Sigma Alpha Iota

Summer 2021 4 P A N P I P E S MUSIC NOTES Maintaining Musicality During a Global Pandemic As our Fraternity continues to adjust to a virtual platform during these unprecedented times, many may question how to maintain musicality within one's own chapter. is remained one of Eta Delta's primary goals throughout the school year. Summer of 2020, Eta Delta's song leader, Lindsey Sanders, realized that a virtual choir would be the perfect way for the chapter to continue musically collaborating with one another. All recorded pieces thus far have been taken directly from the Sigma Alpha Iota Songbook. Eta Delta has performed SAI Garden by Phoebe D. Hamann, Pan in Canon by Barbi Jeffery, and is currently in the process of recording Our Symphony by Bernice Gay, as well as a performance of the Sigma Alpha Iota Chorale with the sisters of Tau A Province. When asked about undertaking these projects, Sanders said, "It really was a group effort! I never would have been able to make these projects happen if the entire chapter wasn't 100% on board, and everyone did an amazing job of practicing outside of meetings". e initial research conducted on virtual choirs was not very promising, as the programs most oen recommended ranged between $200- $300. Don't be discouraged by this! Ultimately, it cost only $40 for Eta Delta to create our virtual choirs. e only programs used in production included the free program, Audacity, and a year long subscription to Movavi Movie Editor. For any SAI song leaders or music directors interested in creating their own virtual choir, the first step to take is recording tracks outlining each voice part of the desired piece to a set metronome marking. In order to easily align performers' audio tracks later on, the music director should count off one measure and clap on the final beat (ex: 1, 2, 3, CLAP!) at the beginning of the recording, and provide one dead measure before the piece begins. You can easily combine all voice parts together in Audacity to create a choir track. ese tracks will be used for individual practice, as well as recording virtual submissions. In order to further reinforce each voice part, Eta Delta's song leader also teaches parts through call-and- response during virtual chapter meetings while all sisters remain muted. Once all sisters/students have their voice part learned, they are ready to record! In order to do so, they must have 2 devices; the first one is necessary for the performer to connect headphones to in order to listen to the choir track, as well as optionally pulling up a PDF of scanned music. It is important that, if singers do not have their music memorized, the sheet music is read from a device rather than a paper copy to avoid the audio capturing the sound of flipping pages throughout the recording. e second device will be used for the performer to record themselves singing. A common device combination Eta Delta sisters utilize include reading sheet music and connecting headphones to a laptop while recording themselves on their phones. When listening to the final product, it should sound as though the individual is singing by themselves instead of with a track. When all recordings have been submitted, the music director should download all videos and extract their audio into WAV files. It is important to note that you will need a decent MUSICALITY MUSICALITY continued on page 15 continued on page 15

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