Operation Has-Been   a pathetic grasp at re-living our college glory(fying) days
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How we selected songs
The songs we selected were chosen by several criteria, as follows:

In general, the songs on which alums in D.C. are focusing are a little bit older (given the years of alum representation in D.C.: roughly '89-'97) and the songs on which alums in Boston are focusing are a little bit newer (Boston alum representation is pretty broad but has a definite post-'96 focus).

In the course of selecting songs, we have repeatedly sought input from various alums, so hopefully the list of selections is a good reflection of your various opinions. If there's some particular song which you think would be just perfect and which you don't see on the list, you should feel free to bring it up, but please do so immediately. We really do have to lock down our list of target songs if there's to be any earthly hope of actually preparing them.
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How we are preparing songs
We have picked out some songs that we would like to perform for the 15th anniversary concert. Some of these songs are, on the whole, harder or less familiar than the others, such that they will be at least somewhat challenging to prepare. Working backwards, here's our plan for how to handle these harder songs.

In the last days before the concert (or, for a few songs, on the morning of May 15), any alums who have been working on that song are going to come together for some run-throughs and last-minute polishing of the song, with the immediate outcome being that the song is concert-ready. If the song can't be made concert-ready at that point, then we really can't plan on performing it (since that's the last shot).

If having a song concert-ready were just a matter of everyone memorizing their part, then none of this would be particularly challenging: everyone who was planning on singing that song in the concert would just show up having done their homework, and *blammo* a perfect group performance would just magically happen.

Of course, this is not how things really work. Once you have your part memorized (or, even, *before* you have your part fully memorized), the group still has to get together somehow and figure out how to assemble their various parts into a coherent whole that sounds good and that has the desired effects. And, for these harder songs, it's pretty well understood that we can't expect for this rather tricky assembly / integration work to get done on the morning of May 15 (or even in the week of May 15), especially when we're talking about doing it for several songs and with a whole bunch of different people (talk about a nightmare scenario!).

Maybe if we could instead assemble, from across the country, each alum that was going to sing on a particular song and have them all rehearse the song together, over and over (for several weeks), then that would probably work fine, just like it did back in our college days. But, of course, we really can't do this, since we don't all live within 1.5 miles of each other any more.

However, in Boston and D.C. there _are_ a significant number of us who live reasonably close to each other. If we could somehow have these localized groups of alums spend the time necessary to get over the "integration" part of preparing the song, then maybe any other alums (who don't live nearby) who will also be singing on the song could still be added in at roughly the last minute (since the localized group of people should be able to help the last-minute people "fit in" with the established sound and style on any particular song).

So that's what we're going to do.

  1. Any alum who signs up to sing on a particular song in the concert will be responsible for being thoroughly familiar with the song and for having their part completely memorized.
  2. Those alums who live in Boston or D.C. will also be responsible for coming together to rehearse the song, to tackle its "integration" issues and to build a solid song "nugget" to which other non-local alums can be added at the ~last minute.
  3. In the ~last-minute rehersals, the "nugget group" alums will be responsible for showing the non-local alums how to perform the song (so the non-local alums are supposed to be learning from the local alums).

Roughly half of the difficult songs will be assigned to the Boston nugget group and the other half will be assigned to the D.C. nugget group.

Note that the local rehearsal groups are called "nugget" groups because we anticipate that they won't typically have enough people to actually get the song concert-ready, so they will have prepared just a "nugget" of the song (to which more alums can be added) rather than a fully-ready song. So, to put it another way, we are _definitely_ relying on alums who are not in either Boston or D.C. in order to actually perform these songs.

Note also that, since we are relying on non-local alums in order to be able to sing these songs, we need to be deliberate about deciding (together) who will or won't be singing on any given song. If you decide that you will indeed be singing on a particular song, then we need to be able to count on that as a commitment that you will actually have the song prepared to a certain level by a certain date (see elsewhere for a description of this preparedness level); otherwise, we'll be in for some nasty surprises on the day of the concert ("oh, yeah, well, I don't really have it memorized _just_ yet") and may have to cancel some songs we thought we could do (which would stink, sort of). So please be serious about your commitment to sing on any particular song, and don't bite off more than you can chew (this is a lot of work we're talking about here).
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Do I have to already know / remember a song to sing on it?
No, you don't have to already know a song in order to sing it in the concert. Part of the fun and coolness of doing this whole thing is that Cross Products from different eras will get to prepare and perform songs together (with newer folks learning some older songs and with older folks learning some newer songs).

But, as you'd expect, there are a couple of caveats.

We are still working under a serious time crunch, and so it would be pretty helpful if a reasonable fraction of the people singing any particular song already had significant familiarity with that song. It's not required that the majority of people singing on a song must already know it from back in the day (and our approach to preparation should help build overall familiarity), but we'll still try to make sure that there's at least a handful of singers who know each song from the era in which it was originally performed.

Also, remember that learning and polishing a song that's new to you takes a lot of work (remember doing seven hours of rehearsal per week, not including personal practice time?). So, when you're deciding that you want to sing on an unfamiliar song, remember that we will need you (1) to commit to putting in the practice necessary to reach a certain level of readiness, (2) to commit to spending some time (TBD) with the full group in polishing the song (in the last days before the concert), and, naturally, (3) to commit to actually performing the song in the concert.

In particular, if want to sing on a song that you're not able to rehearse with a "nugget group" in either Boston or D.C., please be aware that you'll have to put in a whole bunch of focused effort in order to reach the necessary level of readiness on your own.

So, as you go about deciding what songs you want to sing on, please be conservative about the amount of time you can put in and the number of songs you can take on. We don't want people to get over-committed, overloaded, and burned out. Just to set your expectations, it's highly unlikely (and probably a very bad idea, overload-wise) that any one alum would actually sing on all of the songs that we perform (since we're currently targetting more than eight songs to be performed).

And, in all cases, remember that we want to know (with reasonable certainty) who is going to be singing on what songs and in what parts. See the write-up below for a more detailed explanation, and please make sure you're in touch with the appropriate directors about the songs on which you're planning to sing.
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If I want to sing on a song, what do I do about it? Just show up on May 15 and start singing?
NO. Do not expect to just walk onto a song team on May 15. If there is one of the songs that we're preparing on which you want to sing and to which you're not already assigned (see the respective song page), then you need to get in touch with the director of that song (and the sooner the better).

It's still possible that the some people may be added, at the very last minute, to a particular song team, but such additions will be made at the song director's discretion. Otherwise, we risk throwing off the performance of the song team and we undermine all the work which the team has already put in.

Another reason that the director needs to know if you want to sing on the song they're directing: unless they know about your interest, they can't factor in your overall contribution into the song, so that they won't know how to best utilize your skills (and they might otherwise think that they're missing on coverage on some voice part, such that they'd go out and recruit another person (besides you) who really didn't need to be bothered).

The director will be the one making final decisions on who sings what for their song(s). We don't anticipate that we'll have to turn alums away from singing on the songs that they want (if you really have a heart to sing a particular song and can really commit the time and effort it will take, then you ought to be able to sing on the song), but there's no way that the director can be expected to handle their job if they don't know what-all they have to deal with.

Bottom line: make sure you have let the director know if you want to sing on their song.
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Sheet music file formats
We are providing sheet music in a couple of different formats, so that all participants will be able to access the music and use it to prepare their respective songs.


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For God is the King of all the earth; Sing praises with understanding. - Psalm 47:7