Page 25 - Fall 2020 Tags and Swipes

Tags and Swipes, Fall 2020

Sound of New England Chorus

Warm greetings from Sound of New England Chorus! In these unusual times, one constant in our lives
has been our weekly ZOOM rehearsals. Our sessions have included vocal warm ups using videos from
Kathleen Hanson as well as vocal exercises by Kim Vaughn and our director, Marion Devokaitis. We
continue to learn and qualify new music, the most recent being “We Can Work It Out” by the
Beatles. This seems a very appropriate piece as we work through the technical issues of ZOOM on
computers, laptops, tablets, IPads and IPhones. We can sing together against a music track as long as
we’re all muted. And we’re working it out! Next up is “Fight Song” followed by at least four more
tunes to be selected by the music staff.

We’ve had multiple coaching session during lock down. These include Jan Carley who presented her
four week course, “The Overtone Effect”. Jen Cooke addressed how we can more effectively cope with
these challenging times. Cheryl and Kathy from Farmington Valley shared their expertise in what it
takes to excel in showmanship. We also tuned in to the session presented by Becky Hines, director and
showmanship judge. The videos Becky included in her presentation were valuable in showing the
differences in performance levels and explaining what we all can do to improve our scores in
competition. Upcoming coaching sessions are scheduled with Lynn Smith, Kim Vaughn, Corinna
Garriock and Mo Barrett.

To keep our personal connections strong while we aren’t able to physically be together, each of us has
been sharing a bit of “good news” at each rehearsal. After the prolonged power outage, many said their
best news ever was the return of electricity! We also each give our “word of the day” at the end of
rehearsal – some examples are “grateful, blessed, peaceful, stressed, joyous”. To learn more about each
other, we have started “Show and Tell” sessions during which two people each week describe
and/or show videos of their other hobbies or passions that they enjoy outside of barbershop. We have
played word games, reviewed diphthongs and had a class on intervals and how to find that very
important first note. Review of repertoire has been important since notes and words can become elusive
after months of us not being together on the risers.

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North Atlantic Region 1 Sweet Adelines