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Harmonic Convergence
A capella greats Take 6 inspire with music and grace.
By Rob Hochschild and Kevin Levesque
April 11, 2003
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| Take Six performs at the beginning of their clinic. From left to right are half of its members, Cedric Dent, Claude McKnight, and David Thomas. |
| Photo by Kim Grant |
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Take 6 is a group that seems to perform miracles every time it opens its half-dozen mouths. And for all of those Berklee students who were wondering how they do it, the six-member a capella group provided a lot of answers during a laid-back yet informative February clinic, one of the highlights of Berklee's Black History Month Music Celebration.
Together since the mid-1980s, Take 6 has earned a reputation as an a capella group that makes you forget they are an a capella group. Each vocalist is also an instrumentalist away from the group, and by combining their musicianship, sense of passion, and songwriting skill, Take 6 has developed a catalogue with pop appeal and soulfulness that audiences have connected with. The group's ten albums are steeped in gospel, with strong jazz and r&b influences, a combination that has earned them 10 Grammy Awards.
Berklee students asked a few questions at the beginning of the clinic, and then Take 6 stepped aside for a song that was performed by Blessed, a vocal group comprised of four women students. After the performance, Take 6 members praised the group and offered a few tips for improving its arrangements and microphone technique.
Audience participation was a key element of the Take 6 clinic. At one point the group asked a student in the crowd to sing a short melody that they would expand and arrange into a typical Take 6 song fragment. One student immediately stood and sang a short riff. Members of the group tossed it back and forth, agreed that they liked it and then decided they needed a lyric. Someone from the balcony sang the melody with the words, "deeper than the deepest ocean," and the group went to work on it.
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David Thomas (holding microphone) teaches a vocal part to Berklee students. |
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Photo by Kim Grant |
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Two members of Take 6, Cedric Dent and Mark Kibble, sat at the piano and worked out the vocal arrangement while other members of the group took additional questions from the crowd. Then each vocalist learned his part by ear as Dent and Kibble played it. After a few minutes, all six returned to their microphones and sang the melody with the lyric, and the audience responded enthusiastically. The demonstration revealed both the simplicity and complexity of what Take 6 does. The group needed more than a half hour to take the germ of a melodic idea and turn it into sweet six-part harmony, but the immediate result was as impressive as what you hear on a Take 6 record.
Next they invited Berklee students to climb on the stage and to see how it feels to try to do the same thing themselves. With more than 20 singers milling about on stage at one point, several clumped around each Take 6 group member, the scene looked chaotic, but there was serious instruction going on. Bass Alvin Chea was teaching his part to bass singers, second tenor Joey Kibble was doing the same for a group of tenors, and so on.
The students then took turns, six at a time, performing the short piece of music, and in each case, received loud applause from their fellow students and Take 6. The series of performances underscored not only the abilities of the students, but the pedagogical skill of the members of Take 6.
The bandmembers' responses to student questions throughout the clinic were always honest and articulate. They talked of the love and respect for each other that is critical to their long-term success, with Chea adding at one point that to truly succeed in music, you have to "work as hard as you did before anyone cared."
When asked about their influences, group members first talked of Quincy Jones '51, for inspiring them in the studio. Other artists they mentioned included Earth, Wind & Fire; Steely Dan; the Doobie Brothers; James Ingram; the Yellowjackets; and various gospel groups and big bands.
Take 6 ended the clinic with a final song and were greeted with another chorus of cheers. The event concluded Black History Month Music Celebration on a high note, as Take 6 displayed the kind of humility and generosity rare among multi-Grammy-Award-winning musicians. Their friendly demeanor taught everyone there that there is a way to achieve great musical success and still live in harmony with the world.
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