David "Charlie" Brown

Today I was adventuring www.casa.org, which is an incredible website with tons of helpful advice and resources. I was looking to edit my account information and look up group registration when I came stumbling upon Dave Brown's blog page. For those of you who don't know, Dave Brown is one of the hosts on the Mouth Off and is on the Board of Directors for CASA (Contemporary A Cappella Society of America). On his blog I found excellent posts about being a group director, holding auditions, how not to rehearse, and how to amp up your stage presence/concert performances.

Check out his blog here.

I also realized today that Ryan and I are indeed the co-founders of LNS, however we have not discussed our official titles and duties for the group. Although we know what we want and we discuss it, it would be professional if we introduced ourselves as our title position of the group. This would also add an element of professionalism with our auditions approaching within a month. I believe Ryan and I are going to meet to discuss this element either tonight or tomorrow.

-Chris

Some Initial Steps To Take

Hello Everyone,

So I figured i'd change it up a little in this post from what we've been posting recently. I wanted to share some of the steps Chris and I have taken in order to present our new group LNS in a way that we feel is attractive to people who may be interested. So in this post I figured I would present one of the segments we haven't touched on yet.

The Vocal BIZ:

One of the first thing Chris and I started to discuss upon deciding we wanted to make Love Note Sentiment a reality was a design for a logo. Now we spent a good amount of time and great deal of paper sketching out ideas and actually had a bunch of other people give us ideas as well. We had a slight idea of what it is that we wanted the logo to look like but we weren't quite sure. So i'm going to let you know how it is that we came up with the logo you now see displayed at the top of the page. A little website called CustomInk.com.

http://www.customink.com/

Now you may be wondering why CustomInk, isn't that a website for designing t-shirts and other customized clothing? My answer is yes it is, however the great thing about CustomInk is that it gives you many different fonts, images, and color combinations to work with. We designed the logo which we now display on the website and on all of our auditions posters and ads in about 15-20 minutes. Once you have an idea designed the great thing about doing it with this website is that all you have to do it take a few easy steps to have a JPEG image of your logo.

1. Hit shift and then the PrtSc button at the top right of your keyboard

2. Open up Microsoft Powerpoint and paste the screenshot you have taken

3. Right click the image and hit save as picture

4. Open the picture and crop the logo

That's it! Now that you have a logo the other great thing about using CustomInk is if you save your design you now have a t-shirt design that you can order for your group or even for your fans!

One other thing that Chris and I have been experimenting with are different ways to advertise. At the moment we've really just been trying to advertise our auditions we're holding in January. We created an event on Facebook and upon creating the event the side column gives you the option of advertising the event on Facebook. The cool thing is that you can narrow down who you want the advertisement to be seen by and customize exactly how much you want to spend and how long you want the advertisement to run for. For instance we're running our advertisement for a 30 day period for 1 cent/click with a maximun of 100 clicks allowed per day. So if you do the math up to 3,000 people can click this ad over a 30 days period and we're only spending $30 to fund it which to me is a pretty good deal! Also like I mentioned before who sees the advertisement is controllable by a series of factors which you choose when setting up the ad. For example our ad will be visible by Males who live within 25 miles of where we want to station the group who are interested in Vocals, Singing, A Capella, Barbershop Singing, etc. which narrows the group of possible candidates to a little over 10,000 people.

That wraps up The Vocal Biz for today. I hope these ideas were helpful to everyone and we look forward to sharing more ideas in the future!

Ryan

Arrangement Ideas

Hello everybody! Lately I have been extremely busy with my Exit Portfolio for student teaching, so any chance of working on arrangements or trying to progress our group has been on the back burner for the past few days. Today I had a few really awesome ideas for a cappella pieces, but I realized that if I don't write them down, they will disappear in the bustle of my life. So here are some ideas of what I am working on, whats next on the table, and crazy thoughts I have been having.

