1. Notes for this week

• Mar 10: We participated in the NSC District Spring Convention in Spartanburg, SC
  • 17 Men on the risers made up the chorus, with Carol directing.
  • 3 quartets: Impromptu, Intrepid, and 7th Dimension.
  • Congratulations and thanks to all those who prepared so well and made the trip to Spartanburg.
• Mar 13:  Our regular chorus meeting. We had 18 men on the risers this past Monday. 
  • The information about and testimonies of attending Dixie Lakeside Harmony Weekend, a joint venture between Dixie and NSC Districts. were presented to the entire chorus. Please consider whether you can attend this excellent program, or if you think the chorus should attend as a whole. Please make a decision within the next 2 weeks.
    • Pencil this weekend (Aug 4 to 6) into your calendar for now.
  • Good Afterglow at The Corner Tavern with 6 in attendance (33%)!
• Mar 20: Guest Night! Invite at least 2 people --- then probably one will come!
  • Wives and friends are def invited!
  • Please send me the names and contact info of people who you think are coming so we can have name badges prepared in advance., and have a count when purchasing the refreshments.
  • To be held at our regular meeting place and time. This meeting will be part special programming and part regular rehearsal, along with some tag learning and singing.

2. Carol's Korner

• If anything on the SongSet below startles you, that is what you should be working on between now and Monday!
• Please take a few minutes to watch the video Ben shared in his Buzz for the week. It's amazing what a listener can understand without being beat over the head by the consonants!
• Also take 20 minutes before Monday to go back to the livestream from last week and listen to our performance and a few others. Be ready to offer up a few words on what you saw and heard from us and compare it to what you saw and heard from other choruses. We always want to grow, learn, and get better so we can keep loving what we do!
• Show Songset and order, for April 3 and beyond:
  • Bare Necessities
  • Ride the Chariot
  • Yesterday 
  • Here Comes the Sun
  • Quartet?
  • Almost Like Being in Love
  • Do You Hear the People Sing?
  • Over the Rainbow
  • Quartet?
  • The Longest Time
  • The Lion Sleeps Tonight
  • Quartet?
  • Sweet Caroline
  • You've Got a Friend in Me
  • We will add in Desperado and Honesty when we are ready to do that.

3. Ben's Buzz

• Following up on Carol’s almost continuous reminders for us to not sing most consonants at the end of words, or to just barely touch them, here’s a great sample - Somebody to love. The song repeats “Find me” over and over and over, as well as the phrase “Somebody to love.” 
• Notice that whether there’s a short rest after “Find me” or it races directly into another phrase, the “d” is very small, very soft, very short, and often non-existent - yet we know the word and the meaning. It gives the song crispness, rhythm, and energy - with no “D”s! The same is true of the “v” in “to love” - over and over and over again. 
• How many songs do we sing that have repeating phrases? Or how many words could we make the ending consonant very short, soft, or non-existent.
• Here’s a challenge - Print a piece of sheet music. Go through the song word by word and put red line through the end of words that you could drop or sing very softly. Then sing the song that way. How does it sound? Now do the same for another song.
• The red line. Maybe that’s a new musical notation! 

4. Future Notes

• Apr 3 (Monday): Oak City Sound concert at Springmoor.
• Apr 23 (Sunday): Sing National Anthem at UNC Baseball game in Chapel Hill, est. start time 1pm.
• Apr 29 (Saturday): Cary Spring Daze booth AND concert (timing tbd).

5. Long Range

• May 8: Oak City Sound in concert at Templeton Retirement Village. Vern Pike lives there now and is our contact. The Templeton is located at 215 Brightmore Dr, Cary, NC 27518, across Kildaire Farm Rd from WakeMed Cary.
• Monday May 29: Is Memorial Day. Searstone is not available to us. Make suggestions on what would be fun to do.
• June 5: 7:15pm: Concert at Searstone! Please show up at 6:30. 
• August 4 to 6, 2023. At Clemson University Campus in Clemson, SC. The Carolinas District is now partnering with the Dixie District to run a single Harmony Education Program ("HEP") in the summer for both NSC and DIX districts. This tot fab educational weekend will be held at Clemson University in Clemson, SC. Absolutely top-tier faculty is assembled for this training event. I can personally attest that this is a GREAT weekend of singing education, for individual singers, quartets, entire choruses, and chorus directors. Pencil this weekend into your calendar for now. Over the winter, we as a chorus will develop plans, as appropriate and beneficial, to attend this, if possible.
• Oct 22, a Sunday afternoon. Oak City Sound in concert at Preston Pointe in Morrisville.

• Congratulations to all 3 chapter quartets for preparing for and entering the NSC Quartet Contest.
• 7th Dimension was fortunate to make the Top 10 out of 23 quartets competing.