Official Newspaper of Eddy County since 1883
Official Newspaper of Eddy County since 1883
The Minneapolis-St. Paul based a cappella quartet, Tonic Sol-fa, will be performing in the New Rockford-Sheyenne gymnasium on Thursday, May 9 at 7:30 p.m. With a largely pop-music-oriented repertoire, their albums have sold over 2 million copies and the group has toured throughout the United States and abroad. Tonic Sol-fa, one of the leading forces in the world of vocal music with Emmy Award winning arrangements, has established itself not only as the most in-demand vocal group in the Midwest, but also one of the most successful independent acts in America.
Tonic Sol-fa won its first Emmy in the "Musical Composition/Arrangement" category for a song performed in a Toys for Tots PSA, and recently won two Independent Grammys for Best Original Holiday Song and Best Pop Song out of 650,000 entries worldwide.
Anyone who knows a little bit about music – or even if you've just watched "The Sound of Music," – you know that Sol and Fa (do, re, mi, fa, sol, la ti, do) are two of the notes on the syllable scale used to teach beginning singers the relative pitches in a scale.
"We kind of thought we had a cool band name," commented Tonic Sol-fa bass singer, Jared Dove in a telephone interview. "But we've kind of realized that Tonic Sol-fa was a difficult name to remember and it needs regular explanation." Even so, the name has generated so much interest that it actually improved the band's name recognition and Tonic Sol-fa is becoming a group name just like any other.
When a group sings a cappella, it simply means the members use their voices as the only pitched instruments. There is no accompaniment from piano or guitar or any other non-human instrument; it's just singing. Tonic Sol-fa's style of a cappella uses mainly vocal percussion and sometimes light additions such as a tambourine or shakers.
"One of the advantages of doing a capella music is that we are able to cover many different genres of music," said Dove. "We all have really eclectic taste in music and that tends to get all mashed up into one performance. Since we are able to make the switch between genres fairly easily, we're able to perform many different styles of music with our own recognizable style."
The group has changed some since its inception over 20 years ago at St. John's University near St. Cloud, Minn. In fact, Iowa native Shaun Johnson, the group's lead singer, is the only original member remaining in the group.
Jared Dove, from Green River, Wyo., has been with the group for almost 19 years. He provides the foundation for the group as the bass because, as he says, "I can sing lower than the other guys." Plus, his natural calm demeanor tends to balance out the goofiness of his bandmates.
Greg Bannwarth, originally from Sioux Falls, S.D., sings tenor and provides vocal percussion for the group. He's also an "instigator" both on stage and in their videos. He says that he loves singing, arranging, songwriting and being a goofball on stage.
Theo Brown, the newest Tonic Sol-fa member, was born in Los Angeles, but was raised in St. Paul. The only son of two professional musicians, Brown sings and does vocal percussion for Tonic Sol-fa.
There are obvious similarities between the group members. They each have a history in either music or musical theatre but have arrived through different paths. It's the love of music that holds them together and keeps them going.
Tonic Sol-fa typically spends a lot of their time on the road. With the changes in the music industry and the overall drop in compact disk sales across the music industry, Tonic Sol-fa has been focusing on releasing individual songs more frequently and using social media and fun videos to promote their music. Check out their music through social media links on their website (tonicsolfa.com) or on YouTube. To help fund their music, the group just launched a Patreon page where they invite fans to become subscribers.
"A Tonic Sol-fa performance is a combination of music and entertainment," Dove said. We're not just a group of guys standing on a stage singing- we take our goofy personalities and interact with the audience, making them part of the show." The group performs both original songs and covers that span the genres of gospel, country, rock, pop and jazz. It might not be the same for every member of the group on any given day, but as Jared puts it, "there is a satisfaction to belonging to a band with such a wide appeal...from kids to grandparents, and everyone in-between."
