Videos of Mini Concert

Here are the videos of the last mini concert at Atis SDA City Central Church General Santos City. We would like to thank Digital Detour for the sharing a copy of the videos for this event.


Our Father by Ramon Lijauco Jr. Conducted by Ms. Marian Rodolfo-Abella






Christmas Praise


I'm Gonna Sing 'til the Spirit moves in my heart



Battle of Jericho





We would like to thank the youth choir of SDA Atis City Central Church for inviting us to sing with with them. It was time well spent together with them, we pray and hope that you grow more in your efforts to sing for the Lord.

Short Back to Back Mini Concert

This photo here was taken last Friday Night December 9, 2011 during a special Vesper Program at Atis SDA City Central Church. The lady conducting MSU Chorale in the photo is a good friend of mine. Her name is April Marian Rodolfo-Abella, a graduate of BM major in Voice from Adventist University of the Philippines. Just for the information of everybody, the song being sung in this photo (of course photos don't sing) is an original arrangement of the song The Lord's Prayer by the director of the AUP Ambassadors Mr. Ramon Lijauco Jr. Marian happens to be a former member of the AUP Ambassadors and that is why she is leading the group during the invocation. If you want to hear a sample this specific song, please try to view the video at the side bar of this blog entitled "Our Father."


If I might backtrack a little bit, this event was a concert sponsored by the youth department of Atis SDA City Central Church. Marian being the directress and a good friend of mine, invited us to render a few songs during the event. In short, it was to be a back to back concert with their youth choir. We gladly responded to the invitation not just to showcase the group but for the purpose of encouraging other groups in the field of music.

This is a photo of the Atis SDA City Central Youth Choir led by their very own Marian Abella. What is good about this young talents is the desire to render their service to the music ministry singing songs unto the Lord. The youth choir stood as a fortress and a shelter for lonely visiting young people within in their church. This choir is composed of different young people from all over Gensan and some are even outside Gensan. By creating this group, Marian together with other youth leaders have glued together the young people of this church.

Of course it was truly an honor for the Mindanao State University Chorale to render our time and talent to this fine young people while sharing one single bond, Music. A fine young lady of course was among us during that night, not your ordinary type of a girl because she is a piano major from the University of the Philippines. She is also a very good friend of ours and she was also there ready to assist the youth choir in its endeavor to share music to the community. She is Ms. Janeh Oponda.

Here are a few photos of our short back to back mini concert.

We would like to thank the people who gave us the chance to spend this evening together with the Atis SDA Youth Choir.

"Kampeon ang Pasko sa Gensan"

General Santos City have always and I guess will always be having champions to talk about and celebrate. Starting from our very own Manny Pacquiao to our local stars such as Melissa, Gerald Anderson and the list could go on and on. This was the very reason why the theme for this year's Paskohan sa Gensan is "Kampeon ang Pasko sa Gensan."


Sponsored by the Department of Education, a production number was organized last December 5,2011 for the opening program of the weeklong celebration for Paskohan sa Gensan 2011. One specific part of the program was the showcase of selected chorale groups within the city. They were the LGU Choir of Gensan, the Mindanao State University Chorale, the Voce Heneral and volunteers from Holy Trinity. Each chorale sang their respected pieces to show the public that General Santos is also a city of musical talents.

Our very own MSU Chorale sang "The Battle of Jericho" during the said event. There were other talents during the opening program which really got the attention of the crowd. It was one special experience for the group and also an honor to represent the our school during the event.

Please like us on facebook https://www.facebook.com/pages/MSU-Chorale/240956292589342. By the way, we have a blog for all of you music lovers out there who wants to study music for free. Please also visit www.musiciansdistrict.blogspot.com

Mindanao Massacre Anniversary

The Ampatuan Massacre or simply known as the Mindanao Massacre was commemorated by the families of the victims that suffered such gruesome death. The event was held last November 23, 2011 at the grounds of Forest Lake Memorial Cemetery where a few of the victims of the massacre were layed. Their was a live coverage also during the said event by two of the biggest television network in the country, ABS-CBN and GMA. There were also other media men present to cover the program in memory of the deceased.

It was truly an honor and a privilege for the Mindanao State University Chorale to render their songs of peace for the dead and even for the families who were present there to attend the meeting. Led by their director Mr. Robert Pasion, the MSU Chorale sang "The Prayer" a Capella version for the invocation followed by the Philippine National Anthem. They also gave three intermission songs to somehow ease the families who were there reminiscing their happy days with their love ones.

