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and why this distinction is important.

If you find my writing too human, you can find a Copilot rewrite of it here.

It’s been several years now since we’ve tried to define our sound in a few words. We’ve since landed on the term “choral nouveau” as the intersection of “contemporary choral” and “contemporary a cappella” but our term doesn’t mean anything if you can’t define its roots. So let’s do that here, and discuss the differences between the two.

At the risk of oversimplifying this, I like to think about “contemporary choral” as deriving from the classical tradition, and “contemporary a cappella” as deriving from the jazz / pop tradition.

Ensemble Makeup

Straight off, if you compare a group like Concord with a group like Outpour, you will note that the former has an equal number of singers on each part, while the latter has one dedicated vocal percussionist and usually only one bass, and a spread of singers around the top side.

You could argue that the size of the group makes it easier to achieve balance with these defined roles, and you if did, you’d be agreeing with me. The bass / vocal percussionist role in the more modern-style ensembles resemble their respective roles in instrumental groups: the bass and the drum set.

There are two ensembles who seem to break this rule: Voctave and Voces8. Both ensembles have almost an equal number of singers on each part, except both groups just have one bass, but this alone isn’t enough to make the group fall into the “contemporary a cappella” category–in fact, they are almost decidedly not so.

Performance Venues

Thinking back to our earlier examples, think about where you would watch each of these groups. Contemporary choral groups are often found in concert halls, leaning on the size of the group, vocal technique, and venue acoustics to carry their sound. Contemporary a cappella groups most often use individually-held mics.

In our case, we lean toward using area mics, and this is due largely to our makeup, and also because we highly emphasize blending in a natural setting, and not over-singing. This has led to some difficulties in achieving the same volume as other groups, as well as being more difficult to run sound for than other groups at the same gigs.

Repertoire

Contemporary choral composers write with blend, harmonic color, and resonance in mind. Contemporary a cappella arrangers work more with groove, texture, and recreating already-existing works in their own style or in a way that is pleasurable / possible with just voices.

Some examples of contemporary choral composers:

• Eric Whitacre
• Ola Gjeilo
• Dan Forrest
• Many, many others

Some examples of contemporary a cappella composers:

• Deke Sharon
• Ben Bram
• Rob Dietz

Where’s Kirby Shaw in this? Audrey Snyder? I’m not sure I would put the in the “contemporary a cappella” category.

Notably, “contemporary choral” doesn’t explicitly require its music to be a cappella.

This list outlines maybe the most obvious difference between these two: the genres covered by each. In contemporary a cappella, the genre of a piece can be pop, R&B, hip-hop, or jazz. With contemporary choral, the genre is almost always best defined as “choral.”

Approaches to Musicality

This is perhaps the most subtle yet the most important difference between these two groups.

The musicality of classical music comes from the interpretation of the music by an individual leader / director; the tempo is suggested but is elastic, and the expression is achieved through a careful coordination of groups of people. Dynamics are an important piece of the expression puzzle.

It’s different for the pop / contemporary side–the tempo is rigid, and expression is achieved in a more controlled environment of timbre and lyrics. This music is based almost entirely around soloists, with some “backup singers” or a rhythm section. Other choice are made collaboratively.

If you brought elements of one to another, they would almost certainly feel out of place–when was the last time you heard a song on the radio with more than one or two dynamic levels or tempo markings? Have you ever listened to a choir that sang a classical piece at one dynamic level, at one tempo, the entire time?

The contrasting focuses of musicality are exactly why it’s so difficult to hop from one to the other. They’re basically based on different schools of thought.

Quiz Time

Given the points I made above, think about these ensembles and consider where on the spectrum they fall:

• Columbia / Concord
• Esoterics
• Emerald City Voices
• Outpour
• Any barbershop chorus
• VOCES8
• Voctave
• The Real Group
• Voices in Your Head
• Voiceplay
• Pentatonix
• The Swingles

Why I’ve been thinking about this

I alluded to this earlier, but this has been on my mind since we decided to label ourselves “choral nouveau.” Now that we’ve covered some definitions, I would like to discuss my own struggles with this term.

