Mormon Life - Vocal Point tag

Behind the Scenes with Vocal Point

Tue, 10 Jan 2012 00:05:00 -0700

by Kaela Worthen
source: MormonLife.com

Mormon Life says: The nine-man BYU a cappella group Vocal Point performed for weeks on NBC's The Sing-Off, a national television show with audiences of 4 to 5 million people. But fame wasn’t their ultimate goal.

It started with a handmade flier using a sharpie, posted all around BYU campus 20 years ago: come audition for an all-male a cappella group. “Our hope was to create a group that could continue after we left and that could become a tradition at BYU,” says Bob Ahlander, who founded the group with his friend Dave Boyce. But what started as a small group of BYU students began garnering attention around campus, began getting support from the honors program and music department, and was eventually adopted into the university as a class and an officially endorsed ensemble. This year, the group has grown to more drastic heights as it was accepted onto The Sing-Off, an NBC a cappella singing competition.

Getting Settled
So the group flew to Los Angeles and was immediately immersed in an experience like none they’d ever had before. “Normally we have a semester to put a concert together,” says McKay Crockett, one of the tenors and lead singers of the group, “but with this experience we found out what song we were singing on Saturday [the show was taped on a Friday] and by Monday we had to have it ready for the producers to listen to, and if they didn’t like it they’d give us a new song, then we had to put in choreography, and then we had to try on costumes to make sure they all fit. There was just a very fast-paced, quick-moving tempo.”

Amid all the chaos, though, the group members had another goal in mind: to hold true to their values and “to share joy and happiness through song,” Crockett explains. “We didn’t have to be pushy; we didn’t have to be preachy. People could just feel something was different and they would ask questions.”

Hitting the High Notes
In the beginning, the group members were able to suggest song ideas and were very involved in deciding what they wanted to sing, but as the show progressed, they lost that flexibility. “[The producers] would assign music to all of the groups and say, ‘This is the song you will be singing, have fun, good luck,’” Crockett recalls.

Even when it got to that point, though, they still held their moral high ground. When the producers handed them a song with lyrics they weren’t comfortable with, they said they couldn’t do it. “They were really, really supportive of our wishes as far as our standards go,” says Jake Hunsaker, another tenor and group front man. “They didn’t even blink . . . they took the piece away and brought us a new one the next day.”

Unfortunately, they were assigned those songs on a Saturday and had to have them ready to show to the producers on Monday. Since they didn’t work on Sundays, that meant they only had one day to get it all figured out.

But taking Sunday off to go to church afforded yet another opportunity to show others what the guys of Vocal Point were really all about. “When you’re on reality TV you don’t own yourself, so we always had a wrangler with us telling us where to be and when to be there and kind of keeping us on a leash,” Hunsaker says. “So we’d take a wrangler to church with us.”

Learning All the Right Moves
After the songs were arranged, there was still choreography to work out. Even though there were professional choreographers to assist the groups, that didn’t mean learning all those moves was easy. Hunsaker’s favorite performance was their dance-intensive “Every Little Step” by Bobby Brown, but they almost didn’t survive it. “None of us know how to move naturally, so when the choreographers brought in the choreography for the piece, we kind of died,” he says. Prayers at the beginning and end of every rehearsal helped them to achieve their best.

And those around them noticed. Near the end of their experience on The Sing-Off, a choreographer approached some of the Vocal Point members and explained, “You’ve helped me to see that I can bring God into my life and into the entertainment business. There’s not a lot of talk about God and faith in this industry, but I feel like I can have them both in my life, and you guys showed me how to do that.”

If all that wasn’t hard enough, part way through the show, the Vocal Point boys all started school. “It was something that you just have to grit your teeth and get through,” says Hunsaker. “You come back from a 15-hour day, and your call time would be at 7:30 in the morning, and you get home sometimes at 11, 12, or 1 a.m., and you have three or four hours of homework on top of that.”

The long hours that everyone was working prompted one producer to ask them, “How on earth do you guys do this without coffee? I think the rest of us would keel over and die if we didn’t have our morning coffee every day. Do you guys have a vitamin that you take?”

Being an Example to Those Around Them
But while it may have been almost impossibly hard work, they also had fun times to balance it out. The members of Vocal Point forged close friendships with many of the other groups on the show. “We’re just a rowdy bunch of kids that want to have fun,” Hunsaker says, “and so between takes or between runs of the show when we’re all just on stage and we all have mics and no one’s really doing anything, out of the blue someone from AfroBlue or the Yellow Jackets would lay down a beat.” Quickly it would turn into an impromptu sing-along with rapping about the people on the show, and “then everyone would join in, and it’d be a big dance party.”