This is one big unsolved case yet for the justice system of our country. Many are asking what will be the outcome of the investigations and will the guilty be punished? Whatever may happen during the course of this case, the Mindanao State University Chorale was more than happy to take part of this event.

Performing during FRAME

 Dubbed as "Family Resource Allocation and Management, the government of General Santos has made another move to alleviate poverty in its locality. The said event occurred last November 16, 2011 at the City Oval Plaza. Thousands attended the event while different schools, colleges and universities helped with the program specifically with the production numbers and the provision of singers.

Participating the event was the Mindanao State University Chorale of Gensan, of course, how could they miss such an event? Never! The group sang with other chorale groups within the city such as The Voce of the City National High school, Allegro Chorale of Notre Dame of Dadiangas and a few others.

The group performed the song "Shine" by Regine Velasquez together with the other chorale groups under the baton of Mr. Robert Pasion. The song was given a new sound by having it performed by a solo with a large number of different choirs singing as back up. The piece was arranged again by Mr. Robert Pasion.

The program ended with a bang by lighting up thousands of lanterns which they released into the open sky shining like myriads of lights floating in mid air.

The city mayor Darlene Antonino Custodio believed that FRAME project is an essential key to alleviate poverty in General Santos City.

Here are a few of the songs we did, just glad to have done the project.

Musika

Our tribute to the alumni and the music world. This is an orginial composition performed by us of course and here are the names of our solo people. Peter Anton Amadeo Aldrin Serquiña Jizelle Jane Ancheta Gale Diones Jovelyn Napila Patrick Jayson Llara Vocals arranged by yours truly.

What Matters Most

"Ayaw ko ng Plastik" is an originial composition for Gensan's Ayaw ko ng plastik advocacy.
Composed and Arranged by Bembem and performed by Miss Eleonor Resuelo a former alto member of the Mindanao State University Chorale. This video was published last summer of this year (2011) and was featured in a local television news (ABS-CBN Gensan).

For Good

"For Good" is a song by Stephen Schwartz from the musical "Wicked" where a person meets another soul that totally makes a big impact in his life and changes him. Arranged for SATB and duet, we do not take credit for this song but we would just like to render in honor of the composer for such a song as this.

I hope you guys will love this arrangement, even though its just a clip.

True Colors

I know I know there's too much noise in the background, but this video is only for pure fun singing.

A memento of how we once gathered and sang this song, we might be looking at this video 10 to 20 years from now and would draw a smile on our faces.

This song is entitled true colors. The solo line was rendered by Miss Jizelle Jane Ancheta and of course the new members sang with the old for the chorus parts.

Adding Reverb

Adding reverb to a recording can do wonders and simply enhance the output of the audio. This video was recorded with a 5.1 sorround channel. 


This was recorded during the semestral break of 2010-2011 when we did a weeklong workshop. This was the last day of the workshop and we were about to have lunch. The title of the song is "Praise God".

Adding Flanger to your Solo

This is the result of the trick I used to enhance the solo parts of a recording

• Duplicate the solo track of your vocals
• Add a flanger effect to the duplicate track
• Make the duplicate track 6 dB lower than the original track
• Adjust the volume difference of these tracks until they would sound decent
• The goal is to give the main track a stereo width expansion and some sort of delay into it
• Make sure that both tracks have the same type of reverb  to make it sound cohesive 

One Mic Recording a whole choir

• This is the result of the recording I did using only one microphone and a simple room treatment

• How to produce a decent quality recording of a choir with a single microphone?

 First of all, you need to have a microphone that can somehow pull this trick off. For this video I used a Samson CO3U usb studio microphone. I place the mic's pattern into omni, this will make the mic pick up sounds from every direction.

• What is the size of the room and how I treated the room

The room for this recording is only just as big as how we define small. To be more specific, the room dimension is about 5 meters by 6 meters and a height of 7 meter. This is just an approximation since in reality I never did measure the exact numbers.

The room has no treatment at all, no materials to do trap any frequencies or whatever things you usually do to a studio room. What we simply did was to hang blankets and for a room within the room using those blankets. We didn't fully made a perfect square, the side where the choir stands is left empty for the blanket thing simply for the purpose of giving the choir a place to stand and sing.