Students strolling through the Park Blocks at half past noon on any given Wednesday will likely be surprised by an unfamiliar sight—and sound.
Austin Maggs/VANGUARD STAFF
Justin Bueley works the crowd with The Green Note a capella group behind him. The singing ensemble performs in the PSU Park Blocks every Wednesday.
It’s soulful and well-crafted, and listeners are lured closer to hear them sing.
Portland State’s only a cappella group, The Green Note, performs every week to gain recognition.
Senior theater major Devin Wieser, internal manager for The Green Note, described a cappella as music without instruments—everything is done using just voices.
“We have a beat boxer that holds the beats to all of the songs,” Wieser said. “It’s very percussive…you have to sound like an instrument.”
Formerly an all-female group, The Green Note became coed three years ago when the group’s current music director, Ian Adams-Dirks, joined the team.
“When I joined, there were about nine girls and I was their beat boxer,” Adams-Dirks said. “[T]hen we added dudes the next year.”
Elisabeth Scott, the group’s external manager, said the group has an ambitious vision.
“We wanted to be a competitive coed, a ‘Why do it if you don’t want to be the best?’ kind of group,” Scott said.
Scott, Wieser and Adams-Dirks joined at the same time, and have spent the last year and a half working toward that vision.
Now, they’re simply working toward getting noticed by performing in the Park Blocks.
“We’re all students here, so we just make sure people know who we are,” Wieser said.
Performing in such a public place has helped recruit new members.
“That’s part of our weekly performances,” said sophomore Alexa Mansur, who joined after seeing the group perform. “It is to get our name out there and to make a name for ourselves, but also to see if people are interested and come to auditions.”
Sophomore Chris Stumpf also joined The Green Note after seeing the group perform.
“I cut back on my music because I wanted to focus on my communication degree,” Stumpf said. “[T]hen I just saw them performing, then all of those feelings and everything I just loved about music, I saw in them and thought, ‘I need that and want that.’”
Aside from their weekly Park Blocks performances, The Green Note also schedules free on-campus concerts for PSU students.
They hope to land paying gigs for holiday parties and produce their own CD. The goal is to raise $5,000 through paid performances and assistance from PSU’s Student Activities and Leadership Programs.
Because the group is new, they receive the lowest amount of funding available from SALP.
“We currently have $3,000 a year,” Scott said. “When you’re trying to record an album, it’s going to cost $8,000 or $10,000.”
Scott and the rest of The Green Note intend to help record the CD, a process that requires members to record individual parts, load recordings onto a terabyte hard drive, and then mix each one into eight songs for all 16 members.
Competitions, uniforms and T-shirts were cited as other general expenses for The Green Note and, should the group hold a concert off campus, they’d be burdened with the cost of the space.
“Our biggest challenge this year isn’t going to be being financially independent from SALP, but raising far more money than SALP can give us,” Scott said.