S3E04: Doox Are A-Changin’: Morgan Baker and the Doox of Yale
This week we catch up with Yale senior Morgan Baker, the first non-male member to join the Duke’s Men of Yale—now known as Doox of Yale—to reflect on the group’s transition from an all-male to an all-gender group, and to discuss collegiate a cappella singing at Yale.
Music excerpts
“Lego House”, by Ed Sheeran, arr. Danny Germino-Watnick; PJ Frantz, solo
“Toxic”, by Cathy Dennis & Henry Jonback, originally performed by Britney Spears, arr. Kenyon Duncan, trio Kenyon Duncan, Avi Durlin, Caleb O’Reilly
“Animal Spirits”, by Vulfpeck, arr. PJ Frantz, solo Oliver Shoulson
“Landslide”, by Fleetwood Mac, arr. Lex Caron, Henry Gottfried, trio Morgan Baker, Paloma Ortega, Charlotte Polk
“Levels”, by Nick Jonas, arr. Ethan Treiman, solos Archer Frodyma, Jacob Kaufman-Shalett, Clay Jamieson
“Dynamo of Volition”, by Jason Mraz, arr. Ethan Treiman, solo Ethan Treiman
“What a Good Boy”, by Barenaked Ladies, arr. Holcombe Waller & Ben Landsverk, solo Morgan Baker
Episode references
Yale Daily News: “Duke’s Men inducts all-gender class”, September 18, 2017
Theme Song: Mr. Puffy by Avi Bortnik, arr. by Paul Kim. Performed by Dynamic
Episode Transcript
Intro [00:00:01] Hello! And welcome to In Unison, the podcast about new choral music, and the conductors, composers and choristers who create it! We are your hosts: I am Zane Fiala, Artistic Director of the International Orange Chorale of San Francisco, and I’m Giacomo DiGrigoli, a tenor in IOCSF, the Golden Gate Men’s Chorus, and the SF Symphony Chorus. And this is, In Unison! (I like being in unison!)
Zane [00:00:35] Let's open today's episode with a taste of what we'll be discussing this week. The new sound of all-gender a cappella singing at Yale. Here's The Doox of Yale performing Ed Sheeran's "Lego House" on their 2020 album, "This Name, Vol. 1" [00:00:51] [Music excerpt: an a capella chorus sings in a pop style providing accompaniment to a soloist who sings about what he could do for the one he loves.]
Zane [00:04:05] All right, joining us today on In Unison is Morgan Baker. And Morgan is a 21 year old vocalist from Buffalo, New York, currently a rising senior at Yale. In 2017 as a first year at Yale, Morgan was the first openly non-male singer tapped into The Duke's Men, which is now known as Doox, "d-o-o-x", of Yale, an award-winning and historically all male undergraduate singing group founded in 1952. Fast forward to today and Morgan is, as I said, a rising senior at Yale currently on a leave of absence to avoid Zoom college and to sing with the Yale Whiffenpoofs, one of the world's oldest collegiate a cappella groups. Morgan, thanks so much for joining us. We are super excited to talk about your experiences at Yale.
Morgan [00:04:52] I am so happy to be here.
Giacomo [00:04:56] Woohoo! Morgan, I am... as an alum of the Doox of Yale, I am particularly excited to chat with you today. And I almost skipped over one of my favorite parts of these interviews, which is the icebreaker, because I feel like I've gotten a chance to get to know you over the last couple of years and especially the last couple of weeks. But here we go. Let's jump in for our audience to get to know you a little bit better. Morgan, what's your favorite emoji?
Morgan [00:05:18] This is a good question. Um... [laughter] I am right now particularly fond... This is like a niche one... of the red guy with the long nose who's turned a little bit to the side [laughter]. It communicates frustration, but also a kind of playfulness that has been really useful in pandemic as things are less than ideal and changing. But like we're being cool with it.
Giacomo [00:05:49] I like that. I like that. Zane, as a... as a father of a four year old, I feel like you could use that...
Zane [00:05:55] Yeah [laughter].
Giacomo [00:05:55] ... pretty often. But yeah, that's a good one. I'm going to find that guy. [laughter from Zane] So that's great. Morgan, tell us maybe a little bit about... a little bit about you and tell us about your musical journey.
Morgan [00:06:09] Totally. Yeah. So I did not really sing until before I got to Yale, until I got to college. I have a cousin in my family who's like the singer. And so I... I was always sort of like, "Umm, maybe not like I like singing songs but the whole singing thing I will never catch up or like be able to do that without feeling like I'm in her shadow." And so I grew up playing flute. I at one point was one of the best three flute players in western New York in seventh grade, out of all that with the seventh graders. And so that's where I got like my early musical education was in band and orchestra. And then I went to girls school where my same cousin was leading the a capella group there. And she was like, "I mean, you have good pitch. We need people with good pitch. You should come and hang." So I came and hang, came and hung. And then I ended up pitching that group my senior year and then came into Yale with a really robust love for close harmony.
