John Contreras's blog

From the Risers

Like many of our fellow choruses we're increasing our recruiting effort to attract more singers. We're particularly glad to have two new board members at-large this year that are under 25 years old and are leaning in to help the outreach. One of the things we're reinforcing with our members is that our weekly meetings are the "product" that we're offering to visitors. Most aspects of our meetings fall into the "ain't broke, don't fix" category; we have a lot of fun and we're singing very well. That said, it never hurts to remind ourselves that excellent singing is a part of our recruiting strategy. What I call "Riser Culture" is part of it. Our business and social time is part of it. I like to think that even our weekly afterglow is part of our recruitment strategy.

From the Risers

We've started our 2025 chorus year, back to rehearsals and dusting off our musical brain cells. We did a fascinating thing this week for preparations for our annual singing valentines adventure. Standing in our sections in a circle, about 3/4 of us switched to a different section to learn other parts in the traditional valentines songs. I went from bass to lead, tenors went to the bass section and <gasp> several singers deliberately went to sing baritone! It was a fantastic exercise in nimbleness of mind and voice! I had to sing in a different part of my range, learn new notes and carry the melody the whole time. It turns out that the lead part doesn't ever include "bum, bum, bum," or those rhythmic pickup notes that I enjoy so much.

From the Risers

As the last chord of our 35th annual Christmas Show echoed in the rafters, the performers and audience members stood there smiling at each other for a solid minute or two. The applause from the audience displayed a warm and genuine appreciation of what we had given them, and we responded with big smiles, waving hands and "Merry Christmas!" I can vouch for all the work we put in to deliver the best Christmas show that I can recall, I love being part of a chorus that always works hard to perform well. After we got offstage, we mingled with them around the bins stacked with items for the food bank. Three food items apiece are the traditional price of admission and everyone thinks it's a great idea.

From the Risers

Hold that thought!

That's what has been on my mind for a month now, since I got back from Harmony College NW in June. Between illness, a business trip and a sing-out on our rehearsal night (which was well worth it!) I've been bottling up several cool things I learned in June but haven't had much time to implement. Individual voice coaching, tag writing class, and chorus performance tips are still swimming around in my mind like a bug-eyed goldfish in too small of a bowl. My favorite nugget came from a class with Will Fox. Tucked in between all the finer points of voice placement and tuning was this: If you want to be better than others at your chosen craft, you have to be willing to do things that others are not willing to.

From the Risers

My brother-in-law is a car guy, currently restoring a 1960's Chevrolet, and this current project has been a challenge. He's had to dig deeper and do more work down in the details than ever. Sometimes it's worth breaking things down to the basic parts. This week our director took apart some phrases and chords down to specific notes and even individual singers. It was so sweet to see this process handled so well. Coby was very particular to keep the work focused on the song and not the singers, the outcome and not the individual. The singers all took the work as craftsmanship: how can we do better? The result was phenomenal. As a singer, I heard octaves and other intervals that weren't clear before. I and others heard when we weren't singing quite the right vowel or tonal placement.

From the Risers

With a career in training and as a father of three children, I love this definition of learning: "Learning has occurred when behavior changes." Our chorus picked up a new song this week (learn the basics at home, come prepared to start rehearsing): Seventy Six Trombones from The Music Man. The first half of the arrangement has the melody in the bass voices, and I was curious to see how it would sound at the first rehearsal. As a bass section, we've heard a lot of instruction about how to sing the melody when we have it: Sing like a Lead, just in a lower range. Keep the placement forward and the quality light, especially in your upper range (sometimes I think the phrase "Just 'cause you can, don't mean you should." was written for barbershop basses).

From the Risers

If you're one of those folks like me, someone that notices and appreciates 'moments' - those brief times that seem to capture an experience that you'd love to preserve - our meeting this week offered several treasures. On the risers, we were polishing up our performance of our national anthem and found ourselves over-singing out of sheer emotional involvement. We have quite a few veterans in the chorus and no shortage of personal engagement on that song. I wanted to capture that depth of personal commitment to a performance and bottle it for every piece of music we sing.

From the Risers

This week's rehearsal included some genuine WOW! musical moments. I'm always impressed by Coby's listening abilities, and as he fine-tuned our balance, vowel shapes and blend we all felt the convergence of lyrics, arrangement and our singing. Like a perfect barbershop storm these things came together in a way that made the song come to life. That might sound corny but if you've heard good barbershop harmony you know what I mean. It's the definition of synergy, where the total is greater than the sum of the parts. It's a full body experience for me, standing in the front row near the center as we deliver the poetry of the lyrics, carried along by the momentum of the arrangement, our family of voices molded into one.

And THAT is another reason I love this group!

From the Risers

I noticed a convergence this week between the musical aspects and business aspects of my barbershop experience. As barbershop acapella singers, we are devoted to the musical style we love so much, but how to communicate that enthusiasm to others? We all genuinely wish that the great experience we have would be shared by others, and that desire coincides with the business goal of growing membership. At a recent leadership meeting we noted that there are many musical opportunities in our area and we asked ourselves the question "why would someone join the Cascade Chorus instead of some other group?" The most significant answer, we realized, is the tremendous amount of resources available beyond the local chorus.

From the Risers

Its an old saying that absence makes the heart grow fonder, but I bumped into that recently because I had a cold that was not worth sharing with my fellow singers and missed last weeks meeting. I returned this past Tuesday and had that odd feeling, as a long time member, that I had missed something. I wouldn't say for a moment that I felt left out, I've rarely experienced a more welcoming cohort of friends dedicated to a common purpose and the warmth of fellowship this week was exceptional. There was, however, the sense that something wonderful happened while I was away. That's the sense of special-ness that I love about this chapter and chorus, and what makes me so reluctant to miss a rehearsal.

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