Harmony Platoon

    It seemed like a good idea, last January when the days ended at 4 p.m. when it was dark and cold out and the shows on tv were like watching sands through an hour glass.  Add the encouragement of a fellow enthusiast from Kansas who assured me he was going to enlist.  We could get together again in Estes Park.

    It was only $20 and you got four songs, the sheet music and “learning tracks”.  So I sent in my check.  In early February via email, the music arrived.  AND the news from my “friend” that he couldn’t be there, a wedding in Nebraska.

     Well, it might be fun anyway, so I printed off the music and transferred the recorded versions to the MP3.  I could put on the head phones and listen.  I couldn’t sing out loud much, unless I had the house to myself. 

     Folks don’t mind hearing a lead sing his part solo—it’s usually the melody.  The bass can get by because he has the chord roots and maybe a catchy rhythm.  If you hear a baritone singing all alone, you might think he was having a close encounter of a third (or fifth or seventh) kind with another world.

     If you hear a tenor practicing his part, you want to dial 911 and request an ambulance.  The guy has to be in unbearable pain, whining as he is in the troposphere. So I tried to learn my part using my imagination.  I don’t know how many times I might have forgotten myself and sang out loud.  I’m afraid to ask.

     When April got here and I couldn’t sing my part to the four songs without either the music or the MP3, I began to get a little nervous.  A couple of trips to the farm allowed me to howl out loud without disturbing anyone but the bunny rabbits.  They deserve it.

     It took a lot of time, which I had in February, but without a place.  In April I had the place, but there were a lot of other things to do, farm work, tractors to get ready, trees to plant, a grain bin to finish emptying.  None of that got done this week.  It was barbershop week.

     Well, there was a trip to the airport to send the Goodwife off on her tri-monthly visit to check on her mother.  And the regular barbershop meeting (show coming up on May 8),  quite a few errands to run, a trip up the hill to visit the grandson (going to be walking soon), and then it was Friday.

     More than once did I think I should not have devoted all the time to learning tenor part to four songs just to have a good time with a bunch of other guys.  Or was it going to be fun?  Would I be the only one who wasn’t sure he could hold up his part in a quartet.  (Singing in a quartet requires a lot more confidence than singing in a chorus.  In a chorus you can rely on someone else when you forget the words or lose your way.)

     Of course I found many, many guys in the same boat with me.  Most of us toughed it out, but a few violated a cardinal rule of platoon or brigade singing:  no paper music on stage.

     The platoon handlers took playing cards and taped our names to the face.  The cards were placed in four rows, one row for each part, name up.  You turned your card over when you arrived.  After warming up as a group on each of the four songs, the head guy played a game of “brains” or concentration with the turned-over cards.  He drew one card from each row and that was your quartet.

     In the first round each quartet was assigned one of the four songs and had thirty minutes to go practice.  My quartet was assigned “Daydream”  (“what a day for a daydream. . . “).  

     There were eleven quartets in the first round.  Two quartets had to do two songs with different baritones because there were two more baritones than there were guys singing the other three parts—a little bit unusual.  Normally there would be more leads and basses and fewer baritones and even fewer tenors. 

     Two of the four songs were sung twice and two were sung three times by the eleven quartets.  Each quartet gave itself a name.  Your name went into a hat and a panel of judges, who listened to the same songs over and over again, drew out a name.  When your name was drawn, you got up in front of the judges and all the other guys and sang your song.

     The first place quartet in the first round got to sing first (“mike testers”) on the evening show, the college quartet contest.  The winner of the second round sang last after the college contest (“mike coolers” I think).  My first round quartet also sang (as in also ran).  We didn’t win.

    In the second round, my quartet was one that had to do two songs with two different baritones.  So we only had fifteen or twenty minutes to practice each song.  The “Hard Day’s Night” quartet did okay but no medal.  The “Sweet Caroline” quartet nearly crashed and burned because the bass, who has the melody on the verses, couldn’t remember the words.  He started ad libbing and we became a comedy quartet.  We got lots of laughs and applause but no win.

     The third round began Friday afternoon.  We drew for our quartet assignment, but we wouldn’t know what song we would sing until, in front of the judges, when we would draw the song and sing it.  That would be the final round on Saturday morning.  My third round quartet practiced for 45 minutes before the dinner bell sounded.

     Friday ended with the-afore mentioned college quartet contest.  There were other activities, but I had to drive down the hill in the dark, and Saturday was another day.  So I switched gears and listened to the Rockies come from behind and beat the Giants as I descended.

     Saturday morning found the competition reduced by scheduling conflicts.  Some guys had to attend quartet-coaching sessions, some a chorus-coaching session.  Our lead had a class he wanted to attend (it was “Harmony College” after all).  So a guy stepped in to sing lead with us.  There were eight other quartets in this round. 

     When we sang “You’ve Got a Friend”  (from Toy Store), it was for the first time with our new lead.  We tied for first place.

     In the sing-off we chose to sing “Daydream”.  We did fairly well.  The other quartet developed problems in the middle of “Friend” and we were declared the winner.

    The third round winner got to sing on the Saturday night show.  This show featured the chorus and the quartets that were coached Friday and Saturday (quartets registered with the society, not the “pickup” quartets of the Platoon.)

     The coaches were the members of the current senior champion quartet, Saturday Evening Post. There were other coaches, too, one from the Barbershop Harmony Society staff.  The quartets move from room to room where for an hour or so the expert listens to them and helps them improve.  Saturday night, the quartets get to show on stage the improvements they have made.

      Society protocol calls for the best to be last, or the worst first.  Saturday Evening Post ended the Saturday night show in fine fashion.  The coached quartets went through a random draw to see when they sang.

     First on the show was the Platoon chorus made up of the 40 of us who participated.  We began the show with “You’ve Got a Friend in Me”, which we did very well as a chorus.  We ended our set with “Sweet Caroline” with the audience’s help on the “Ba, ba, ba’s”.  It was a hit, like most audience participation events.

     In between the two numbers, the third-round-winning quartet, my quartet, sang.  We chose “Daydream” again.  We got to the “time ain’t really on my side” and some of us jumped ahead to “time passes me by a lot” (me? I can’t honestly say).

    We came to a halt, not a spectacular crashing train wreck halt, but a slowly dying out, feebly embarrassed-looking-at-one-another halt.  The audience folk tittered away their embarrassment for us.  We looked at each other.  What to do?

    “Can we start again?” I asked.  “No” said the baritone.  “Start again,” said the lead.  The bass nodded.  Conceding, the baritone pulled out his pitch pipe and sounded the “C” again.

    “Buh doom” went the bass.  “Doo” went the baritone, lead, and tenor.  The train was on the track again.  This time we got there.   We did a pretty good job, too, if I do say so myself.  The audience warmly rewarded us for picking ourselves up and getting back in the race.

     Now for the Paul Harvey “Rest of the Story”.  The panel of judges consisted of VIP’s from the Rocky Mountain district. 

 

       The judges, after having to listen to the same four songs over and over again, try to get even with us by singing US a song.

     Our baritone is a member of the RMD board of directors.     

    Our substitute lead was the guy directing the platoon who came all the way from Las Vegas.  He stepped in to keep things even and still have have nine quartets.

     Might the judges been prejudiced?  Nah.  Anyway, it was fun in the end, train wreck and all.

     My reward for hours and hours of trying to learn four songs, some stress, and two trips up the hill:  a golden trophy cup on a golden chain—all made of plastic.  (What did you expect for a $20 entrance fee?)