"Just the Chords"

What an amazing week was.  "Just the Chords" was the name of the concert that was performed by the YC choirs and it was named such because it was 7 choirs performing an entire concert of ALL a cappella music.  No piano accompaniment, not even a piano on stage, because it was all tuned with one note from a pitch pipe.  Not only was that exciting to get to witness, but I was in charge of the entire show from the theater's side which meant that I spent most of my time learning about and fine tuning the sound.

The week began on Monday morning when I got to hear the first group, the Angelorum, at their rehearsal.  This choir is made up entirely of women and is a very select group so it is always a joy to hear them.  They have such a beautiful sound.  There are only twelve or thirteen women in the group, but they project quite well so they didn't need much help from the two microphones that I had suspended from the ceiling.

The idea behind the ceiling microphones is to help the singers get a little boost.  In a large hall like ours, choirs have a bit of a hard time getting the sound to resonate well through.  Bringing the speakers up to a level where you can almost not tell that they are being used at all helps a choir not sound so flat and lifeless.  This is not so much the case for a solo singer.  You almost want them to sound like they are coming out of the speakers because they are, most of the time, standing right at the microphone on stage.  Another thing I learned to do when using these mics was to delay the sound coming out of the speakers.  If the choir is standing behind the speakers, which is most often the case, you can use the soundboard to delay the speakers by whatever distance they are in front of the choir.  This results in an effect that makes the speaker sound almost nonexistent because they are waiting until the sound from the choir reaches them before sending the signal out.  Thus, no echo effect because all of the sound is moving as one and gaining small momentum from the speakers while the speakers aren't creating their own wave.

As the week progressed, I got to hear the other six choirs, some twice due to twice a week rehearsal times.  The next choir was the Master Chorale.  This group mostly sings large master works by great composers but occasionally has some fun with smaller pieces as was the case for this concert.  Its quite a large group, made up of forty-five to fifty singers, so they needed less help with sound than the Angelorum.

The next choir was a mix of two choirs.  Sadly, one of our choirs, the Vocal Ensemble, has dwindled in numbers so for this concert they joined with the Concert Choir and sang three songs together.  I had some fun with this combined group and at the end of one of their more "uplifting" pieces, I added a little reverberation.  When they were finished singing, the last chord rang through the hall and took a second to dissipate.  The whole choir, who were completely unaware of what I'd done, said "whoa! Go is!" which just cracked me up.

The Community Chorale has grown in numbers and is up to sixty-five singers now.  What a huge and wonderful sound they have.  I absolutely loved it.  Something new that this choir brought was solos.  Time for me to bring up the stage mics for them while keeping the choir balanced.  Not too difficult, but more fun for me.

Gospel choir, which is brand new to YC this semester, was quite a different beast than all of the previous.  A few solos to mic and a lot of upbeat music was pretty easy for me to work with.  I did use one of my other reverbs because it helped to give everything a "small chapel" kind of sound which helped with the feelings of the music.  They all really seemed to enjoy it and got really into the feeling as well.

Cantamos at rehearsal

Then came Cantamos, formerly the Chamber Singers.  Twenty or so singers who, for some reason, moved forward and sang from the floor instead of the risers.  I was forced to take out all delays because they were right next to the main speakers.  A fun group, they sang something less traditional and funny, a jungle piece, and an all choral version of Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody.

Even though that covers all seven choirs, there were a few other additions.  All of the women from all choirs sang a song together, some from the stage and some from the balcony.  All of the men also sang a song which was a blast because men's choirs in Prescott are hard to find and have such a great sound. And finally, everyone from all seven choirs, over 175 singers, crammed onto stage for two songs.

And just to give you an idea of how busy I was, not only was I running sound all week, but I also made sure the stage was properly set every day and took notes on what I wanted for lighting during the concert as well as set up the light board for my friend that would be running the lights for me during the concert.  I'll get more into lights in the next few posts as I am more of a lighting guy than sound.

The concert itself went off beautifully with very few if no glitches and was attended by about 500 people which is about half of the capacity of the hall.  For those who don't know, that's great for our local junior college choirs to have that many show.

'Til next time.

Matthew

P.S.  Sorry I didn't get more photos to share.  I will try harder next time to remember to take out my phone and snap some.