Men At Work:

• "Sherry" originally by Bob Gaudio, performed by Frankie Vali, is done and ready to be rehearsed.
  
• Two weeks ago I began working more in depth with "Renegade" by Styx. I have the major chunk of the song arranged in a basic format. Looking at a tabs site (www.ultimate-guitar.com) for the wild guitar solo, I managed to transcribe all the notes. I still need to listen to the original and dictate the rhythm by ear, however. I got through about 1/8 of the solo before I went stir crazy and began working on my actual portfolio. I hand it in this Wednesday, and after that my mind and schedule will be free so I can get back to work on that.
• My Mistress's Eyes - An original composition that I spoke to Ryan about using the text from Shakespeare's Sonnet 130. This will be a first of totally original material, and I am proud to announce that it will be a barbershop piece.
• God of Thunder - As tacky as they are, and as professional as I try to compose myself, I am a member of the KISS Army. I love their upbeat style, romantic gothic look, and feel good music. I plan on arranging a few numbers by KISS, but first on the list is "God of Thunder" which will have syllables not-so-normal for average a cappella.
• L is for... - I plan on arranging a really nice vocal jazz arrangement of "L is for the Way" that will have a childlike beginning, but turn into a big-band style sound.

I plan on having most of these arrangements done by February if at all possible. We will see how my schedule turns when I am done with school and start working in the real world.

I Should Arrange That:

• I saw a play the other week, "Under Construction" directed by Josh Pearlstein. In the show, there was a provocative Freudian dance to "Tainted Love", the original and the Marilyn Manson version. Needless to say I was singing it the next morning and realized that the Manson version of that song should be "mashed up" with "It's My Life" by Bon Jovi.
• "Solfeggietto" by C.P.E. Bach would be a fun piece to do a cappella. It would be rather simple, but then you add some vocal percussion to it, and it could develop much further.
• I was talking with my room mate today, who is the Assistant Director of CCSU's Divisi, and concluded that taking any System of a Down song and turning it into a Renaissance Madrigal would be hilarious and challenging. Think about it, you know you would love to hear it.

That's all for now folks. Until next time, later days.

-Chris

Blue Jupiter/What we're hoping to do with this Blog!

Hey everyone,

So as Chris has told you through a very thorough recap of what has gone on over the past couple of months in our world, i'm hoping I can update you on how the idea for this blog came to be and what we hope to accomplish with it. First off I will start by explaining our encounter with Blue Jupiter just the other night which inspired us to put this together.

If you don't know who Blue Jupiter is I will just say that they are a Pro A Cappella Quartet based out of NYC and have toured both the US and Asia and in a few simple words they're amazing at what they do. They put on a great show, they're music is solid, and they're very down to earth and incredibly generous people. Of course if you want to find out more about the group definitely check out either their website, myspace, or facebook which I have provided links to below:

http://bluejupiter.com/

http://www.myspace.com/bluejupitermusic

http://www.facebook.com/BlueJupiterBand?ref=search&sid=7815118.4088439523..1

That being said you now know a little bit about who Blue Jupiter is and what they're all about. (Especially if you check out these sites, which you definitely should!) So before they began their set on our CCSU campus, I actually got into a conversation with Johnathon Minkoff of Blue Jupiter who simply approached me and asked if I sang a cappella. This conversation turned into a discussion on Chris and I's forming of Love Note Sentiment and what we had planned for the future. Johnathon mentioned the SingStrong event and convinced us that it was something we should definitely check out. As the website states:

SingStrong is a vocal music festival, an a cappella summit, with talent from across the world. Profits go to the fight against Alzheimer's Disease and the support of local music programs!

Also, Blue Jupiter is a co-producer of the entire event and in explaining the details of the event we found out that not only was this event affordable, and the funds went to a great cause, but it was definitely something we didn't want to miss. Check out the website for more details if you're interested!

http://www.singstrong.org/

Then Chris and myself sat through probably one of the most energetic and "real" a cappella performances I've ever witnessed. The great thing about Blue Jupiter is they love what they do and it's contagious. It's inspiring to see a group get on stage and just rock out...especially with no instruments!

