Back to the Beginning...

Featuring UPenn's A Capella Group "PennSori" singing a Disney Medley!

Last Sunday at Rhythm of Faith, we had an hour of practice and then spent the 2nd hour talking. (RoF seems to be doing a lot of "talking" lately...)
We went around the room sharing our reasons for why we joined RoF. As we went around the room sharing our reasons, I reflected a lot about myself and my motives for being in RoF.
As a girl with an older brother who is 8 years her senior, I grew up being exposed to the music and culture he enjoyed. When my brother was in college, he purchase a lot of college group A Capella CDs, and more specifically, a lot of Christian A Capella CDs. As he would drive me to my orchestra rehearsal or art lesson, we'd sit in the car and listen to the amazing voices of college A Capella groups. By being exposed to my brother's tastes in music, I began to form my own interest in A Capella.
It became my turn, and I began to explain my story about how I became interested in A Capella and how I had found out about Rhythm of Faith. However, as my story continued, I found myself explaining why I stayed instead of why I joined.
I joined RoF because of my initial love for A Cappella music and my desire to be a part of an A Capella group. However, now I realize that RoF is so much more than just an A Cappella group to me. RoF is my stress relief. RoF is my excitement. RoF is my favorite pastime. RoF is my offering to God. RoF is my way of singing to the world about my love for Jesus. RoF is my second family. And I could go on and on. The reason I joined was because I was given an choice. The reason I stayed was because my own self would not have given me a different option.
I write this because I realize that it is so easy to forget one's motivations for doing something. Especially when working in a group. As the end of the semester nears with a number of performances, RoF has been pressured to keep up with the demand. Rehearsals have gone by without proper breaks and with many moments of frustration. However, as we get busier, it becomes more important to take a step back, think back to where we started, and fall in love all over again with what we do.
I'm so thankful for having been able to join Rhythm of Faith and for having been given such a wonderful group to lift up my voice with. And as my RoF career continues, I just pray that I will always remember to pause and take a step "back to the beginning"...

Announcement!

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=10150099991526534
The link above is a link to the facebook video of RoF's last performance of "Yesterday." The FB video is "public" so you should have no problem accessing it. Enjoy! =)

The past couple of weeks have been very busy for RoF. The 2nd half of the spring semester is performance season, and we've been very busy!
But in the midst of this busy, chaotic schedule, RoF has a big announcement! Rhythm of Faith and Penn State University will be hosting the Fall 2011 Gospel Jam! Gospel Jam is an annual event that brings together various Christian A Capella groups from the east coast for a weekend of music, fun, and fellowship! Last semester, RoF was blessed to go to Johns Hopkins University for the 2010 Gospel Jam, which they named "Jam More in Baltimore". We, along with 10+ other groups, met together at JHU and attended music workshops, did street singing, and ended the weekend with an evening concert that showcased every group in attendance. It was a lot of fun, and RoF is so excited to be hosting the next one!
We've sent out invitations to about 20 groups across the east coast, including some of the groups that I have featured in my blogs here. We are planning on hosting about 12 groups, so it'll be a first-come, first-serve basis. We've heard back from two universities, and we're happy to announce that Carnegie Mellon University's "Joyful Noise" and Johns Hopkins University's "Adoremus" will be attending.
Rof is currently planning many exciting things for next semester's Gospel Jam. Our group's officers are currently in the planning stages for creating icebreakers to housing 120+ college students. Please cheer us on and give us your best wishes in completing this giant task successfully! ^^
Also, last year's Gospel Jam was creatively called "Jam More in Baltimore" as I mentioned above. We're trying to think of some creative names that we could incorporate with "Penn State," "Happy Valley," "PSU," and etc. Any suggestions?
And lastly, I'd like to say hello to the blogging world as Rhythm of Faith's new music director for the next academic year. I'm in the process of being passed down the RoF wisdom from the current music director, and I'm so excited! I can't honestly say that I'm not nervous... I'm worried that I won't be able to handle the time and work committments that being an officer of a club requires... But I'm willing to try my best!
Until next time,
Joy

P.S.
Gospel Jam will be held on November 5th, so save the date if you're interested in listening to some fine A Capella!

Constructive Criticism...

