Hey, Ron:

We work out the arrangements as we go. Nothing is ever written out. Sometimes, I'll tape the practice so that if we hit on something that we like, we can listen to it at the next practice. The Director of the Men's Chorus that Joe, Frankie and I sing in teaches everyone their part by ear. At least the Director has sheet music as a guidline (even though he often changes the hramony lines from practice to practice.) Our problem in figuring out harmonies is that we're trying to find separate harmony lines for four people, without singing the melody line, and our vocal ranges are too close together. Basically, I use my guitar to help people find their melody lines. The interesting thing is that the two new Messengers are used to hearing their harmony lines on piano, and they don't "hear" the chord changes on guitar. I have to slow the song down and play the chord changes in an exagerated way in order for them to hear them. I end up showing people their harmony lines, even though our new bass singer does all the arranging for the Sentinels. I realize that it's a great adjustment for him, because he is used to teaching his group existing harmony lines because they try to do their songs exactly as they were recorded. He's having trouble freeing himself from the discipline of just reproducing music that someone else made up.

The good news is that with each practice, we're learning to work better together. And we're all learning a lot in the process. I think I'll be far more capable of arranging harmony lines than in the past. I really haven't needed to do it that much, as the original members of the Messengers all had a good sense of harmony.

And then, we have to remember our harmonies. It will take singing the songs for several weeks before we naturally slip right into them.
Right now, we fumble our way along for the first couple of minutes until we find our lines.

Much more interesting to do that read or write about...

Jerry