After the show Chris and I immediately approached Blue Jupiter's merch table and got into a lengthy conversation with the group and they got us really pumped up about SingStrong, and creating our own group, and pretty much all of the work we've been doing thus far in trying to make Love Note Sentiment a reality. Diana Preisler of Blue Jupiter was just awesome to us after the show and made us feel so much more confident about what we're trying to do and excited about the big steps we're trying to take in the a cappella world.

The one thing that I did not mention earlier was the reason behind the creation of this blog. Before the show began when we we're having our conversations with Johnathon we we're discussing the master classes and seminars that are to take place at the upcoming SingStrong event. He mentioned that he would actually be teaching a class on creating new a cappella groups and said that he would be interested in tracking our progress in the creation of our own group. He gave us the idea of creating this blog and tracking the milestones, trials and tribulations, and overall journey of Love Note Sentiment as it happens. Hence the creation of Making A Cappella the official LNS blog.

Now I realize that this post has gotten a little lengthy but I will try and simply sum up very quickly in the next couple sentences what else we hope this blog can do. We hope that through our experiences in creating a new group and all of the things that go into it we can both inspire others to do the same and also serve as a reference on things that are helpful in our journey and in the a cappella world. We also hope to take notice of great resources that can be used along the way.

Chris and I are very big fans of the a cappella podcast Mouth Off which is free and has a wealth of information about a cappella groups both collegiate and professional and about the genre in general. So in hoping to honor it's influence we decided it might be fun to play around with coming up with our own segments that might appear every couple of weeks similar to the many segments the show has. Some of our early ideas include:

Men At Work: what arrangements we may be working on and our progress or ideas about them

I Should Arrange That: songs that either we're thinking about doing or we think might work well a cappella

Don't Try This A Home: things that we come across in our journey as a group that we don't suggest trying yourselves

Need A Little Inspiration: groups/performances that inspire us as a group and should definitely be checked out

The Vocal BIZ: ideas we may have of how to get your name out there or find your group gigs, how to advertise yourself effectively

These are just some early ideas we have come up with. Now I would just like to say that Chris and I do not define ourselves as experts in any way when it comes to the world of a cappella. We don't want the reader's of this blog to get the wrong impression. Love Note Sentiment is a group that we are in the process of creating and we're just two guys with the passion and drive to take a cappella beyond the collegiate world within our own lives. That being said any advice or ideas we present on this blog are simply our attempt to try and inform our readers exactly what it is that we go through as a group.

Ok so in closing this post I would like to try out two of the new segments we have come up with!

Men At Work: I am at the moment working on an arrangement of the Sultans Of Swing as performed by Dire Straits and am very excited about how rhythmic it's going to be when it's done

Official video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gS9aY41G9EQ

Need A Little Inspiration: Just to bring it to your attention again since being an english major I know the last thing you read is one that you remember. Check out Blue Jupiter! They are an inspiration on and off the stage and their event SingStrong is an inspiration for what a cappella and music in general is capable of if it only tries.

-Ryan

Blog/More Advertising

So I just sent out our audition information on the classified section of Choralnet, which is a daily news feed for all choral folk. They have classified sections, concert advertising, forums, and really cool resources. If you are are a choral director or a music educator with a focus in voice, you should definitely sign up and be a part of it.

http://www.choralnet.org/


I also sent a request to advertise it on Mouth Off! Which I have referenced before, but just to be safe, here is their site.

http://www.mouthoffshow.com


And for those of you who were fooled by the altered dates that I used to show the true porgress of our works. Today was the actual day that I started this blog. Hopefully Ryan will go through it and add whatever I have missed and talk about our run in with Blue Jupiter! Although I don't want to take away from his entry, I'll put up their link as well.

http://www.bluejupiter.com/

Second Meeting

Well its just past Thanksgiving (the due date for our goals). I personally have finished only one of my arrangements (student teaching and running a high school theatre has eaten a lot of time), and one is 80% complete. Ryan has been polishing some of his older arrangements and has acquired some non-a cappella sheet music to many popular pieces that we can reference. He also found a site to design a logo for us (seen above), I think he will post his info when he gets around to posting on this site.

