ICCA Auditions!

Today in rehearsal we filmed our audition videos for the International Championship of Collegiate A Capella (ICCA). I think we have to submit three songs, but we recorded multiple takes of four songs just in case one of the songs doesn't come out as well. It was actually really fun, we reserved a larger room and someone brought in a camera and we had a pretty cool set up. We recorded "Satisfaction", "Problem", "Thinking About You", and "Evolution of Justin Timberlake". I was a little nervous for "Evolution of JT" because one of our members Jared couldn't be there, and he has two solos in that song so the alternates had to sing them. I'm the alternate for the "What Goes Around Comes Around" solo that he has, so I had to sing it for this video. It's funny how nervous I was because it wasn't like it was a performance or anything, but of course the first time I have to semi-perform this solo is when we're submitting a video that determines whether or not we make the cut and get asked back to compete at the ICCA competition in February. So just a little stressful. I sang it the octave up because the octave it's written in is a little low for me, and the first rehearsal that I tried singing it Devin freaked out. She was like, "You sang it the octave up, I worship the ground you live on". So I guess it worked? It took us about two hours to film everything and we took multiple takes of each song to make sure we got a good one. It seemed like everyone had the plague though, because Devin was sick and couldn't sing so her solos were covered by people (I covered a little mini one right before the one I was already covering) and Tom was sick as well as Jerry. Time to start taking Airbourne religiously, I suppose!

FIRST MIXTAPES CONCERT

This has been such a crazy busy weekend!! I think over the course of the weekend, from Friday afternoon to Saturday night, I was only home for maybe a total of six hours, that's how busy I was with concert preparations.

 I was on the decorations committee with Ursula and Jerry, and we spent Friday afternoon coming up with fake dating profiles for each of the members to hang up on the walls, and then we also went to buy paint and cut out cardboard to use to make a Polaroid-esque cutout that people could take pictures with (our social media integration). We had rehearsal Friday night from 8-10 and then Ursula and I went to the Brooklyn apartment (where Jerry and two other Mixtapes live) to continue working on the decorations. Ursula was working on the dating profiles while Jerry and I painted the Polaroid cut out. I was very proud of myself for being artistic and painting, it made me really happy. And it turned out really well! By the time we finished,  it was around 3 in the morning so Ursula decided to just stay as opposed to making the hour-long trek back to Manhattan. We slept on the couches downstairs and then left around 11 the next morning. We got back to Manhattan a little after noon and agreed to meet up again around 2:30/3 to buy wall decorations and other decorations for the room. I went home, took a two hour nap, showered, and then headed down to meet Ursula. We spent about an hour shopping for decorations and then we came back to my room to get ready before call at 6.

We got to the venue a little before 6 and quickly ate before going in to start the decorations. I think it ended up looking pretty cool. Our color scheme was black, white, and red so we bought black, white, and red streamer things that we hung along the walls, and we put the fake dating profiles underneath them. We set up the Polaroid cut out by the door so that people could take pictures if they wanted.

We had a quick sound check for the Vocaholics (one of the all-male groups) and for the Cleftomaniacs (the all-girl group) and for us and then we mingled for a bit until it was time for the concert to start. The Vocaholics opened and they were incredible! I went to all their concerts last year and I still love them, I'm such a huge fan. Then the Cleftomaniacs went on, and they were good too. Finally it was our turn! Josh and Ian went to go set up the microphones and then we all ran down the center aisle onto the performance area.

It was such an incredible experience. I thought I was happy before about being in the group, but having our first concert changed everything. I was on such a high from the performance and hearing the audience cheer for us. I distinctly remember a moment toward the end of Evolution of Justin Timberlake when I realized that we were almost at the end of the song and of the concert and I got kind of mad because I didn't want it to end! When we finished one of the members of the group was joking about an encore but I was like, we don't have enough material for an encore; we sang all the material we know and the new members don't know old repertoire.

It was so fun to see all my friends after the concert who'd come out to see me. A surprising number of people showed up to see me, and I was really touched. It was nice because it was kind of like they were my surrogate family. Afterwards we had to stay and clean up the room, which didn't take too long. Then we all headed over to Andrew's apartment for the after party. That was a strange experience because there were a bunch of random people there that didn't seem to know anyone. The people that were invited were Mixtapes (obviously) and Vocs and Cleftos; some of the Vocs showed which was nice because they're all cool guys, and none of the Cleftos showed which was okay because they're kind of their own separate group, they don't mingle too much. And then of course people brought their friends, like I brought Elle and Sharon. But I remember sitting outside and seeing a group of random people walk in and I was like "Does anyone know these people?" and no one knew them. There was probably some connection there, but it was very vague.