Lately, Rhythm of Faith has been dealing with teamwork issues. This issue becomes even more sensitive around performance season. The past two weeks, RoF has been preparing to perform at Weekend of Worship. (Weekend of Worship is a 3 night event hosted by Harvest Global Mission Church, one of Penn State's on-campus ministries. It will be at 102 Forum, and the event is open to all! If you're interested, please don't hesitate to join us.) Our tracklist consists of "True Colors" by Cyndi Lauper, "Sweetly Broken" by Jeremy Camp, and "Yesterday" by the Boyz II Men.
All three songs require an incredible amount of teamwork and coordination.
During this week's practice, RoF struggled through a long practice of singing over and over again.
One thing we struggled with was constructive criticism. Several groups of students were struggling with their parts during various parts of the rehearsal. The rehearsal was rather difficult to get through because tension began to build as criticisms were given across the room. In the end, the tensions died down as we continued to sing and move past the criticisms.
In any team effort, I think constructive criticism is very important. It's essential for those receiving the constructive criticism to be able to mature enough to accept the suggestions and take heed to the group's advice. It's also essential for those giving the constructive criticism to be able to discern the difference between constructive criticism and plain criticism. After this week's practice, I feel that RoF has taken a step closer to becoming a tighter, more unified group. The phase of dealing with constructive criticism is crucial for a group to improve, and I hope that RoF will continue to learn to work with each other and be able to sing our hearts out together! =]

Let's stay together, shall we?

Recently, RoF has been working on the song "Yesterday," originally by the Beatles, and remade by the Boyz II Men. If you listen to this song, you'll notice that while it's an extremely impressive piece when done well, it has the potential to be an extremely unpleasant disaster when done... not so well. Throughout the song, the 4 parts, Soprano, Alto, Tenor, and Bass, are blended together in a pleasant dissonance. The leaders of RoF predicted that the song would bring us several long and gruesome practices, and their prediction was on point.
The first problem, as previously mentioned, was intonation. Because the parts were so radically different from each other, we could not rely on the other sections' parts to sing along. This piece really pushed our group to grow and mature musically. The alto line was particularly difficult, and our usually musically strong alto section had a tricky time perfecting our part.
While intonation was our first problem, our biggest obstacle was tempo. The song's tempo was marked at 60, which equates each beat to be a second. As a group, we just simply could not keep a steady tempo. Because the song was originally marked at such a slow tempo, our tendency was to speed up. The problem intensified as each section sang at its own tempo. This problem was so severe that sometimes after a mere 30 seconds into the song, our music director would bring the painful song to a halt.
The only way to solve these problems was to practice, and practice, and practice. We practiced separately as sections, came back together as a group, split back into our sections, and then came back together once more. This process went on repetitively until it was time to wait for the next rehearsal to repeat this cycle. This went on, until last practice, our music director finally declared that the song was finished!
This song taught our group a lot about team work. Initially, the song gave us so many problems because the sections, and perhaps even the individuals, of the group were so disconnected. Not everyone was singing the right part, at the right tempo, in the right key. We learned how to pay attention to each other in order to stay together in regards to tempo.
Thank you Boyz II Men for helping RoF become more unified! ^^

Post-THON!

Today's post will be a post-THON report!

Let me first just give a HUGE round of applause to everyone who was involved in THON the past weekend. As I stood up on the bleachers watching the event from above, it almost seemed unreal. As a freshman, it was breathtaking to experience my first THON, and I can't wait for the next couple of THONs to come! :]

Singing at THON was awesome (although it ended in a abrupt halt--more on that later).

I have to admit, at first, it was quite awkward. Here we were, standing in the middle of the hallway with crowds of people bustling around. Volunteers and visitors alike were running around busily, and honestly, I felt like we were in the way. But, we managed to find an empty space by the wall opposite to the registration table. There was a line of people patiently (some impatiently) waiting for their turn to be helped. We then began to sing our first song: Seasons of Love.

The beginning of the song starts out with just the sopranos. The crystal clear, high tones of the sopranos pierced the atmosphere, and heads immediately turned to our direction. While at first, a lot of people looked at us like we were crazy, after the first 30 seconds, many people proceeded to bob their heads or clap along. The first and last songs of a performance are always the most important, because they leave the first and last impression. Their was a specific reason why our president chose Seasons of Love as our first selection. If you read the lyrics, I think you'll understand why...

Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes,
Five hundred twenty-five thousand moments so dear.
Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes
How do you measure, measure a year?

In daylights, in sunsets, in midnights
In cups of coffee
In inches, in miles, in laughter, in strife.

In five hundred twenty-five thousand
Six hundred minutes
How do you measure
A year in the life?

How about love? [x3] 

Measure in love
Seasons of love [x2]

Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes!
Five hundred twenty-five thousand journeys to plan.

Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes

How do you measure the life of a woman or a man?
 

In truths that she learned,
Or in times that he cried.
In bridges he burned,
Or the way that she died.

It's time now to sing out,
Tho' the story never ends
Let's celebrate
Remember a year in the life of friends
Remember the love!

Oh you got to got to
Remember the love!
You know that love is a gift from up above
Share love, give love spread love
Measure measure your life in love.