Because of our group makeup, and because we have a director, I think that puts us in the “contemporary choral” camp. This is further proven by our difficulties in singing works like “Pass me the Jazz,” which could sung by groups larger than a quintet, but rely on having only one bass.

I have also had difficulty arranging for us lately, because I have been wanting to write contemporary a cappella arrangements, but we don’t have a dedicated VP and no individual mics. “Veni, Veni” was a great arrangement for us because it needed a balanced group. Some of my other arrangements didn’t work so well because they needed individual mics.

ECV functions more naturally as a contemporary choral group, and I think it would benefit us to lean more into it than to try to hybridize. The differences in musicality make it difficult to transition from one to the other. If we want to become a contemporary a cappella group, I’d be on board as well, as long as we’re okay with some drastic changes.

Music streaming services suck. There, I said it. They suck and there’s no way around it.

I started using Spotify earlier this year, after much resistance. I needed a music streaming service I could use while driving, and I my previous choice of YouTube made me feel weird using all that data and forced me to take my hand off the wheel to skip ads while driving. For a while, I was using Apple Music because I thought it came free with my phone plan (it didn’t), and honestly my experience with that app wasn’t great (why do I have to re-login every other day?) so I’m not going to talk about it.

Either way, I had a feeling I knew all of this before I got into it, and it always sucks when your pessimistic assumptions turn out to be right.

Let’s talk about why music streaming services suck.

(the major) streaming services pay artists per play.

I heard somewhere that Spotify pays you per play if the listener makes it past the 30-second mark. After that, it doesn’t matter whether they make it to the end of the song–you’ve been paid out. If the listener skips in the first 30 seconds, then you get nothing.

This sucks for a few obvious reasons. If an artist is looking to make any sort of money through streaming, they are beholden to this algorithm. As streaming platforms grow and more people want a piece of the pie, artists are incentivized to make music with catchy hooks to get people to stay through the first 30 seconds. They’re also incentivized to make shorter and shorter tracks. After all, why make one 10-minute song when you can make 10 one-minute songs and get paid 10x as much? This leads platforms to be flooded with music that sounds pretty much the same.

On the other side of the coin, someone whose track gets zero plays is making no money. They may become discouraged and give up their music career, even though their music may be amazing. All because they chose not to make music that fits the algorithm. They shouldn’t have to make music to fit an algorithm.

A website like Forgotify can help you discover music with few or no plays on Spotify.

playlists are the backbone.

Perhaps my least favorite part of the streaming age is this migration to platform-created playlists. These playlists exist for a reason; listeners who don’t want to create their own playlists can use one provided by the platform, and will pretty much be guaranteed to get music that fits a vibe they’re looking for.

One annoying yet understandable way that artists have adapted to this is to find a playlist they want to be featured on, like “Saturday Morning Jam” or whatever, and make music that’s similar to what’s already on that playlist. As I said before, this leads the platforms to be flooded with music that sounds pretty much the same.

Previously, I would judge whether I like an artist based on whether their albums are any good. I like to listen for comprehension of sound, maybe some recurring themes from start to finish, with extra credit for self-reference. In my opinion, that’s how you can tell if an artist is solid: if they know not just how to create good music, but to organize a set of music into one complete idea. Not every track has to be a 10/10, and very often isn’t.

Album music is dead. Instead, you get artists releasing a handful of singles to get onto playlists. The nuance is lost.

a niche gripe.

It’s probably no surprise to you to find out that my favorite genre of music is classical. It probably also won’t be a surprise to you to hear that streaming platforms and classical music are not made for each other at all.

The feature I miss the most, listening to music on Youtube, is having the ability to shuffle my classical music. I can create playlists of the pieces I like, slap the “shuffle” button, and be on my merry way. People won’t be splitting their long-form performance videos into single videos per movement.

Here’s what one of those looks like on Spotify:

I mean, sure, it’s understandable. This is how the track list would be broken down on a CD. But sometimes it gets egregious.

The Rite of Spring is a piece in two movements, and I’d be surprised if any CD tracks were broken up like this. Could this be a result of the first point I made in this post? Even if it wasn’t, necessarily, I have seen some others who have their track lists broken down like this.

I digress.

