Battle of the Choirs

Seven has been pushing this show for the past week, and the Sunday Times TV guide had Charli Delaney on the front cover.

It always struck me as a bit naff that Charli, who's never been in a choir nor been musically trained, and who recently admitted that she can't pick a harmony, got the gig as judge on a show about choirs.  It's like Chopper Reid judging a debutante ball.

I just watched the show anyway, because Charli is quite useful as eye candy, and I like choral music. I used to sing in a choir.  The first act (Vox Harmony) was terrible; they sang Love Is In The Air very out-of-tune. I'm surprised they were even let into the studio with so much metal on their faces, too. You wouldn't know they were a choir, they just turned up to the show dressed as though they were going to TAFE.

The next one, The Blenders, was an all-male, supposedly barbershop-style group. They took The Idea Of North's arrangement of "Man In The Mirror" and didn't really do very well with it. Charli was very impressed; she said that "if their rendition of the song was played all around the world on loudspeakers, we'd immediately have world peace". Er, yeah. Something like that. The Blenders seemed to be just the slightest bit queer, too.

Next was some god-awful group of plastic-faced girls who, sadly, won a silver medal at the "Choir Olympics" with Pink's "Get the party started". How many times does Pink harmonise with herself in that song? About as many times as this sad excuse for a choir did. Shit song, shit performers. If I'd been on the judging panel, I would have told them to go home immediately and get themselves a competant choirmaster. Or disband - whichever is easiest. Seriously though, their performance lacked harmonies and individually their timing was way too loose.

Then there was a gospel choir, made up of just anyone who wanted to join. As you'd expect from this sort of community gospel choir, they were all very enthusiastic. They sang some song that I had only heard in advertisements. You could see potential there, but they just need more direction. Considering that there were plenty of men in this choir, it was very difficult to hear any bass - very disappointing, and I'm surprised the judges never said anything about that. They criticised this group's timing, which was fair to point out, but IMHO the lack of bass was the biggest problem.

Charli suggested that they all hold hands before they perform. Gawd, what the hell *is* she doing on this show? I think this is the dumbest thing I've heard her say, and remember that I've seen 9 years of her playing to kids.

They've all performed, it's nearing the half-hour mark, now we're going to find out the winner? No. Instead, they're going to drag it out another 30 minutes by having them all sing songs that they've had only a couple of hours to arrange, learn and rehearse. Needless to say, this was simply embarrasing to all performers. You can't expect anyone to be any good at something they've barely even learnt. Has as much to do with choral performance as parallel parking. To add dumbness to insult, the songs chosen were all Kylie Minogue songs. Written for a single voice, and remember that Kylie's songs don't usually have much in the way of harmony.

Now do we get to hear who's the winner, if anyone still cares? Well, kinda. The Blenders go through to the next round. The gospel choir are eliminated. But apparantly, the other two groups are so evenly matched that they need a tiebreaker. Gee, it's lucky they were given a song each two weeks ago to perform in the event that there be a tiebreaker!

A couple of ad-breaks later, they perform. The plastic girls sing "I Don't Feel Like Dancing", which was an easy opportunity for them to score some points as the song already has harmonies in place on the original recording. Vox Harmony get Wonderwall - tough deal of the cards. They actually (in my opinion) nail it as much as any choir could nail an Oasis song. Good seperation and interplaying melodies between the males and the females in the choir, but only after a very shaky start.

I recorded the show because my Indian friend Shiv would kill me for missing another piece of footage of a Hi-5 member, but I'm certainly not going to watch it again.

If Charli is serious about becoming an actress (and not just an "adult entertainer", lol), she should learn to act like she's qualified to judge a choral competition. That's a bit harsh, I guess. Good actors and actresses study up for their parts by walking in their character's shoes or going to the library and doing research on the main themes of the TV show or movie, so they can better prepare for the role. Charli really needs to take a crash-course on music - attend some choir rehearsals, buy CDs of internationally-renouned choirs as well as a book of listening notes to go along with them. Otherwise, she's likely to make a fool of herself many more times this series.

But the show is foolishly done anyway. There are so many better choirs in Australia. Why weren't Men In Harmony or the Perth Harmony Chorus invited onto the show? Or will they be?