These lyrics are powerful lyrics. And they embody the ideals of THON. I've never watched Rent before, so I'm not sure in what context that these lyrics were created, but I do know that "remembering the love" is something that THON strives to do. As we sang, we watched the tired volunteers run around on a mere 3 or 4 hours of sleep. We watched devoted supporters walk in late at night to cheer on our dancers. We watched tired dancers march off to the bathroom with struggling smiles. It was great to be able to stand in front of lines and encourage the passersby to keep smiling and remembering the love. It was even better when we got encouraging smiles or words of support in return! One guy even started to sing along with us! :) 

And now, on to the sad part... After about an hour, we eventually had to stop because one of the THON workers approached us and told us we weren't allowed to sing unless we had received explicit permission from the THON committee to do so. It was odd, because it wasn't the first time RoF has gone THON hallway singing. But we understood his reasoning and stopped our performances. 

THON is now over, but the THON spirit is a year-round effort! I hope the Penn State community doesn't forget to "remember the love."

THON!

Rhythm of Faith is scheduled to walk around and sing at THON this Saturday =)
As PennStaters, we all know what THON is. It's a year-long effort that raises funds and awareness for pediatric cancer. With over 15,000 student volunteers, 700 dancers, and many more rooting for the cause in spirit, THON is an epic opportunity for the Penn State community to give a little "umph" into the triumph that our society strives for.
Rhythm of Faith has traditionally walked around the BJC singing in front of bathroom lines, doorways, and hallways, in hopes of encouraging and inspiring the folks at this spectacular event. This year, while preparing, I reflected a lot about what it would mean for us to sing at such an event.
THON stands for so much more than an "activity" that Penn State hosts. It stands for the fight that we as Nittany Lions have committed ourselves to. It stands for the many children who await for a superhero to lift them out of their troubles. Knowing this, it put this Saturday's performance into a different perspective.
As I noted in my "This I Believe" speech, music has the ability to heal, inspire, and enchant both the listener and the creator. This weekend, Rhythm of Faith will be singing among people who need all kinds of healings, inspirations, and enchantments. Whether they may need a little encouragement to keep smiling or a refreshing reminder during a bathroom break to keep on dancing, everyone could use a little cheer.
RoF will be singing songs from "Who Am I" to "Oh Happy Day" to "Seasons of Love". Each song reminds the listener that he/she is loved and that today is a day to celebrate the energy, joy, and passion that life brings us.
I hope that RoF will truly be able to bless those who happen to hear us at THON.
And on a parting note,
FTK<3

"As it is, there are many parts, but one body."

This week's feature video comes from Dartmouth's A Capella group, X.Ado. The song is "Listen to Our Hearts" by Steven Curtis Chapman. Soloists are Kevin Oh and Andrew Kang.
I unfortunately was not able to attend RoF's practices this week, so I'll blog today about today's feature video.
Upon listening to this video, the first thing that most people will note is the soloist's breathtaking voice. His deep, rich tone is likely to sweep any girl off her feet.When I was first introduced to X.Ado through this video, I immediately became obsessed with Kevin and began to watch every single video Youtube had of this fascinating creature who had captured my heart. (He also has a personal youtube channel, monkeybz, in which he displays his mind-blowing guitar/vocal skills. His cover of "La Vie En Rose" is to die for.) However, as I listened to X.Ado's rendition of Listen to Our Hearts, I realized that the real magic in this performance happened behind the soloist.
Sure, Kevin is absolutely fantastic at singing this song. But without the background vocals, his voice would not shine as much as it does. The vocalists in the back blend together with almost flawless precision. Not one voice sticks out as its own. Each section moves as if it were one person, and all four sections come together as majestic one instrument. I think the combination for a perfect A Capella performance consists of a soloist who helps the background vocals to shine and background vocals that enhance the soloist. Unity for the win!
I think the concept of unity is especially interesting in a Christian A Capella group, because the groups moves together and sings for a defined purpose. I post the lyrics below in hopes to enhance your viewing experience. Whether Christian or not, I hope that you'll be able to experience the passion and emotions that are captured in X.Ado's performance. Just take a moment to imagine the passion behind the lyrics of this song. For whether he is confessing his love for God or his love for a cheeseburger, every performer hopes that he can effectively convey to the audience what's in his heart through his music.

Here are the verses for this song:
How do you explain,
How do you describe,
A love that goes from east to west,
And runs and deep as it is wide?
You know all our hopes
Lord, you know all our fears
And words cannot express the love we feel
But we long for You to hear

So listen to our hearts (oh, Lord, please listen)
Hear our spirits sing (and hear us sing)
A song of praise that flows (a simple song of praise)
From those You have redeemed (from those You have redeemed)
We will use the words we know
To tell You what an awesome God You are
But words are not enough
To tell You of our love

If words could fall like rain
From these lips of mine
And if I had a thousand years
I would still run out of time
So if You listen to my heart
Every beat would say,
Thank You for the Life, thank You for the Truth, thank You for the Way. 

Currently on RoF's playlist:
Oh Happy Day from the movie The Sister Act 2
Seasons of Love from the Broadway musical RENT
True Colors (w/ revised lyrics) by Cyndi Lauper [also seen on GLEE! :D]

"As it is, there are many parts, but one body." 1 Corinthians 12:20