Sometimes their interactions with others on the show were humorous. Once, one of the workers on the show tried to hug one of the guys but stopped herself and said, “Oh, I can’t do that, right?” The guys were quick to put that notion to rest, but when soon after a rumor started circulating that they also got up at 6:30 every morning to study and start rehearsing, they realized someone might have found a missionary handbook in an attempt to learn what these Mormon guys could and could not do. Other interactions became great opportunities: a member of another group began investigating the Church, reading the Book of Mormon, and even attended general conference with them in October.

“I truly believe that God works in mysterious ways, and I truly believe that Vocal Point, in its awkwardly endearing kind of way, was able to bring the Spirit to people who may not have had access to it in another way,” Crockett says. “We just had to be ourselves and the spirit of good and positive living that comes from Jesus Christ and what we are a part of really shines through.”

Bearing Testimony on TV
Their influence wasn’t limited to those with whom they interacted on the set, though. When the show eventually aired on national television, America could see the nine young men praying together before a performance. But one of the most obvious opportunities for missionary work came in a painful way: baritone Ben Murphy missed the first few weeks of the show because his father passed away.

“As far as my dad’s passing, in some ways I feel like the show was a wonderful opportunity to share our beliefs,” Murphy said in an interview with BYU news. “It certainly gave us a great forum for us to be able to share a message that I think Vocal Point is centered around, and that’s not only to bring happiness, but also the message of the gospel and how that’s central to our personal beliefs.” The Vocal Point members were able to sing Puff Daddy’s version of “I’ll Be Missing You,” and Ben was able to bear testimony on national television that “because of my personal beliefs, I know that I can see my father again, that he’s in a better place.”

“It’s not often that you have a national television show as your forum to share your beliefs with people,” Crockett says. “You don’t know why things happen the way they do, but the Lord knows.”

And because of experiences like that, the guys are okay they didn’t end up winning The Sing-Off. “We got to do what we wanted to do, and that was to attempt to share our happiness and joy through music with people,” says Crockett. “Winning it or not, being able to reflect a positive light on the university and on the Church most definitely makes the whole experience worth it. We’ll never know how many people needed to hear a certain song or were interested in the gospel because they saw that happy bunch of Mormon kids on that TV show. . . . Yeah, we didn’t win, but a lot of good was done and we’ll continue to do that good, and because of the show we’ll be able to do that for many more people than we would have before. . . . The Sing-Off was just a springboard for Vocal Point.”

To listen to Vocal Point and see them in action, visit byurecords.com.

BYU coeds hold onto LDS standards on 'The Sing-Off'

Wed, 04 Jan 2012 12:18:00 -0700

source: deseretnews.com

Mormon Life says: Make sure to read all about Vocal Point and Delilah in LDS Living's Jan/Feb issue! It helped Laina Walker and Amy Whitcomb of Delilah immensely to have BYU's Vocal Point guys just down the hall in the hotel during the taping for NBC's reality show, "The Sing-Off."

They could go with them to church and rely on them for the strength of the priesthood held by faithful members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

When Whitcomb got very sick just before the taping of week six of "The Sing-Off," five of the LDS male singers came together to give her a blessing.

BYU's Vocal Point on Christmas 'Sing-Off'

Tue, 06 Dec 2011 13:17:00 -0700

source: youtube.com

Mormon Life says: Love this Frank Sinatra song!

Vocal Point to return for 'Sing-Off' finale

Wed, 23 Nov 2011 06:51:00 -0700

source: deseretnews.com

Mormon Life says: This will make a lot of people happy, We're still sad about them getting voted off, though. The Dartmouth Aires made it into the top three on NBC's "The Sing-Off" Monday night, a group that includes Utahn Nic Chuaqui as a singer and music director.

The lone college group left standing will possibly compete in the live finale on Nov. 28 for the Sony recording contract and a $200,000 cash prize, against Pentatonix from Arlington, Texas and Urban Method from Denver, Colo.

Vocal Point Discusses 'The Sing-Off'

Fri, 18 Nov 2011 13:22:00 -0700

source: news.byu.edu

Vocal Point out of the running on 'The Sing-off'

Tue, 15 Nov 2011 09:39:00 -0700

source: deseretnews.com

Mormon Life says: Bummer! They had a great run, though. Despite convincing the judges that they could sing with soul, BYU's Vocal Point was voted off "The Sing-off" reality show Monday night.