How would I shuffle The Rite of Spring in its entirety in an playlist with loads of other classical pieces? You can’t. There’s no way to shuffle things in groups, and you can’t create a mega playlist full of smaller playlists or albums. Playlists are flat, and that makes it harder for me to use.

not everything is on streaming platforms.

Notably, many many video game sound tracks don’t make it to these platforms. The best you can get is imitations and covers, which are impressive and creative, but also aren’t what I’m looking for.

If nobody uploads a cover for that album, you just won’t be able to find it, and Youtube or the source material will be your only option. You can’t really fault these platforms for this, though, since it’s up to the artist to decide whether they want their music on it. I guess if a games company decides it’s not worth it, that’s their call.

an omen.

The state of music streaming is a sign of the times, of when privately-owned or publicly-traded companies have all the control of their respective industries. I seem to be on a technological-apocalypse bent and unfortunately, it’s not ending soon. My next two posts are going to be about similar topics. I hope at least this post helps you realize why I think music streaming services suck.

If you’re interested in reading some of my previous posts about the current state of society, here is some select reading:

If you made it this far, thanks for reading about why I think music streaming services suck. If you scrolled all the way to the bottom without reading, hello. Thanks for reading. I don’t know when I got so long-winded.

Take a City Walk.

The anticipation of a result is more enjoyable than the result itself. Usually, the buildup requires some sort of tension or intensity, and the climax needs to match the energy of the build. The effect is also increased by the duration of the build.

You can see clear examples in modern day where people are exploiting this fact.

In Music

Let’s start with a benign example. There are many forms of music that utilize this structure. From dance music to classical, you will find pieces where the music builds and builds and builds with tension… and then release! You get a wave of relief and sometimes you get goosebumps (or goose skin, if you’re from the UK–not sure if they’re the same thing).

Here are a few of my favorite examples:

Yet if you bounce around the track or skip straight to the climax… nothing. No release, no goose bumps. You get nothing. Also if the climax doesn’t play out, the effect is ruined.

I can go more into this topic specifically with music, but I think I’ll save it for another post. In short, the key words are Fibonacci sequence, the Golden Ratio, chord progressions, and Debussy.

If you’re interested in learning more about these specifically, I recommend just Googling it. Music is so closely intertwined with mathematics that it would be difficult to avoid it when analyzing music.

Slot Machines

Have you ever sat down at a slot machine and won on your very first pull?

Ha. Yeah, me neither.

Have you heard about the people who played Wordle for the first time and had accidentally guessed the correct word on their first try? The game wasn’t very exciting for them. For the rest of us, every time we enter our first word for the day, we wait in anticipation to see if our guess is the answer.

The same thing applies to any sort of game where chance is a big factor. Even though we know that the odds are against us, we play for the anticipation of the win. If win too often, the game loses its appeal.

Tik Tok & Other Short-Form Media

Tiktok, and similarly, every other social media with infinite scroll (Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, Twitter… so basically all of them), are effectively slot machines. You scroll or swipe in anticipation that the next video or post will be the one that catches your attention. If it takes too long for you to find a gem, you stop scrolling, and if you only find gems, then the effect is diminished.

Knowing this, it shouldn’t come as any surprise that it’s not the content that’s addicting, it’s the swiping. It’s the pursuit of it.

How do I use this information?

You can use this knowledge to reframe your day. You might you find yourself endlessly scrolling on social media all day, but now you know that those platforms are designed like that intentionally.

It’s not even just infinite scrolling. A notification icon, an email icon, or even an audio alert give you some sense of anticipation.

I’m not necessarily saying these are bad things, but you should be aware of how they affect your behavior.

If you wanted to take this a step further, you could use this understanding to change how you motivate yourself. You can prioritize the doing your work rather than completing the work, so to speak. Instead of rushing to get something done, you can take pleasure in doing it. Nobody will pick up a great book, read only the last chapter, and have as much fun as someone who read through it all the way through.

This post is heavily inspired by the work of Dr. Andrew Huberman, who hosts a podcast on neuroscience and neurobiology. Here is one excellent episode on dopamine.

This one’s for the diary.

It’s weird. I spent a few years unemployed, pinching every penny. Now that I’m employed again and I’m making a decent amount of money, I feel like I still have to pinch every penny.

