Spotify link to album: The Weather
Take Note, Pinewood’s a cappella group, recently dropped their third extended play record, or EP, in November. Titled “The Weather,” the EP features four songs performed by the a cappella group.
“The way that contemporary a cappella works is that usually all these pieces are built around a soloist,” choir teacher Katie Linza said. “[These songs] are chosen based on who is in the group, what they’re interested in, and what I think they would sound good in.”
The record was made during the 2020-2021 school year, meaning that members of Take Note had to record their parts remotely.
“[It was] a little strange to record from home. I didn’t know what the [end] product was going to be,” Take Note member Isabelle Eivers said.
As expected, recording and editing the EP at home brought new challenges to the performers.
“Usually, what we can do is we can stop and say ‘let’s take this little chunk . . . oh, we didn’t like that, let’s try again,’” Linza said. “This time, they just had to know it so well that they could do it two or three times really well.”
Something that particularly excited the group was the fact that famous bass singer Alvin Chia, who performs in the a cappella group Take Six, performed alongside Take Note on the song “Blue Skies.”
“I picked the song, but the bass part is so hard and none of our bass singers could handle it,” Linza said. “This is the perfect opportunity to hire somebody who’s awesome to sing this part, so I think it’s really cool that he’s on that.”
Despite the special guests and streaming service releases, members of Take Note never lose sight of what made them love a cappella in the first place.
“People can come together and create music just as themselves with no need for instruments and they rely so heavily on their voices,” Eivers said. “I think it’s cool and I think it’s fun.”
Photos courtesy of Kyle Riches. Image courtesy of Pinewood Take Note.