Hello and happy fall! I can’t believe how quickly October flew by. I blinked and suddenly the leaves had all fallen and the morning frost had become a permanent fixture on my morning walks with my dog. The season of never ending holiday movies has arrived, and I’ve already watched Hocus Pocus seven times while sipping apple cider. Soon I’ll need to transition to watching The Santa Claus and sipping hot cocoa - yes I start watching Christmas movies as soon as November hits and I won’t apologize.
Your favorite Pitches have been hard at work this month learning new music to sing with Women in Harmony. If you read last month’s newsletter, you know we are planning a concert with them this winter, and we are so excited to be working with such a talented group of women! We had our first rehearsal together and started blending our voices in fun ways - you’re in for a treat with this concert!
We are also beginning to work on some new songs for the fall. We have settled on a bunch of new music to prepare for you - I don’t want to ruin the surprise, but you can expect to hear us singing a mix of classics and new tunes this year. We’re even singing a song by my favorite artist - any guesses who that might be? Share in the comments!
I’m also excited to announce the results of your recent vote on social media! As a reminder, we had our friends and fans choose between two songs - "Don’t Lose Sight" by Lawrence and "Royals" by Lorde. The winner is - insert beatbox drum roll here - "Royals!" It won by an overwhelming majority, and I cannot wait to showcase those tight harmonies for you all!
We have a lot of new music to learn this year, so I thought I’d share how that process works with you this month. Before we sing a single note, our incredible music director, Rachel, has a lot of work to do. She spends countless hours with our sheet music, learning every note and assigning each group member to a part. Rachel considers the range of each person’s voice and the balance of the song, ensuring no part overpowers another.
Once parts are assigned, Rachel creates practice tracks for the song. She sings or plays each part individually so we can work on songs outside of weekly rehearsals. At rehearsal, Rachel usually teaches each section their part a few pages at a time, and then sends us off to work on those parts - this is called “sectionals” and it helps ingrain the parts in our brains.
Finally, when we all have a solid handle on our individual parts, we put them together. This is when everything really clicks into place. In a cappella music, there are a lot of supporting parts, and you can only sing “ba baaaa ba ba baaa daaaaaaah” so many times before getting lost in the song. But when everyone is singing together, and the harmonies are perfected, it feels like we’re one person singing with 15 voices.
Head to our Instagram or Facebook page for a special Halloween treat - we had some spooky fun at rehearsal this month (maybe a little too much fun). I hope you have a lovely Halloween and fill up to the brim with candy! You know I will - but that happens more often than I’d like to admit :)
Comments