Concert Choir Day Six: The Trouble with Trebles

Aloha!

How's it going!?!  Can I just say how awesome these boys are?  You're little munchkins were rock stars again today as they conducted a three-hour workshop and followed that by a concert.  No big deal, just another day with the Land of Lakes Choirboys.

So here is how it started!  Yours Truly got to sleep in an extra 20 minutes while Adam, Rodney, and Aaron went to the school to get all the boys.  We are in Hilliard for two days, so they had very little luggage and a few hours to kill in the morning.  We had a plan, but we needed to execute it properly if it was going to work.

We called ahead to the Best Western yesterday to see if the boys could come and go swimming in our motel, but they have a policy that you can only have as many boys swim as you have rooms rented.  Therefore, we were allowed to have exactly 16 boys swimming - no more.  To facilitate this, we split the boys into two groups.  The boys that are on the bus cleaning crew and riser crew worked on their jobs.  Adam put the riser boys through their paces while the bus crew made our awesome bus even more awesome smelling.  (That bus has been fantastic for us this year...)

Group two snuck in the back door of the motel and quickly changed into their swimsuits before hopping into the pool.  They had a blast throwing each other around and splashing their buddies in the face with water.  Oh to be a boy again.

After 25 minutes, the pool boys showered off and changed up in our rooms while the working crew changed and snuck in the back way to get to the pool.  We convinced them to be sneaky to make it a little more fun.  Those boys got their 25 minutes in the pool while the first group wrote in their journals and wrote letters to their girlfriends and mothers.  It was a good couple hours for them.

When both groups were done in the pool and the cologne was drying on the letters to the girlfriends, we ate our lunches in the rooms and took a great nap on the floor of three hotel rooms.  It was nice for a change to not be on a loud, moving bus while you are trying to sleep.  After a good hour and 15 minutes, we woke the boys from their slumber and boarded the bus for the school where we were scheduled to hold our workshop at 2:00.

The group that was hosting a boys singing camp for the week were members of the Hilliard School system that were looking into starting a boys choir program like our own.  They had 18 boys who were very eager to learn what we had to offer them.  The boys from Hilliard were apprehensive at first but our boys really got to know them and helped them along through the day. (To be perfectly honest, our boys did fantastic today helping them along in their exercises and showing them a good example of what a choirboy is.)

Adam started by leading them in an ice-breaker that had them going around and talking to each other to find out interesting facts about each boy.  Then, our Artistic Director brought the two groups through exercises that worked on posture, breathing, and tone production.  Our boys then performed "Heilig" for the group and demonstrated for them the pure tone of a boy's choir.  It was pretty sweet to see their expressions on their faces!

Throughout the day, the boys had breaks to run around outside and play on the playground.  I believe there was some ultimate Frisbee and basketball going on as well.  While they are in the workshop, Rodney and I took the bus to get her washed and stopped by a grocery store to stock-up on water and Windex.  After all the cleaning that bus got today, it is sure looking fine!

Dinner was at 5:00 and consisted of Sloppy Joes.  Yes, they were sloppy.  I would not be surprised if traces of them are still on the faces of our boys.  They were very good to eat as well.  We had the boys chill-out back stage for a few minutes before the show.  I also had the privilege of awarding two Level Two pins for the Leadership Development Program.  Steven Kelly and Noah Carpenter have been fantastic this first week and were certainly ready to move on to the next level in the program.  I was going to wait until we got home, but I need to reward some of our boys that consistently go above and beyond the call of duty, which they always do.  I hope to award many more pins as we go through the tour.

The concert went fairly well.  It was in the gym of the school, but it was quite well attended.  It seemed like several boys had extended family and friends in the audience as well.  Who knew Columbus had this many ties to the boys?  The only snag of the day came during the clean-up that took an unusually long amount of time.  For some reason, this year's choir can't seem to move with any sense of urgency when they need to.  They are very laid back and really like to talk to each other.  This is one of the closer groups I have ever worked with as well.  I think many of the past year's events have brought them close to each other and they are just genuinely good friends.  I still need to find the carrot that gets them to clean-up on time.  Once they figure that out, it's going to be as good as it gets.

The boys were able to get to their host families quite early today.  We passed several of them at the ice cream place next to our motel as we were pulling in.  (They get so spoiled on the road - seriously!)  Tomorrow we continue East to Maryland with a full concert for a former concert site of ours in Frostburg.  Repeat concerts are usually well attended, so we can expect a nice crowd tomorrow.

This guy needs to get to sleep and prepare his DVD finger and BINGO voice for the long journey ahead.  It could be a long day if I can't function in those two primary duties.

Until later,
 
P.J.