hi. welcome to the home page of Common Time, the oldest coed a cappella group on our small, cold, beautiful campus in Maine. We sing pop, rock, oldies and the occasional thing nobody's heard of, with no instruments at all, just fourteen people and a lot of "doo."

I'm Jessica Buck. I'm a senior, I'm a biology major, I sing alto, and I'm the group's business manager, which means I book the gigs, sell the CDs, count the money, and make the phone calls nobody else wants to make. I also keep this page up, mostly from the computer in the corner of the bio lab while my gels run. If anything on here is out of date, it's because I had an organic chemistry exam. If anything's spelled wrong, it's because it was 2 a.m. Please be gentle.

We held auditions on Thursday, September 9 and Friday, September 10 in the chapel, and thirty-one people tried out, which is a record and which also meant we were in the chapel until 11:40 on Friday night eating cold pizza and arguing. Each person sang a verse and chorus of anything they wanted, matched some pitches, and sang back a few tricky lines we played on the pitch pipe. Callbacks were Sunday, September 12, when the eleven callbacks learned a short piece and sang it with us in parts. Then we deliberated. For a long time. There may have been tears (not mine) (okay, some mine).

Please welcome our four new members:

• Natasha Zirkle, soprano, a sophomore, who sang "Kiss Me" at her audition and is now singing the solo on it. No pressure, Natasha.
• Melinda Cleaves, alto, a first-year, who walked in with a sight-reading level that made our music director go quiet.
• Isaac Chastain, bass, a first-year, who can hit a low D like a truck downshifting.
• Michael Joiner, bass and vocal percussion, a junior, who auditioned on a dare from his roommate and then did a drum solo with his mouth that made the whole room stand up.

To everyone who didn't make it this year: thank you for being brave. Please try again in the spring. Three of our current members didn't get in the first time, including our president.

We rehearse three times a week: Monday and Wednesday from 9 to 11 p.m. and Sunday from 7 to 10 p.m., in the basement rehearsal room of the music building, the one with the radiator that clanks in E-flat. A typical night:

1. Warm-ups (15 minutes). Stretches, lip trills, sirens, and Wanda's tongue twisters, which are not fit for a family web page.
2. Tuning (10 minutes). We sing long, slow chords and listen until they lock. When a chord really locks you can hear a note that nobody is singing, ringing over the top. It's the best sound in the world and the reason most of us do this.
3. New music (an hour). Learning a new arrangement, section by section. Sopranos and altos in one corner, tenors and basses in the other, everyone plunking out their notes on the old piano, and then we put it together and it falls apart and we put it together again.
4. Running the set (45 minutes). Everything for the next gig, start to finish, standing up, with the soloists in front.
5. Notes (10 minutes). Wanda tells us what was flat. It's usually the tenors. Sorry, tenors.

Rehearsal is mandatory. Two unexcused absences before a concert and you sit that concert out. Labs count as excused. So do exams. Hockey games do not, Jerry.

Last March we recorded our second CD in the college chapel, over one weekend, with a recording engineer from Portland, two borrowed microphones and the heat turned off so the furnace wouldn't hum on the tape. It snowed fourteen inches that Saturday, which is how it got its name. We wore our coats and hats for most of it. You can hear Daniel sniffling on track 9 if you listen hard.

Twelve songs, $10, or $12 by mail. The track list is on the set list page. We sell them after every concert, and you can e-mail me to order one. Being the business manager, I am obligated to tell you where the money stands:

That leaves 188 CDs in a box under my bed. My roommate would like them gone. Please help.

a cappella

Singing with no instruments. From the Italian for "in the manner of the chapel." Which is fitting, since that's where we recorded the CD.

vocal percussion (VP)

The drum kit, done with a mouth and a microphone. Kick drum, snare, high hat, the works. Michael does ours. If you hear a drum at our concert, look at Michael. He's not hiding one.

bass syllables

What the basses sing instead of words when they're being the bass guitar: "dm," "doom," "bm," "jm," "dn." Arrangers argue about these more than you'd believe. A wrong bass syllable can make a whole song sound mushy.

blend

When fourteen voices sound like one. Nobody sticks out, nobody disappears. You get there by listening harder than you sing.

pitch pipe

A little round harmonica-looking thing with every note on it. Before each song, our pitch person (Lance) blows the starting note, everybody hums their own starting pitch, and off we go. If the pitch pipe goes missing, so does the concert. Lance sleeps with it.

the arc

The curved line we stand in to sing, like a horseshoe, so everyone can see the soloist and hear each other. Sopranos on one end, basses on the other, altos and tenors in the middle, and the soloist in front, at the mike.

the solo

The person who sings the words while the rest of us are being the band. Solos are auditioned within the group for each song. It's very fair and very stressful.

meet the group  |  the fall set list

you are listener number

since September 1997

to book us, buy a CD, or ask about auditions:
[email protected]
(that's Jessica. I answer between labs.)

last updated September 20, 1999