We had a fantastic rehearsal last night! We have two main warm up drills that we use, and it usually takes us 5-10 minutes (sometimes longer) to get going and get our voices blending. But last night, holy cow. We hit the ground running. We did one warm-up, then went right into “That’s An Irish Lullabye”. This is a song that we had in our repertoire a number of years ago, and we just dusted it off last month.

And if I have to say so myself, it sounded great (the goosebumps were plentiful). I love singing with Brian, Chris and Kelly. We get along quite well (we don’t tell Chris that we actually don’t like him), and when we click, we click. We were listening to each other very well last night, and every chord was ringing.

We’re preparing for the Fox Valleyaires annual show, where we’ll do “Frog Kissin’”. This is a very fun song that we just added a bit of interp to, and I think we’ll have a blast singing it.

By the time rehearsal was over, it was obvious that we were singing best when we just relaxed, didn’t think too hard, and just enjoyed it.  Of course our rehearsal had to end with us watching the NCAA basketball championship on TV (Kansas beat Memphis).

We have a lot of fun when we’re together, and we hope that you’ll join us at the show in Appleton on Saturday.

Looking forward to singing again with the guys tonight. We were off last week as I was in Columbus Ohio on business at Grange Insurance, and Scott was rebuilding houses and stuff in New Orleans with members of his church, Our Lady of Lourdes in DePere WI. As for Brian and Kelly…they were probably practicing their music day and night in preparation for tonight’s rehearsal. (yeah right) Anyways, I’m excited to get back to learning some new songs for our repertoire, and ringing some sweet barbershop chords. Check out our quartet schedule page for a couple of shows we have coming up later this spring.
Later days, Chris

One of the coolest things about being a member of GQ4 is the fact that we start preparing for the Christmas season in September. At our last rehearsal, we sang about a half-dozen Christmas songs. Though it’s been a while, our memories were quite good and we nailed some really nice chords. It seems a shame that without the quartet, I’d only be “singing” these songs for a couple of weeks in December.

We’re adding “Let It Snow” to our repertoire this year. I love the snow, and I like it when the weather outside is frightful. Some folks here in Wisconsin don’t agree with me though. It seems that the TV weather people are always referring to cold temperatures and snow as “bad weather”. What’s up with that?

I was born and raised here in northeast Wisconsin. As a young adult, I lived in southern California for 12 years. That weather is boring. Sure, the sun is nice, don’t get me wrong. But a change of seasons keeps life interesting.

The fall colors are upon us now. The third week in October (when the colors are the most vibrant) is just around the corner.

Bring it on! Let it snow!

Many folks don’t realize that the four of us are always working to perfect our craft. Our specialty of course is 4 part a cappella harmony. We learn music on our own and we rehearse together every Monday night. But in addition to the typical regular rehearsing that you would expect of any musician, we also schedule several sessions every year with various coaches who help us identify ways to make our performance better.

Today was such a day. Our first coaching sessions of 2007 were in Stevens Point today. Three well-respected musicians in the barbershop world made themselves available to four of us quartets from various parts of Wisconsin.

Our coaching concept is quite simple. We take in all kinds of feedback from any coaches we can. We take notes and make audio recordings of the sessions. When we get back to our next regular rehearsal, we pick through all of the feedback and decide what suggestions we’ll use to improve our performance. The instruction from today’s coaches made the 186 mile round trip well worth it.

Gary Thiel worked with us on “I’ll Fly Away” and “Turn Your Radio On”. Gary is the director of the Northern Gateway Chorus in Stevens Point, and was the tenor in Command Performance, the 1980 LOL District Champion Quartet. Dan Heike worked with us on “Circus Clown” and “Frog Kissin’”. Dan is a singing judge candidate and was the lead of Midnite Watchmen, the 2002 LOL District Champions. Bob Haase worked with us on “My Wild Irish Rose”. Bob is the baritone of Perfect Timing, the 2006 LOL District Senior Quartet Champions, and was also the bass in Badg-aires, the 1962 LOL District Champions. We can’t thank these three guys enough for giving us their time and sharing their talents and expertise with us. We also appreciate the efforts of Jack Edgerton who organized the day and arranged for these coaches to be there.

Our performance will soon reflect the great work of these fine gentlemen.

We’ve been working pretty hard lately. We gave our 30 minute show a bit of an overhaul. A couple of new comedy bits, a couple new songs, and a few old favorites. It’s great when I say something off the cuff and Chris can’t sing cuz he’s laughing so hard. We’ve got a couple of trips coming up. In the next two months, we’ll be in Brookfield, Durand and Black River Falls. The travelling should be a lot of fun.
And of course we’ve got our first performance on the district contest stage in Rochester, MN in October. So much performing to do, so little time!

At the end of rehearsal last night, Scott told us he had this great word document he want to share, being stored on his new 1GB memory stick (all the more reason he has a lock on the historian/librarian/geek of the year award). So Brian brings up the document on his laptop and the laughs ensued. Do a search sometime on Google on the following name phrase and you’ll understand. Say it fast and without thinking too hard and you might surprise yourself!

Makollig Jezvahted and Levdaroum DeBahzted

It’s pretty hard to describe what happens at a GQ4 rehearsal. Most of it, taken out of context means absolutely nothing and makes little sense. But when GQ4 gets together, in the context of songs and our particular mood for the evening, let’s say anything can happen.

Anyway, Scott was apparently making a mouth-shape that wasn’t quite right for the sound we were going for. Kelly, being “the ear” and “the eyes”, noticed what Scott was doing and asked, “how do you sing with that face?”

Without needing to hear Scott sing, you too might wonder how he sings with that face!

We continued singing and tried wrapping up with “Thank You Dear Lord for Music”. It’s such a nice song, with cool chords and “rings” as only barbershop can. Well, we could tell it was getting late.

Mc Creamy started singing, then phonetically clustered some sounds together that sounded like, well, if you can imagine a bagpipe that produces vocalizations, you’ve got a pretty good idea. It was only a couple word sounds, but after 2-3/4 hours of being together, this was enough for us to enter a state of sillyness that we usually cannot escape. We know! We’ve been to this state quite often!

We sort of regained our composure and got started again, sounding pretty good, all things considered… then for some reason Scott and Chris looked at each other - right at the end of the song, too! Let’s just say it didn’t end well. It was definitely funny, as when Scott loses it, it’s usually enough to take 1 or 2 of us with him.

I looked over and said, “I guess you can’t sing with that face.”

Well, that’s my story, and I’m sticking to it

Brian - Tenor - GQ4

If you wanna feel those good vibrations comin’ from the joy that His love will bring, get in touch with God.

Yep, we’re learning a new song. Turn Your Radio On is a peppy gospel song that Kelly brought in. He knows it pretty well, so Brian and Chris and I are trying to catch up. It’s 72 measures, so it’s not too bad.

When I need to get up to speed quick on a song, I like to notate the sheet music on my computer. Then I can selectively play any or all of the four voice parts and rehearse it on my own time without the other guys around. I use Print Music for notation; it works very nicely for barbershop arrangements. Brian then takes the notated document and creates MP3s to help him rehearse. You know, we’re an old fashioned quartet…I’m sure this is how they did it 50 years ago.

We plan to debut the song at the Meyer Theatre on Feb 20 when we perform at the Allouez Village Band’s monthly concert.