Overall the entire weekend was insanely busy but fun. My first Mixtapes concert went really well and I'm so happy to be a part of this amazing family.

Like Fake Humans/Fall Break

Fall Break is upon us! Even though I didn't go home this year, I'm still enjoying the long weekend and the break from school. Fall Break kind of started early for me because two of the classes I normally have on Fridays were canceled, which means the break started for me at 11:30 on Friday afternoon. That night I went to go see this band Like Fake Humans perform at the Bitter End. I know almost the entire band, because I met one of the lead singers, Rach, through VP friends last year, and then the other lead singer, Ian, the drummer Josh, and the pianist Devin are all in the Mixtapes with me. The only person I didn't know was their other guitarist Omar, and I met him after the concert. I'd heard of their band before when I met Rach last year but I didn't think too much of it, and I'd never heard any of their music before. This year when I realized that I knew 80% of the band, I decided I needed to give their music a listen. I found their SoundCloud account and listened to everything they had up, and I really like their stuff! So it was pretty cool to see them perform live. I'm also still in constant awe of the people in my a capella group and how talented they are. I mean, everyone's so versatile. Devin sings, arranges music, and plays incredible piano; Ian sings and plays guitar really well; Josh beatboxes and drums like a devil. The other singer Rach is amazing too, I'd never heard her sing before and I really like her voice, it's different but has a really cool quality to it.

Last night Kaitlyn and I went up to her friends Megan and Nick's apartment in Harlem. These are people she met at a bar on her 21st birthday over the summer and immediately bonded with them over Game of Thrones and other nerdy tv shows. They have game nights every once in a while and usually they have them at Kaitlyn's apartment, but this was the first one at Megan and Nick's. Kaitlyn was really excited for me to meet her friends, and I was too! We got there and brought the cranberry orange muffins we made, which were SO GOOD. We played Apples to Apples, Kaitlyn won that one. And then we played this game (I never knew what it was called) where we gave a category and then everyone wrote down something in that category on a small piece of paper which was then taped on the forehead of the person to their left. So everyone had a piece of paper on their foreheads, and we went around in a circle and took turns asking specific people questions about the word(s) on our forehead to try and guess what it was. The first category was common household items, and Kaitlyn gave me three-hole punch which was SO HARD TO GUESS. She kept saying that I was the most likely out of everyone to get it, which infuriated me because I was second-to-last and still couldn't figure it out. But once I got it, I felt so dumb because I have one on my desk, and Kaitlyn was right--I was the most likely out of all of us to get it because I hole punch music all the time. The second category was occupations, and I gave Nick "Pope". It was the best one of that round, everyone agreed, and it was so much fun watching him struggle to guess what it was. When he finally got it he was so mad at himself, because I guess he and Megan went to Italy last year and went to one of the Pope's audiences so they've actually somewhat met him. Overall it was a really fun night, and I'm really glad that I met Kaitlyn's friends. We've already planned to go recital dress shopping for Kaitlyn next month and Megan's going to come with us, and she wants to plan girls nights down in our area.

First Mixtapes Mini Performance!

This weekend was my very first performance with the Mixtapes! We performed for NYU Woodwind Day, as part of an agreement with our Steinhardt faculty liason. We have a space reserved every week in the Steinhardt building and in order for this to be possible, we have to have a staff liason. Our liason happens to be involved in the woodwind program, and as a favor to him we perform for Woodwind day. It was an interesting experience, I'd say, but very fun!

We had three mics, two for the solos and one for our beatboxer. There wasn't any other mic that was picking up the rest of the group, so all I could really hear was the soloists and our beatboxer because they were the only ones with any amount of amplification. But the acoustics in that theater are weird because I could hardly hear the people immediately next to me. Besides the weird acoustics, we had really good energy and (from what I could hear) we sounded really good. I had a geek moment onstage where I was like "Hey, I'm part of this really cool a capella group. And we sound really good. I'm so excited!!!" This mini performance definitely got me excited for our concert which is coming up in about two weeks, which is crazy to think about.