KeyStone is Philadelphia’s new semi-professional six-voice contemporary a cappella group. When not on our day jobs, we perform pop rock songs, nothin’ but mic. Booming bass, rockin’ beat boxing, and soaring vocals covering popular music of the last 50 years. We are available for all kinds of events, from corporate to private, educational to recreational.
What the pros are saying about KeyStone:
Barry Carl (Rockapella): “Very pro. Great dynamics and musicality. Great bass and percussion work. How many modulations were in that song?”
Tom Anderson (Random Notes, LLC): “Y’all need to hear this group @KeyStoneVocals from Philly. They’re not on the radar yet but give them a minute. Wow. They were three for three on great soloists. Great arrangements sung well.”
Since our performance at Harmony Sweepstakes back in February, we’ve been building our repertoire and making some choices about what we want the future of KeyStone to be. One of those decisions was to be an active member of the national a cappella community, and that meant two things: going to festivals, and joining the CASA Contemporary A Cappella League (CAL).
We’re joining CAL now just in time to get on board for CAL’s biggest event of the year, VoCALnation, a two-day festival which this year takes place at the Strathmore Music Center in Bethesda, Maryland. There’s plenty of classes, workshops, performances, and parties to attend, and we’ll be submitting our video to get a chance to be the opening act for the Professional Showcase on Saturday, July 14th, which features Italian super group Cluster and Sing-Off favorites Afro Blue.
We’ll be sure to share our audition video with everyone as soon as it’s ready. Can’t wait to make our debut amongst such excellent singers in CASA-land!
Things have been quiet lately, but that’s because we’ve got a lot of things in the works right now. We’re still arranging and learning new repertoire, including Gotye (no, not that song), Huey Lewis, Weird Al, Simon & Garfunkel, Colbie Caillat, Duran Duran, and more. We are also officially joining the Contemporary A Cappella League and planning to attend voCALnation in Washington, D.C. this July.
In more exciting news,our first professionally edited and mixed single release is currently in production! Our friends at Clear Harmonies Productions will be finishing up primary editing after they get back from the big a cappella festival in Boston this weekend. Once we get the background tracks, Jen will be laying down some more solo tracks to seal the deal. The track will then be off to diovoce for mastering and A Cappella Records for distribution. Look for it to drop in May.
In even more exciting news, we are in the midst of producing our first live streaming show for a cappella lovers anywhere (with a steady internet connection, that is). We’ll be doing a beta test with a small audience at the end of April, then doing our first full-fledged-open-to-the-public show in May. We will be sure to announce to the world when the first public show is scheduled and when our single becomes available.
Yes, it’s been a bit quiet since our big show at Harmony Sweepstakes Mid-Atlantic. Jen took a week’s vacation the week after. It was her seventh time on The Rock Boat. Tom was held hostage for three days to proctor state-mandated testing for his school at a hotel in the middle-of-nowehere Pennsylvania. KeyStone mascot Sebastian Howe has been keeping his parents up at all hours with two-year molars coming in early. Ah, the existence of a semi-pro a cappella group with six very busy adults.
Despite the craziness, we did rehearse this past Tuesday and have another rehearsal next week. We tweaked the ending of our Coldplay cover and learned new repertoire (enjoy our rehearsal banter as well – always entertaining):
Exciting things are in the works, but little is set in stone. A partial list
Our first single is in production and should be out in April!
KeyStone singing "I'll Be There" Live at The Birchmere 2/25/2012
Singing for Harmony Sweepstakes Mid-Atlantic was a great experience for many reasons. One of them was getting more experience with singing in front of a live audience with mics and monitors. Another was dealing with the challenges of singing on a mix that did us no favors. The sound man at The Birchmere told us that everything was being kept level so that all competitors got the same treatment. There wasn’t even any reverb in the mix!
The following SoundCloud set contains the audio only from our set at The Birchmere. We added some EQ, compression, and a touch of reverb to round it out, but other than that, what you hear is how it went down.
One of the challenges of live performance is maintaining the same level of accuracy that you have when you are singing in rehearsal. That is even tougher when you are being rigidly timed and scrutinized by judges. One of the perks of live performance is having an audience to sing for, and this audience was there to hear close harmony vocal music! The lighting at The Birchmere is not conducive to connecting easily with the crowd, however. The performers can really only see the first row of tables. Despite that, you be able to clearly hear the crowd’s reaction to our performance, especially during our quirky crowd favorite “Frosty the Snowman”.
Flawless? No. Solid? Yes. Under the circumstances, we were pleased with our own efforts, and we’re definitely looking for more opportunities to get in front of a live crowd.
Here’s the set. If you can’t play the embedded player below, you can visit the set directly on SoundCloud here.
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