Repeat Poster

My brother recently needled me about The Real Group visit to West Michigan - or more precisely, about the many, many posts on Facebook leading up to the February 14 concert. By my count, I posted thirteen times about The Real Group on my own page during the twelve days from February 3rd and 14th.

That's not counting additional posts on Facebook pages I manage, mass emails to the MSVMA, an ACDA article, and personal emails to dozens of friends and colleagues encouraging them to come and bring students.

Here's what my brother said:

Hey - is The Real Group coming to the Midwest? I feel like I may or may not have heard or seen something about that...

He was just teasing me - no problem, I'll get him back. You're on notice, Danny.

But it makes me wonder, are your spamming your friends by posting so often about one thing? My gut instinct is NO, but it deserves some more introspection and justification. Here are my thoughts:

• In general, I see Facebook as a place to express your passions. I love it to see someone excited about something and sharing their excitement - even if it's something I'm not particularly drawn to. I especially love seeing positive passion on Facebook: be for something rather than against something. I happen to think that The Real Group is the best singing ensemble on the planet. So, yeah, I was excited to see them for the first time since I was 19.

• There's precedent all the time for repeated postings...recently it all seemed to be about Sochi Olympics. Would I sound bad if I said I'm a million times more excited about two hours of The Real Group singing than about two weeks of Winter Olympics? You will also see serial postings a lot in run-ups to movies and TV shows (Breaking Bad, Downton Abbey), awards shows, playoff sports, and more.

• In this particular case, I was part of a three-person team responsible for bringing TRG to Jenison. Of the three, I was the only one without any financial skin in the game. If one extra post means a few more tickets sold, it was the very least I can do to make the concert a success. If the concert came out a loss and I could have done more, I would have felt culpable.

On the other hand, 

• I'm conscious of not wanting to be the guy at the party who won't stop talking about his new puppy.

I'll remain mindful of not wanting to cross that line, BUT I'm going to remain publicly excited about the things I'm excited about, and try to trust my judgement about when I've said enough.

PS: There's going to be a lot of posts about Europe in June and July. If you're Facebook friends with me, watch out.

ACDAnticipation

Tomorrow I'm heading to my first national ACDA Conference.

Wait...a choir director conference? How did I get here?

A little background. I went to a show choir heavy high school where classical was "the stuff we learn a week before festival." I spent my college career with Gold Company at Western Michigan University, singing the most challenging vocal jazz literature, but continuing to look down my nose at choral music. A jazzer through and through. It truly wasn't until I fell in love with an unparalleled choral geek that I really started to give choral music a second chance!

So I've spent the last decade playing catch up. Learning choral lit at conferences, getting my conducting chops together in rehearsals, starting to understand tone and technique by listening to our extensive choral music collection. And most importantly, learning to be a choir director by watching my brilliant wife.

I still love vocal jazz*...I happen to be having my ACDA National Conference premiere this Friday during jazz night at the Swissotel! But now my musical heart has opened wide to encompass all realms of singing. And I look back and wonder, how many great vocal experiences did I miss out on because of the prejudices I learned at 15? Thank goodness for second chances!

So tomorrow I attend my first national ACDA Conference. I'm looking forward to hearing a lot of wonderful music and getting a lot of new ideas to take back, but most of all, I'm excited to see lots of old friends AND meet all the choral people I should have met a long time ago. I'm finally part of this family, and want to know as many relatives as I can!

Jed

* A future article here will discuss the two histories of vocal jazz, and how each relates to choral music.