that of the younger choirs we perform our competition show instead of a few Christmas songs.

Instead of wearing costumes, the younger kids perform in shirts that all look the same. Members of our choirs come on stage before they go on to introduce them and their teacher and their songs with a small skit they worked up. Then the kids stand on the stage or the risers in front of the stage and perform their holiday songs. After all the performances are done the kids sit in the audience and all the members of our choirs come on stage and sing “Rudolph the red nosed reindeer” but instead of using the words “nose,” “reindeer,” “glows,” “loved,” or “glee,” we use actions like putting your hands to your head to make antlers for reindeer, or pointing to your nose for nose. The kids get quite a kick out of this. We do it three times and the third time we go super fast. So fast that even some of our choir members mess up and say the words. Go on and try it, it’s harder than you would think.

These are my “Cocoa and carols” traditions.

"Please Shower" (415)

“Please, take a shower.” I’ve had to hear this sentence three or four times over the past few weeks. Not about me (I hope)! But about other people in my show choir. Weather you believe that show choir is a sport or just a physical activity you have to know that we sweat. We sweat a lot. Some people worse than others. And there are some that smell quite awful. Like B.O., bad breath, and like they haven’t showered in a few weeks, which, in some cases, might be. Ew, Gross!

            “Wow you smell great,” and “you smell yummy,” Are, in my opinion, some of the best compliments to get, although you probably won’t be getting any of those types of compliments after a six hour long practice.  There are some people who smell before practice though. Add six hours of sweating to that and you are left with someone you couldn’t pay me to smell.  

            Now these people may be perfectly nice people, with loads of talent, they just don’t know how to take a bath. Which literally stinks for their poor partner.

            So I have some tips to not smell so bad, in general. (Feel free to use these tips even if you don’t think you smell, they are just kind of common sense anyway.)

1.      Shower daily. This may seem like a dumb think to put on this list. You’re probably thinking “Well, duh. Who wouldn’t shower every day.” And I’m here to tell you; some people don’t.

2.      Use soap and sprays. The kind of soap isn’t important, as long as it takes dirt of your body and makes you smell better, that’s good soap. Sprays like perfumes and body mists help cover the smell, but you should start with a clean slate any way.

3.      Make using deodorant a habit. You should be using deodorant at least once a day, at the very least! There will be days when I put deodorant on like four times. When I wake up, during school, before show choir, and after show choir. Fun fact! Sometimes doctors say that if you sweat or smell a lot, you should put deodorant on before going to bed to let it sink into your glands.

4.      Change your underwear. Just one thing about underwear: that’s were all your “business” goes so change it.

If you fallow by these few rules you should be smelling clean in the time it takes for one shower, probably about 15-45 minutes, not a long time to get that compliment!

"Beauty" 562

Every society has its own interpretation of what is beautiful, and when you are singing and dancing on stage, in front of hundreds of people you want to be seen as beautiful as you can be even if it is dangerous to your health.  A few aspects of being pretty, today, include being tan, having long, non frizzy hair, being skinny, having long eyelashes, and having white teeth. These are not all someone would look at but they are a few aspects that people can change about themselves.  

Changing your eye lash length is probably the least dangerous on that list, because it isn’t an actual change. Fake eye lashes are used in my show choir at almost every opportunity, even I use them.  They are not harmful to your health unless you somehow poke your eye or get glue in your eye.

Whitening your teeth isn't particularly dangerous either. There are a few ways to whiten your teeth, by brushing with whitening tooth paste, with mouthwash, with whitening strips, or, if you are one to go tanning, some places have special teeth whitening treatments.  Whitening your teeth also does close to nothing to your health. I have heard that it can sometimes wear down the enamel on your teeth but so does coffee.

Having long, non frizzy hair is also not dangerous to your personal health but the heath of your hair is at risk. Hair is an inherited trait, whether it is red or blond or brown, frizzy or silky smooth, straight or curly. There are many styling tools that use heat that can be unhealthy for your hair, and during show choir season you have to use at least one to get the perfect hair style. When your hair starts to get unhealthy it starts to get stringy and grungy looking. Most hair stylists suggest getting a hair cut ever four to six months to keep it in tip top shape.  Another way to style hair is with teasing, also known as back combing; this is how to get that signature show choir poof but it also very bad for your hair because you are literally just tangling it into itself.

