Supermassive Black Hole (opb Muse), arranged for The University of Chicago Voices In Your Head for 10 voices (SATB), has been completed.

This arrangement is medium in difficulty, but requires a solid vocal percussionist to do the original justice. Suggested bass note doubling for recording purposes has been included as well. A preview is available on the A Cappella Arranging page...

Rocksteady (opb Marc Broussard), arranged for The University of Illinois Rip Chords for 10 female voices, has been completed. A version is also available for 10 male voices.

This is a pretty challenging chart. There are many large extended chords that require a solid group to be able to tune properly. Also, the bass part requires singers capable of triple-tounging (a sixteenth note triplet every beat with the quarter note at about 120 bpm). This arrangement would lend itself especially well towards recording. A preview is available on the A Cappella Arranging page...

A much better recording of my arrangement of The Star-Spangled Banner (still slightly simplified). This time, the group performed at the Illini football game against #5 ranked Wisconsin (which we won... w00t).

Greg Lee, Matt MacFadyen, Josh Leath, and Me

I spent this past weekend hanging out with The New Tradition in Peoria at the Illinois District Barbershop Harmony Society convention. I had been talking with Greg and Josh about trying to get a quartet together, and it looks like we've found ourselves a fourth member.

Greg is an old regular in barbershop that I first heard singing on the Land of Lincoln chapter show with By Popular Demand. I remember when I saw his quartet, I was just blown away by how good he was. I was also singing on that show with my junior high school quartet (I was in 8th grade at the time, I like to remind him of that when I want to make him feel old). He's since won district with two different quartets singing lead, although he'll be singing tenor in this endeavor.

Matt is an all-around super talented guy. He directed The Xtension Chords for 3 years (a group I've done a bit of arranging for), and directs The Brotherhood of Harmony. He plays some kick ass piano, and will make a hellacious lead. Also, we can talk theory to each other at a level I can with very few other people.

Josh is a thunderdick bass that has tons of experience vocally. He rose to the top of his music prep high school in Texas and went to a conservatory on a full ride vocal scholarship. He has written, arranged, and directed some really solid stuff for vocal and instrumental groups, and yeah...

I mean I really can't say enough about these dudes. They're all insanely talented, and I am super-pumped that I get to sing with them. We sang a bunch of tags this weekend, and the group had by far the cleanest and most powerful ring of any quartet I've ever sung with (even just tags with really good guys). It looks like we are going to be making a run at internationals this spring, and I can't wait to get this thing going. More to follow later...

Geek In The Pink (opb Jason Mraz), arranged for The University of Illinois Xtension Chords for 8 male voices, has been completed.

I'm really happy with the way this arrangement turned out. Although somewhat challenging, it is well within the reach of the better male collegiate groups, so if you have a tenor that can do Jason Mraz justice, take a look at it. A preview is available on the A Cappella Arranging page...

The original arrangement has a much more interesting ending, but because the group only had a short time to learn it, I simplified it for them. Unfortunately, a lot of the nuances of the arrangement weren't executed very well in this performance either, but I suppose that is at least partially to blame on the venue.

Performers are L to R: Zac Forbes (tenor), Nic Forbes (lead), Kellen Fant (bass), and me (baritone). This performance re-unites the very first quartet I was in (when I was in 8th grade), although I sang bass and Kellen sang bari then. This is the very-commonly performed Jim Clancy arrangement, although I redid the tag to give it a bit more zing.

So I'm all moved in in Chicago and have been taking med school classes for the past month. For some reason I was expecting that medical school would be so intense that I would do nothing but study for hours every day otherwise I would fail, but that really hasn't been the case. At least so far, my undergrad study habits are still working out. Probably the strangest part is that I find I'm much more bored now than I ever was during undergrad. Because it's the summer and so few people are here, even though I'm in a bustling city with lots of fun things to do, I haven't really met a lot of people, and I don't particularly want to go out and about in the city by myself. I would've never expected to bored out of my mind in medical school! This probably explains my recent YouTubing and posting on here (which I doubt anyone actually reads anyway).

Last Monday night I went to check out a barbershop chorus in the area called The New Tradition. The group is pretty good and a lot of the people there seemed pretty cool, but I'm not really convinced I'll join. First of all, its about an hour long drive each way, which would be kind of expensive. Also, I would be the youngest person in the group by quite a bit, and even then, maybe only 5 out of the 80 some people in the choir are under 30. So I'm not convinced I'd find a lot of common ground with a lot of the people there. Also, I get the impression there is "drama" going on internally that I'd rather avoid. Anyway, I'll probably go back this Monday and see what I think.

Another problem is that the other MSTPs in my class aren't terribly eager to socialize with each other with any frequency. I suppose this is understandable if for no other reason than we see each other about 8 hours per day anyway. Personally, I can't wait until the fall starts when the campus will liven up a bit and I can meet the rest of the medical school class. Anyway, that is all for now.