The choirs should sing two contrasting songs each as the main round. Keyword: contrasting.  Not "Two songs that 94.5 play twice daily".  If the show is going to give the choirs songs to sing as a tiebreaker or a second round, they should at least give the ensembles the opportunity to use harmony and SATB seperation. Otherwise, there's nothing to judge on, as Charli demonstrated with "Get the party started" (she disagreed with the judges who said it was too simple a song - "Well that's the way the song is, so the girls nailed it!").  And, of course, give the songs to the choirs weeks in advance rather than hours.

The only problem with my idea for the show is that Charli could be made to look even more foolish by it. Imagine if a choir decided to sing Mack The Knife:

Charli: I think that was the wrong song to sing. The lyrics don't sound right. It's as though the song was translated from German or something.

For those of you who don't get the joke, don't worry. You don't *need* to understand the joke, because you're not judging a musical competition!

Battle of the Choirs. 1/10.
Pros: It makes me realise that the choir I was in was excellent.
Cons: It's not so much a "battle" as a wet towl flicking contest.
Verdict: Don't watch it. Even Charli fans should stay away.

Comments

[hannah]

Battle of the choirs--

I think that your opinion, and the things you wrote about the television show are way too critical, and the typical "I have no idea what I'm talking about" views that the general public come up with after watching tv.

I was involved in this show, in one of the younger choirs, and I do agree with some of your comments, particularly about cantable (the girl choir) and their lack of harmony, however, most of your comments have no basis.

Firstly -- Vox Synergy's first performance wasn't brilliant, but there are serious sound issues with channel 7, and in the studio, that choir is absolutely fantastic, and one of the best choirs in the series. In regard to your comments about their outfit, they actually turned up in a uniform (which was all black) and channel 7 producers decided that they didn't want any black uniforms, and told them they had to perform in the clothes they came to the studio in, so that was not their fault.

The Blenders performance was amazing, and so beautiful (I can't believe you say you were in a choir and still think this was crap!), and they are a lovely bunch of genuine men, with a lot of advice and wisdom, who have a passion for singing. What's queer about that? Also, most of their audience was made up of their devoted wives, many of them have been married for over 60 years. I think your definition of queer is a little different to mine.

Cantable, while lacking in good harmonies (and they had a dodgy song, which again, channel 7 picked, NOT the choir) was still an alright performance. Those girls are very young, and still acted with the utmost dignity, and were great performers.

Strange Weather are a close group, and had enthusiasm, but they would not have been able to handle the competition, (which gets very hard) past the heats.

Overall, I can understand that your entitled to your own opinion, but maybe before you make such harsh, critical comments about something you obviously have no idea about, consider what may have gone on, and what these people have done to get even this far. Battle of the Choirs has been an amazing experience for my choir, we've all grown much closer, and the dedication that ALL of these choirs have put in (whether the best choir or the worst) is apparent as soon as you walk in the studio.

Get out of your little cyber-space hole and consider that maybe things aren't always what they seem.

[Christopher]

Sorry... Vox Synergy; you're right. I couldn't think of the second word of their name.

I realise I was completely out of line with some of the horrible things I said. I was really nasty; bad me. I've resolved not to blog while worked up, and I'll clarify and rephrase some of what I said:

Cantable had a terrible song. I really wasn't impressed with them at all; not in any of the songs they sung. I also found it off-putting that every girl in the choir has a similar range of facial expressions, i.e. very few while performing. It's almost like they are all stereotypical "beauties".

Didn't the judges say something about Vox Synergy's lack of costume?

I never said that The Blenders were bad. On the contrary, I think they have potential. Their rendition of Man In The Mirror was okay, it's just that they photocopied an arrangement made for four people and tried to sing it with forty people.

I wasn't calling into question their sexuality, of course. It's just that their movements were more feminine than you'd expect for a male ensemble that doesn't have rolled-up socks down their pants.

My father complained that none of the choirs really blended their voices very well. I didn't mention it because I know that the acoustics in a TV studio are very bad for choirs.

Finally, I'd like to point out that the purpose of the blog post was to tell Hi-5 fans what the show is like. I heavily criticise the format of the show. If Channel Seven meddled in the costuming and song selection, then that's another black cross against the show.

From what I saw in that episode, I find it difficult to believe that the heats are really that difficult. It's possible that other choirs in later episodes are better (including yours), but I'm judging the show based on the only episode I could actually bear to watch.

I'm going to watch it tonight because I've been asked to put some clips of Charli online. But after that first episode I really felt like there were better things I could do with an hour. So tonight I'll miss out on my weekly nose-pick and watch BOTC again :-D

I believe tonight they are going to do a crossover show of "Battle of the Choirs meets Don't Forget The Lyrics" :-D