This weekend my a cappella group, The Coda Conduct, will be heading to Buffalo, NY to compete in the second round of ICCAs, an intercollegiate a cappella competition. If you’ve seen Pitch Perfect or Pitch Perfect 2, it’s THAT competition. If not, too bad. You’ll get the gist.

Bottom line: our a cappella group is really good and we know it. But the question is: “How good are we as compared to the other groups?” In the first round of the competition, we came in first place and won best soloist/best arrangement. But that was the first round. Now everything will be different. Everyone at this next round will have either come in first or second place in their respective competitions and their divisions could be more impressive than ours. Until we get there, we have no idea how we’ll stack up.  Which is why our Coda alumni purchased us a master class.

In doing so, they enlisted the help of some outsiders who know what they’re doing to give us a leg up. One of them was our judge for the first round, and two of the others were from a vocal company that helps master a cappella groups for albums and performances. The master class was a four-hour journey, and jeez was it a journey! Their feedback was incredible. By the end of the session, we were more emotional, polished, and in-sync than we have ever been before.

Because this worked so well, we decided to have an open session on Tuesday for anyone who would like to come look at the set and tell us what they like and what they don’t like. We hope that the feedback from our friends will push us to the top of our game, and hopefully, to the top of the judges’ lists. We leave on Friday and compete on Saturday, and personally, I think we’re more prepared than we have ever been before. But we shall see! If you’d like to come see the set, message me on Facebook and you’re welcome to come and watch. I’ll send you an invite! Peace, friends.

UPDATE: That event was this past Saturday, and unfortunately, we came in fourth place. However, the group that masters the sound for the event messed up and our baritone microphone was swapped with the bass microphone, meaning he was significantly louder than all the other people in our group. This happened to about 4-6 other groups, so the judging was very skewed. Barring that, I think we did a fantastic job and we left it all on the stage! I had an amazing time and am looking forward to having some more free time now that our rigorous practicing/travel is over. I’ll be posting the pictures from the weekend soon, so check me out on Facebook if you’re interested in seeing me with some beautiful guyliner!