Troubadour

Webcast 2008 Internationals

Eleven of us gathered at Jim Owens' home, Saturday night, July 5, to watch and listen to the Quartet Finals from Nashville . (Owens, Doig, Melkonian, Mann, Cowlishaw, DeNio, Pioch, Butcher, Frye, Shantz, and Jamison). All voice parts were present for one round of My Wild Irish Rose, but after all the pizza (supplied by Doc) and ice cream topped with fruit (supplied by Jim) we were mostly content to sit and listen to the eleven best quartets in the world compete for top honors. And criticize! Why did State Line Grocery and Storm Front use THIS venue to criticize the new judging rules? And fly in the face of them with long periods of non-singing?

We were worried at 7 pm when the webcast didn’t start, until we realized I had forgotten it started at 7 pm CDT. Award-winning Doren McTaggart gave away the emcee role to a groaner. Most of us liked OC Times, Crossroads (Mike Slamka’s new quartet), Metropolis (with old PIO members Bob Hartley and Brian Philbin), and Glory Days. Bob Butcher nailed the top two – OC Times and Crossroads. The next three were surprises – State Line Grocery, Redline, and Old School.

In addition, did you know about Art Lane being inducted into the PROBE Hall of Honor?

Also here's a report from quartet Chordiology bass and blogger Dave Spizarny.

Every once in a while Rob has a great idea, and Saturday evening was a once in that while, as Rob (and Greg Humbel) put together a webcast party for the International Quartet Finals at the Duderstadt Center where Rob works (at the University of Michigan). Big screens, good sound, pizza, munchies, and other refreshments go together as well as singing barbershop goes with watching barbershop, so I knew that we were in for a fun night. After all, how often can you listen to 11 different high quality quartets in one night? Once a year is the right answer……..hopefully someone will explain it to the baritones.

The group met at 6:30 for some fellowship and singing, as well as some chorus contest watching, while I waited for what we were all waiting for, the quartet finals. We watched three different chorus sets, and just to prove how bad I am at names, I’m going to call them the winners, the second placers, and the penguins. I’m only going to make some general comments, because I don’t want to start Barbershop Wars, as I’m not sure that the force is actually with me.

First, the 'Penguins'. Amazing doesn’t seem to do it, but it’s what comes to mind right now. These were the fish guys from a previous contest, so I guess the fish have evolved into penguins – very entertaining penguins, I might add.

Webcast Party!
(click image for album)

Pioneer District

For those of us unable to attend the competition in Nashville TN the webcast provided the next best thing. The audio quality was wonderful and with the video using both stationary, panning, and zooming boom cameras with a full screen viewing option it was the best seat in the house (except maybe for the judges). There was the option of paying only for specific days' live and archived performances, the full package being $150, or for just the archived performances, and there was even the option of audio only for free. Performers were interviewed briefly in a studio between competitor's sets which included interviews with 2008 Pioneer District Quartet Representatives Wildcard, Collegiate Quartet Champions Harmony101, and Chorus Representatives MountainTown Singers.

There was a number of webcast service interruptions July 2nd-4th during the Quartet Quarter and Semi-Finals and during the Chorus Finals due to server/carrier issues. The webcast team worked valiantly to overcome these technical difficulties. BHS Events Committee Chairman and Webcast Executive Producer Murray Phillips reported, "...there are six different companies that have to work together to bring the magic of our music from the stage out to your homes or offices. The process is significantly more intricate and intertwined than it would seems like needs to be the case. When you create this environment every year in a different location, with a different set of variables, we can test the feed and the technical machinations behind it as much as we like, but when the actual stream provider has a routing issue, there's nothing we can do about it except ride them until its fixed."

However, any parts that were missed to paying webcast members were also available in the archives for one week.

Fortunately there were no mass interruptions during the Quartet Finals Saturday July 5th. Here's a webcast party report by Pioneer District's Pontiac-Waterford Chapter from their 2007 PROBE editor awarded August newsletter the Smoke Signals www.BigChiefChorus.org.

Will they climb another rung in the evolutionary ladder next year, perhaps singing as some lower form of mammal? Hey, how about a chorus of baritones? Or is that taking a step down the ladder? (As Jim Carey pleaded when he was that green guy, “Somebody stop me!”).

The top two choruses were incredible (and I’m sure that the choruses that we didn’t watch were incredible too). How do they do it? Don’t these guys work for a living? How much time do they commit to learning this stuff? They remind me of a marching band crossed with a chorus line. Some clever guy needs to write a “What do you get when you cross...” joke about this. It was entertainment at its finest, at least in my opinion.

The pre-contest stuff seemed to drag on forever, although even my cynical sarcastic brain was moved to tears by the guy from the Gaynotes. Hopefully this will remain our secret, because I’d like to maintain my charter membership in the Cynic Society. On second thought, do you really think I care if they kick me out?

Finally, the quartet finals began with the guys who just barely missed the cut, the mike testers, Men in Black. Being a get along guy at heart, I think they were robbed, unless you think they were overrated, then I agree. I’m not going to comment on the other quartets because I’m pretty sure that you know better than me which quartet got what they deserved and which quartet was robbed.

However, I did find it interesting that several of top ten quartets used humor in their final sets. After Old School broke into a rap in the middle of a barbershop song, Rob and I both wondered the same thing, “What are the judges going to do with that?” Normally, I’d insert a baritone joke in this spot, but it looks like somebody did stop me.

Every time I watch the cream of our crop, I wonder about how talented and clever human beings can be. The quartet finals always amaze me, and while they make me proud of the music that I love, they also make me humble about the music that I sing.

Pride and humility. A remarkable combination for a remarkable event, don’t you think?

Congratulations OC Times, you were great.

Dave Spizarny
Chordiology bass
Chordiology.com



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