Judges Ben Folds, Sara Bareilles and Shawn Stockman said the group played it too safely with its rhythm and blues classics number "Ain't Too Proud to Beg" by the Temptations.

Bareilles said the number was sweet and that Ben Murphy sang a great lead vocal but overall, the song "felt a little disjointed."

Vocal Point in, Delilah out on 'The Sing-Off'

Tue, 08 Nov 2011 10:26:00 -0700

source: deseretnews.com

Hundreds of Vocal Point fans cheered as the Brigham Young University men's a cappella group stayed in the running on NBC's "The Sing-Off" Monday night.

The nine-man a cappella sensation wowed the judges with "You Really Got Me" by the Kinks as its rock-n-roll hit and "Life is a Highway" by Rascal Flats as its country hit.

The judges said the "Utah boys" came off a tough week with a strong showing as the group's members started back to class in the middle of competition.

Vocal Point advances to final six after rockin’ three Presley hits

Tue, 01 Nov 2011 11:55:00 -0600

source: news.byu.edu

Mormon Life says: Click on the forwarding link to watch a video of their performance. BYU’s male a cappella team Vocal Point earned their spot in the final six groups on NBC’s “The Sing-Off” through their performance Monday night. Judges and the studio audience loved their dynamic and hip-swinging medley of Elvis Presley hits.

Dressed in classic jailbird stripes, the group paid tribute to the king of rock ‘n roll with a medley that concluded with a rousing interpretation of “Jailhouse Rock” after kicking off with “Don’t Be Cruel.” In between, their performance of “Can’t Help Falling in Love” stood out for its sincerity after lead vocalist Jake Hunsaker said, “We want to dedicate the second song to the women in our lives who are putting up with our absences.”

Vocal Point: Singing Through Life

Sun, 30 Oct 2011 15:12:00 -0600

source: Newsroom.lds.org

Mormon Life says: Shweet.

Groups with Mormon ties conquer hip-hop episode of 'The Sing-Off'

Tue, 25 Oct 2011 11:46:00 -0600

source: deseretnews.com

Singing into uncharted hip-hop territory with courage and emotion, the two groups with Mormon ties on "The Sing-Off" bested seven other a cappella groups Monday night for yet another chance to win big money and a recording contract.

The nine-man Vocal Point group from BYU and the Delilah group from Los Angeles, which includes two members of BYU's Noteworthy female a cappella group, stayed in the running despite having to sing songs they each admitted are not their strong suit.

Vocal Point's 4th Performance on 'Sing Off' - 'Footloose'

Wed, 19 Oct 2011 13:13:00 -0600

source: youtube.com

Mormon Life says: There's a video of Vocal Point's latest performance! "Footloose." Hope you enjoy as much as we did!

BYU’s Vocal Point advances to top 8 on NBC

Tue, 18 Oct 2011 10:22:00 -0600

source: news.byu.edu

Mormon Life says: Congrats to Vocal Point! Here's hoping they continue to advance. BYU’s male a cappella group Vocal Point returned to compete in the Top 10 of NBC’s “The Sing-Off” on Monday. After their classic rock ‘n roll performance, the judges had only positive things to say, and they will be continuing onto the next round of the competition.

Vocal Point had the crowd dancing when they sang their version of "Footloose." Joining them was their teammate Ben Murphy, who had been home in Australia spending time with family after his father died from Leukemia.

“I know that all your brothers here are really happy that you are back,” said Sing-Off judge Sara Bareilles.

Although Ben was “apprehensive” about his first time on stage, judge Ben Folds noted that his baritone guitar sounds added a lot to their performance.

Vocal Point bass washes windows amid newfound celebrity

Fri, 14 Oct 2011 13:30:00 -0600

source: news.byu.edu

Mormon Life says: Can you imagine looking out your window and seeing a celebrity smiling at you? Sounds like the beginning of his next music video . . . In between watching himself and his friends sing on national television and attending his BYU classes, Vocal Point’s Robert Seely still runs the window washing business that he started before his mission. He also picks up a few shifts at the BYU Creamery, except now that he’s appearing on NBC’s “The Sing-Off” – watch Monday at 7 p.m. MT – he has to deal with coworkers asking to take photos with him.