Ryan and I just met to discuss the final plan for auditions. And our result is as such.

Love Note Sentiment, a brand new all-male a cappella group, will be holding auditions!

We are looking for four (4) more males who can sing one or more voice parts who want to sing a variety of musical genres; from rock, rap and pop to classical, jazz and barbershop.


Here is what you need to know:

Date: Saturday, January 16th & Sunday, January 24th
Time: Any time between 11:00 and 7:00
Place: 44 Brittany Farms Rd. New Britain, CT, 06053

Procedure:
Sing a short piece that highlights your voice.
Sing a quick melody that we teach you.
Improvise with us.
Answer a few questions.
YOUR DONE!

Any other questions? Feel free to post on the discussion wall, or contact us at: lovenotesentiment@gmail.com

We also created a facebook event to advertise our auditions, so people can actually RSVP. Check it out.
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=173535072167&index=1


-Chris

First Meeting: The Collaboration

So Ryan and I got together tonight and decided to share our ideas. I made sure to form a list of topics we needed to discuss so we wouldn't forget anything. After an hour or two of discussion, this is what we have come up with so far:

Size of Group: 6

Genres of Repertoire: Oldies, Motown, Rock, Classical, Rap, ALternative, Folk, Barbershop, Country, Film, Broadway, Pop, Jazz, Seasonal, Spiritual, and Cultural. (Needless to say, we want to cover the gamut of options.)

Dress: Casual Formal (Polos & Jeans, Casual Dress Up, possibly unified shirts)

Time of Auditions: Mid January
Audition Process: Sing audition piece, sing a barbershop tag with us, improv for us, and answer some questions.

Audition Form: Name, Number, Voice Part, Schedule, Can they arrange music?

Looking For: Quality Sound, Tonal Memory, Blendability (how they blend with our sound), Creativity, Good Movement, Good Personality.

Possible Audition places: CCSU building, High School (that I teach theatre at) Auditorium.

Goals: Advertise by Thanksgiving, Arrangements should be done by then.


Also we built a list of repertoire we would like/we are in the process f making/we already have. There was a solid mix of old stuff, contemporary, barbershop and classical.

Also, I have been listening to the Mouthoff Podcast all this semester. It is a weekly podcast that discusses people you should know, groups you should hear, awesome arrangements, album reviews, sneak peaks, and info on big events or concerts. I highly recommend it to everyone into contemporary a cappella. Here are some links:

http://www.mouthoffshow.com
http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fitunes.apple.com%2FWebObjects%2FMZStore.woa%2Fwa%2FviewPodcast%3Fid%3D315632650&h=ddf806bf8d28fb4c14d42040eb953984

-Chris

The Beginning

Hey everyone!

Prologue:
October, 2005 - Central Connecticut State University has a student run A Cappella rush, inviting students to audition for groups, since the school had none to its name prior to this event. Auditions were held, and two groups were formed, Acabellas (http://www.myspace.com/acabellas06) and Divisi (http://www.myspace.com/divisiacappella). I was in Divisi, and when we started, we realized we needed a name. All 9 original members brought ideas to the table, and one on the list was Love Note Sentiment. Obviously it did not win, but afterwards it became the joke of "That's it, I quit, I'm joining LNS!".

Present (May, 2009):
Now that it is the end of my second senior year at CCSU, Ryan (Divisi Member) and myself are discussing turning it into a legitimate post-collegiate group. The more we talk about it, the more we want to do it. We agreed, and now we are turning this into an official group. Over the summer we will come up with ideas and start sharing our goals and figure out what to do and how to do it.

-Chris