On April 25, 2015, my Girl Scout troop joined others at a harmony workshop event hosted by a cappella Joy to earn the new Young Women in Harmony patch. I was excited that my mom’s chorus decided to host this event to help us earn it. Because my mom sings in AJoy, I’ve heard a lot of barbershop and a cappella. I knew it would be an awesome time and I wanted to share the experience with other Girl Scouts who love to sing.
To prepare for the day, we learned “Hey Soul Sister,” and had our own practice sessions as a troop. I learned baritone! On Saturday, my mom was so excited she wanted to go three hours early. But she had to wait for my friends to show up. And she says I'm impatient! When we did go, my friends and I got to help greet other Girl Scouts as they arrived. All of them were so excited and happy to be there. Girls came from many different schools and troop levels.
We started with what AJoy called physical warm ups, and then got to see AJoy perform one on their songs (one of my favorites!), “You Don’t, You Won’t.” I heard lots of “Wows” from the other girls! Of course, I loved it. I just wish I could have done it with AJoy.
Then we got to work. Here’s some of what we did.
We started with singing Make New Friends, a Girl Scouts song, in rounds, which was cool, but then Nikki taught us the end as a 4-part tag! This was really fun. We were used to singing the melody of this song, but hearing other parts around the melody was so cool! Then she taught us “When the Saints Go Marching In,” with each part singing different lyrics! It was so fun to hear all the lyrics come together.
Then we finally got to sing “Hey Soul Sister.” Nikki worked the song like I’ve seen her do with any of AJoy’s songs when I’ve come with Mom to rehearsal, picking it apart bit by bit, part by part. It was tiring, but so fun to learn new things and hear things we hadn’t before. After all that, we got to learn choreo! Because we are invited to perform this song on stage with AJoy in September, we got to learn the moves!
Finally, we got our patches. All the other girls walked out talking about how much fun we had and how much we learned. And we got snacks! Cupcakes! All in all, we had a great time, and I hope AJoy does another workshop like this. While I have my patch now, it still would be fun to be back on the risers with AJoy! And of course, I can’t wait for the show in September. I just wish I could wear AJoy’s costume.
By Sarah T.
