-Gareth Malone
I have found it so interesting working on arranging an acapella piece for me and Meg as a duo and it has really challenged me and a musician. However I really enjoyed it and been very inspired by a programme called 'The Naked Choir' (2015) so in this blog I will analyse that programme and discuss what I've learnt from it, before going onto analyzing and explaining what we did.The Naked Choir was a competition with Gareth Malone in which acapella choirs competed form across the country to try and be the best acapella choir. I'm going to be mainly focusing on the final in which three choirs remained.
The Stratford East Singers were a community choir from East London who came third in the competition but were my personal favorites because they expressed so well the importance of music being a way of bringing people together. They had a strong bond and chemistry between them which I think really came across onstage. I have learnt from this that when you're performing as a group it is important to have good teamwork and get along as this will come across positively to an audience during a performance. This was clear in The Stratford East Singers because I felt they drew in the audience and included them the best out of the three choirs. However although they had energy and fun, they did lack in technique and this stood out against the other two choirs.
I think Choral Stimulation, a choir of students from the University of Glasgow, have improved the most through the process. Not only has there technique developed but also there performance style and creativity which is why I personally thought their performance in the finale was the best. It was varied and styled which meant the audience stayed engaged and felt included in the performance.
Not only did Son's of Pitches,a six piece, have brilliant and solid technique but they were insanely inventive and creative often taking a comedic approach to songs. I think although they weren't as strong as Choral Stimulation in the final performance, they have been the most consistent throughout and really deserved to win.
This week's task was to create an acapella arrangement of a song of our choice in groups and Me and Meg chose Britney Spears 'Toxic'. I think mine and Meg's chemistry really came across within our performance and this was our main strength. Because of that friendship and connection, it enabled us through the rehearsal process to create a good blend between our voices and tones. In the rehearsal process, and the actual performance, it helped us if we watched each other's mouths so that we could make it tight, such as the endings of phrases and words. This was also helped through a lot of rehearsal as we were able to keep practicing until it was tight and accurate.
Watching The Naked Choir, I have learnt the importance in staging and performance being a key element of making a good acapella piece. This is why I think to improve mine and Meg’s cover of ‘Toxic’ it would be important that we look at the staging of the piece. I think we still would take the minimalist approach but still have a bit more movement so that it wasn’t as simple to create a more engaging piece for the audience. I think also something I’d changed if we were to do it again would be to create more variety in the second chorus so that in contrasted more with the first. This would add more of a range within the piece and would create more of an interesting end for the piece and leave more of an impact on the audience.
I think something I want to take forward into group work for our assessment is the rehearsal method me and Meg took to the song. We broke the song down into sections and made sure each part was accurate and inventive before moving onto the next section of the song. It was a quick and effective way of rehearsing which is what we need when working on our assessment.
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