Nerd Alert

Lindsey tagged me on Facebook in a post with this link and wrote "Randi, do you know this song? It's really popular right now."  Can we have a moment for how well Lindsey knows me?  Because, let's get real, if it's popular, I probably don't know it.  But, as it happens, they play this one at yoga.  So I do.

Boom.

If you have 3:16 minutes, it's pretty incredible.  If you don't, quit reading this and watch it.  Immediately.  Because Ohhhhhmyyyyyygooooooooooooodnessssssss.

I started to write a comment on the Facebook post.  And then I deleted it and broke my response into multiple comments, and then I decided to just write a post about it.  (It did, albeit briefly, enter my mind that this is really going to make my nerd-ness come out.  But let's get real.  It's truth, people.

"Moving on.")

People who are not vocalists often do not understand the RIDICULOUS challenges that are posed with a capella music, so let me try to break it down just a bit:

1. NO MUSIC - a capella is singing without musical accompaniment.  You don't have to be a vocalist to get this part, but JIC you didn't know. :)
2. PITCH - pitch is one's ability to sing the correct note, well, correctly.  It's also referred to as "intonation."  If you've ever heard someone say "He's flat," about a vocalist, they are referring to his pitch, and "flat" means he's just the slightest bit too low.  "Sharp" is the converse, but if someone is having intonation problems, they are ten times more likely to be flat than sharp.  Pitch comes from the musical accompaniment, but if you don't have the music, you've got to have pretty good very good pitch to start out in one key and then finish in it.  Often, vocalists will drift even just the tiniest bit.  It's not noticeable to the untrained ear, but by the time the piece is finished, it may even be a half step lower than where it started.  If you don't have good intonation (you might rethink this whole singing thing), you really should stick to music with accompaniment.
3. MULTIPLES -  So, building on pitch, when you add other voices into the mix, you require that they all, in turn, have very good excellent pitch.  If one person has the slightest inclination to sing even a fraction below the note, you've got a problem, because, as is true in life, it's easier to bring someone down than pull them up.  So you've got to have SERIOUS skill.
4. BLEND - This is one thing I struggled with when I was young.  Blend is the ability to match volume, quality, dynamic, enunciation, intonation - all of it with everyone in your group.  I know it might be hard to believe, but I was a little loud. :/ And the fewer people, the bigger the challenge.  With a song like this, there are several moving parts.  In this group, I count around 20 women, and at any given time, they may be singing 3-6 different parts, words, beats, etc.
5. DYNAMICS - The use of dynamics is the ability to vary the volume and intensity with which one sings.  It's a pretty powerful thing to hear a group of people slowly cresendo (get louder) or decresendo (get softer) at the same time in the same rate.  The ability to do so is why you get those goosebumps... And when you don't have accompaniment to help with this, you're left entirely to your voice.
6. BREATH - Breath support is one of those things people never hear about, but it's the first thing you learn in vocal training.  My first voice teacher made me lay down on the ground, place a hymnal on my stomach and keep it up for 64 counts.  I dare you to try this unless you are a vocalist or a swimmer, in which case, it's cake.  But breath with a group means you either have to coordinate your breathing, or do what we call "staggering" your breathing, which is where you sneak out and sneak back in. This is, again, harder to do the fewer people you have.

There are more, but I've got to get to the laundry, and let's face it, you skipped to the bottom anyway. 

Bottom line?  This is RIDICULOUSLY hard.  It looks easy and effortless, but behind this are hours and HOURS of preparation.  And, ridiculous skill.  I have a secret life dream to be a part of a group like this, (I LOVE LOVE LOVE a capella!) but the truth is that I'd need a LOT of work before I'd be up to par.

Parting thought: A capella music really is the unsung hero (pun intended) of vocal music.  I really wish it was more popular.  And I wish The Singoff hadn't gotten cancelled.  It was the one TV show I actually watched on TV.