“It really surprises me that four or five times a day, while I’m walking across campus, people come up to me and say, ‘Aren’t you the bass in Vocal Point?’” Seely says. “I don’t have any solos, and, I mean, even I didn’t know who the basses were in Vocal Point before I joined.”

Should Mormons feel obligated to support Vocal Point in the Sing-Off?

Fri, 07 Oct 2011 14:05:00 -0600

source: bycommonconsent.com

Mormon Life says: ...or any Mormon in the national spotlight, for that matter. This can apply to all sorts of reality-ish contests, but I want to focus on Vocal Point for two reasons. First, they are very, very good at what they do. I’ve yet to hear the judges say anything critical about them.

Second, they really want you to know that these clean-cut, well-dressed, physically-fit men are heterosexual. I mean really heterosexual. The kind of heterosexual that goes on “filmed for a national audience” type group dates that include belting out show tunes, while not at all looking like a polyamorous collective.

Two groups with BYU ties advance on 'The Sing-Off'

Wed, 05 Oct 2011 11:25:00 -0600

source: ksl.com

Mormon Life says: You go, Mormons!

Two groups tied to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and Brigham Young University wowed judges of "The Sing-Off" and won the right to perform in another round of competition on the NBC reality show.

Vocal Point, which is still missing its ninth man (Ben Murphy, whose father died recently), took the stage in the "current hits" segment and made a man's song out of Justin Bieber's "Never Say Never" hit.

"I will never say never will I enjoy a Bieber song sung by a bunch of Mormons," said judge Ben Folds following the Vocal Point rendition.

Vocal Point returns to NBC’s a cappella music competition Monday

Fri, 30 Sep 2011 09:07:00 -0600

source: news.byu.edu

Mormon Life says: Did you see them perform last week? They're really good. BYU’s male a cappella group Vocal Point returns to NBC’s “The Sing-Off” on Monday, Oct. 3 to continue competing for $200,000 and a Sony recording contract.

The group earned strong praise from the celebrity judges and a standing ovation from the studio audience for their performance in the season premiere. They sang “Jump Jive an’ Wail.”

BYU's Vocal Point will sing another day on "Sing-Off'

Tue, 20 Sep 2011 12:42:00 -0600

source: deseretnews.com

Mormon Life says: If you missed them last night, they will be performing again next Monday on NBC 8/7c. Vocal Point, BYU's nine-man a cappella group minus one, still managed to impress the judges on NBC's "The Sing-Off" reality show enough that the judges kept them for another round of competition.

At stake is a Sony recording contract and $200,000.

The group in blue blazers sang, danced and wowed the audience and judges Ben Folds, Sara Bareilles and Shawn Stockman, with their talent, their execution and their sense of fun in "Jump, Drive an' Wail" despite the absence of Ben Murphy, who missed the competition because his father became gravely ill.

BYU’s Vocal Point to compete in NBC’s ‘The Sing-Off’

Thu, 15 Sep 2011 09:53:00 -0600

by Kate Ensign-Lewis
source: ldsliving.com

Mormon Life says: Wow, maybe Mormons really are having a "moment!"

BYU’s Vocal Point will be competing in season three of NBC’s “The Sing-Off,” which returns Monday, Sept. 19, 8-10 p.m. ET.

Vocal Point, an all-male group in BYU’s School of Music, has been Brigham Young University’s premiere contemporary a cappella ensemble for the last 20 years. Their nine-man vocal firepower continually invigorates audiences and entertains fans with inventive arrangements, humor and remarkable vocal percussion.

The group performs for over 50,000 people each year, regularly selling out shows weeks in advance, and performs for sold-out crowds on and off campus. They are one of 18 performing groups sponsored by the university, and although they devote 20 hours of time to the group each week, they do not receive scholarships or compensation for their time.

Dave Boyce, who founded Vocal Point along with former member Bob Ahlander, said of the group: “When we created Vocal Point, we envisioned a group that would become a tradition at BYU. We are so happy and proud of what Vocal Point has become. It has exceeded our expectations. In fact, we often joke that we wouldn't make into the group if we auditioned today.”

In addition to Vocal Point, 15 other groups will be competing on “The Sing-Off” for the $200,000 cash prize and Sony Music recording contract.

“The Sing-Off” will be hosted by singer Nick Lachey and judged by artists Sara Bareilles (“Love Song” and “King of Anything”), Ben Folds (Ben Folds Five) and Shawn Stockman (Boyz II Men).