Being skinny is not bad for you if you are just naturally thin. It is unhealthy if you are skipping meals, or making yourself throw up to be thinner. Although these are extreme cases there is a large pressure to look your best because so many people will be watching you. If you do want to lose weight you should do it the healthy way, with a clean diet and exercise, when you’re in show choir exercise isn’t hard to come by!

Tanning is the only thing on this list that can be extremely dangerous to your health. We have all heard stories about people getting skin cancer from tanning beds. Now I don’t want to sound hypocritical because I have been tanning in a bed before and I am planning to go soon, but I also want people to know that I am doing it the safe way, only going once a week, and not for any amount of time that would be enough to burn my skin. It wouldn’t be that hard to be tan if show choir season were in the summer, but it is in the dead of winter and that means no sun.

Is show choir a sport? (467)

            In my high school career there has been one topic that, it seems, no one can agree upon; is show choir a sport or not? Even within my varsity show choir, Happiness Inc., there is some debate. I would have to agree with people who say that it isn’t a sport.  Now before I get shunned from my group I would also like to say that although I wouldn’t consider it a sport I think it should get just as much recognition as any other sport such as basketball or football.

            Okay, first I think sports like basketball are obvious sports because they are played against another team, head to head. The officials of the game also have to keep score. I don’t think that we should classify every athletic activity a sport though. Like doge ball, no one is going around clamming that as a sport except maybe extreme dodge ball players. It is most obviously a game, even though it can be very athletic and high energy. For this same reason I don’t think we should classify show choir as a sport. If you compared the energy levels and amount of hard work put into an activity show choir would probably be up there with football though. That’s not saying football players don’t try, the opposite actually, it is saying that show choir is just as athletic as football.  In practices we sweat, need water breaks, and do the same eight count dozens of times.

            Although I don’t classify show choir as a sport, more as an athletic activity, I still believe that is should still get a sport waver. At my school, sport wavers make it so you don’t have to take a gym. I believe that it should get a sport waver because we do more exercise in our show choir class than people do in gym classes. In gym they walk around the track a few times and then play a game or sit out of it. To me that sounds a lot more leisurely than performing a high energy, cardio working show for 25 minutes, or practicing that same performance for three hours. Another reason show choir should get sports wavers is because of golf. I’m not saying golf isn’t a sport but it’s not a work out. “But you have to walk from hole to hole, that’s a work out,” some golfers might say. Yes that’s an activity but the actual sport of golf isn’t very demanding. If golfers get sports wavers then the show choirs deserve them too.

            So all in all my stance is that show choir is not a sport, but a physical activity. It is more athletic than some of the activity’s that are now considered sports, and therefore should get the same respect as one.

 

 

Boys and Dance (400)

Last year, when I went to watch my friends dance recital, I was overcome by the adorableness of the younger kids’ dances, but I was also drawn to watch the boy dancers of all ages.  I was watching the boys because there were only a few of them in the whole show. The ratio of boys to girls was at least one to fifteen. The younger boys danced just as well as the little girls doing kick-ball-changes and turns when they were told. The older boys, all teenagers, were very good! They were better than some of their fellow, female dancers I believe.  This raised the question, why? Why are there so many less boy dancers?

Dance is generally looked upon as a “girly” activity. Generally ballerina decorations are hung in girls’ rooms and footballs and basketballs in the boys’.  I think this is because when parents look upon their young son they would like to see a great football player in his future, not a young man in tights. Even if they do think that it is “unmanly” to let their son dance they would be taking away an opportunity to make him a better football player.  Dance helps with flexibility and dexterity, which would help any athlete not just a football player. I think it is unfair that young boys do not have the great opportunities to be dancers.

Boys are built differently than girls; this can be a positive and negative attribute. Their hips specifically, are more functional for toe touch jumps, making it easier for boys to do.  They are also more muscular, which makes it harder to be graceful.   

If boys later in life feel like they want to pursue a career in dance or theater or performance, basic dance skills are necessary and advanced dance skills would be something to catch people’s attention. It would be better if they had attained these skills at a young age so they didn’t have to learn it later in life. Learning a new skill later in life is harder then when you are very young, “you can’t teach old dogs new tricks,” as some people say.

Dance class is also not just a learning situation but also a social one. Some people make lifelong friends at dance classes. Dance also gives you a way to express yourself which could keep some kids away from violence or rebellion.