Nearly 8,000 miles (12,800 km) separated these four singers. Two in Los Angeles, one in Canberra, one in Melbourne. No rehearsal. No score. No agreed-upon arrangement.
Somebody just said "let's sing Happy Birthday to Rosie," and they did.
One voice leads. Nobody chases anybody.
In our first video from this session, the singers followed a reference track and heard each other only from a previous take. This one works differently. Alex conducted live. The other three heard her and, just as important, watched her hands and lips. She was the reference, and she was creating it in the moment.
The catch, and it is a real one: Alex heard only herself. That is the price of being the leader. Sound cannot arrive before it departs, so if she waited to hear the group, they would wait to hear her, and the whole thing would spiral. Break the loop and it works.
Then there is the part we did not plan. With no rehearsal, four singers on two continents improvised harmony on the fly. Afterward somebody had to ask whether anyone had actually sung the melody.
Somebody had.
What the singers said afterward
Their comments are in the video after the song. These are their words.
That’s proof of concept. Like, that effectively worked.
Alex Siegers, director and alto
So yes, that was very, very helpful.
Gabbi Coenen, soprano
And the playback sync worked as well. Like it adjusted the timing correctly, which was great.
Cody Christopher, tenor
Thank you. That was very, very good.
Alex Siegers, director and alto
That was very in sync.
Alex Siegers, director and alto
And on conducting it:
Very funky. Yeah, as a director, that was that was good to be able to say, hey this is what’s happening, and then people being able to follow it.
Alex Siegers, director and alto
That was good fun.
Cody Christopher, tenor
The singers
- Alex Siegers, Venice, California (director and alto) — alexsiegers.com
- Cody Christopher, Dickson, ACT, Australia (tenor)
- Gabbi Coenen, Sherman Oaks, California (soprano) — gabbicoenen.com
- William Darbyshire, Clifton Hill, VIC, Australia (bass)
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Lance Glasser
Lance is CEO and Co-founder of Kinetic Audio Innovations. He was previously a faculty member at MIT, Director of the Electronics Technology Office at DARPA, and CTO at KLA. He also makes sculpture, which has nothing to do with audio but explains the hundreds of pounds of bronze in his house.