My problem with my money

I have no problem with paying bills or buying things for other people. If I could live my life buying food for people every meal, I would. But I crunched the numbers. It’s not sustainable.

No, the problem is with spending money on myself. I don’t like buying things for my own pleasure, and I have an incredibly difficult time justifying a selfish purchase more than $10.

My guess is that I have residual tight-fistedness from my time spent unemployed. In those few years, I taught myself to be happy with what I had. I didn’t have money coming in, so I found joy in things I already owned or things I could do for free. I played games. I listened to music for free online. I watched TV on shared accounts. and I never traveled, except by car.

The Cost-to-Happiness Ratio

I recently discussed this with two of my friends, and they brought up their measurement of a purchase’s value. They called it the “cost-to-happiness” ratio. For example, they (and I) wouldn’t derive much happiness from buying a new car, since they’re not car people (nor I), so the cost-to-happiness ratio is rather high. But for something else like Taco Bell (for them, not for me), the cost-to-happiness ratio is low. They’re constantly using this ratio to weigh their purchases.

Well, for the past few years, I taught myself to be happy with things that have a near-zero cost-to-happiness ratio. Or more specifically, zero-cost, high-happiness.

Now I have trouble justifying anything with more than low cost, even if they provide high happiness, because I know I can be happy with zero cost. I want to travel, but I can’t get myself to spend money on trips. I missed out on some of the benefits of my early 20s because I spent them at home, too afraid to spend money.

The Solution?

I am trying real hard to get out of this mindset. I am not poor. Later on when (if) I have a family, I don’t want to prevent them from experiencing things just because I didn’t.

My budgeting spreadsheet says I spend ~6% on gifts for other people and ~3% on my own recreation. Perhaps I should tip it in the other direction? Pretty weird conclusion to come to. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Ask any Seattle native if they’ve noticed these things, and I guarantee you the answer will be yes.

I still remember the days when the Seattle skyline only had the Space Needle towering above it. Now it’s barely visible from anywhere. The explosion of tech companies here led to mass construction of downtown high-rises and skyscrapers. People moved in from all over the world to get a piece of the pie, and Seattle suffered for it. Now it barely resembles what I remember it to be.

Corporate growth has expanded to the neighboring cities as well: obviously, Bellevue expands as Microsoft and other tech mega-corps grow. Renton, Lynnwood, Kirkland, Everett, and even Kent feel the effects of this bloat.

With this explosive growth comes rising costs of living, and consequently, the ejection of citizens who live on normal wages. Those with enough margin are pushed out of the city into the suburbs. The less fortunate ones end up on the streets. The old Seattle — the lively, calm, clean one — is no more.

Instead what we have is a massive change in culture. The Seattle freeze is dying out, there’s litter in the streets like never before, and drivers are more aggressive than they used to be. But more importantly, Seattle looks less White and more Asian.

And I’m really conflicted on that point. For one, I’m excited that I get to see more people who look, sound, and smell like me. But on the other, I’m saddened and frustrated by the fact that these new residents won’t have to learn to navigate living as a super minority. It’s selfish, I know. It’s messed up, I know. But it’s something I lived through, and something that can’t be removed from my memories.

Anyway, there have been two images I like to use to metaphorize (yes, it’s a word, I just checked) the growth of Seattle. They’re quite morbid, so be warned.

One is that of the pregnant woman, complete with stretch marks, whose baby has grown so big and so quickly that the mother has died. The baby continues to grow, however, consuming the flesh of the body surrounding it, and with no sign of release.

The second is similar, except it’s a cadaver with all its holes plugged up and nowhere for the inside gas to go. It’s ready to burst at any second, but there’s no telling when.

My last thought on this is that I’ve personally met a ridiculous number of people who have moved here in the past two years. It might sound like I’m blaming you for these changes. I’m not. I’m not blaming anyone, really. I’m not blaming capitalism, either. Rather, I see this as a stepping stone in the imminent and inevitable end of society as we know it.

On that note, have a good day/night/whatever! Tune in next month when I discuss my thoughts on why that is. I’ve been promising it for a while. I should probably get it out there before it actually happens.