Giacomo [00:07:22] And speaking about the singing situation at Yale, maybe you can tell us a little bit about what that a cappella scene is like there. For those who don't know of it, maybe you can describe a little bit of like... What it's like to land as a first year at Yale with a cappella looming large.
Morgan [00:07:38] It... it looms large. And that's not an understatement. It feels kind of silly to say... or like silly to imagine that singing groups could be like a culture on a campus. But at Yale, there are 14 of them in this singing group council, which has to exist to organize all of us and then more that are independent. So upwards of like twenty groups on a campus of six thousand people who are singing without instruments. And in particular those fourteen groups of the singing group council have rush every year at the beginning of the year where we all compete for first year's love and attention and voices to... to end up singing in our groups. And that happens like your first week on campus. So you come, you have orientation, you hear from Dean Chun about what it means to be at Yale and how it's like OK to get a C, and then you are just like bombarded with fliers and things begging you to come and see these fourteen groups perform. And I would say that a cappella at Yale is sort of analogous to Greek life in other places. Frats at Yale are not really a popular thing. Singing groups are much, much larger. And at least for me, where I stand, singing groups at Yale have formed the bulk of my social experience.
Giacomo [00:09:10] So how did you how did you specifically then come to sing at Yale? Did you just get sucked into them, particularly in singing with a group that was then known as The Duke's Men? How did that... how did that come to be?
Morgan [00:09:23] Yeah, I knew coming into Yale that I wanted to be in one of these singing groups during Bulldog days, which is like the... "You just got admitted to Yale. Come to campus and see what it's like. Please come here!" I... there's a big event with all of the singing group council groups where they're all in different rooms and they have unlimited Popeyes biscuits and donuts from the donut place down the street where, yet again, it is a competition for attention and fervor. And I went to that and saw a handful of groups that I just like completely adored and was drooling over. There was a guy who like stood on a chair and then tipped the chair over and it was very sexy. [laughter from Zane] And I thought that was very cool [laughter]! And I was just enchanted by that. And also the way that they all seem to really love what they were doing and really love each other. And coming into Yale, having a bit of a like imposter syndrome/inferiority complex, I was really excited about being a part of something in the way that being a part of an organization like singing groups at Yale is. So I came in like gung ho, ready to audition. One of the first friends I met at Yale was someone who I did audition prep with who ended up joining Shades of Yale, which is another group, and had actually heard of the Doox Men first, when a, like upperclassman who is assigned to mentor me over the summer, sent me a Yale Daily News article that was like "The Doox Men - Accepting people of all genders for the first time ever!" Because it was sort of like big news in, I think July, when... when it was announced because it was the first really big singing group or like well known singing group on campus at Yale to rebuke the... the all male tradition. And I got that. I was like, "Oh, cool. Wasn't like looking at them, but that's nice, good for them." And then ended up being wooed over the course of... over the course of rush, which includes auditions, but also meals, rush meals with current group members and concerts and parties and all the things that make you feel as a first year like you are wanted by something.
Giacomo [00:12:04] What was it that, in particular, that wooed you? Because here you are, you're not even thinking about singing, you know, TTBB, like all men's rep, or traditionally all men's rep. And now you're just meeting folks and you're suddenly, like... hmmm, putting it into the consideration, putting it potentially in your wheelhouse. What was it that... that hooked you in?
Morgan [00:12:23] I mentioned on my first rush meal that I had like... done some "arranging" and I put that in air quotes because that looked like me singing lines into GarageBand and not even transcribing them, like singing them back to learn by ear with my singing group in high school. And one of the people on that rush meal pulled out his laptop and opened up a Sibelius file of our arrangement of "Toxic", which I had heard because I had really done my homework and it was like eight lines and ridiculous splits and the most, like, mind boggling thing that I had seen. And I also had like heard the end result and was just like, oh, overwhelmed at how musically challenging and innovative and interesting it seemed to me at the time and sort of still does. "Toxic" is one of those Doox arrangements that's like, "OK, you had a studio and somebody told you you could do anything and so you did this", which is something I really love about Doox and like now being a part of it. But it... I was enchanted by how much the people really cared about the quality of music that they were making, that it wasn't just a lot of singing groups that will travel. That's a big draw. So part of the advertisement is "Come sing with us! You'll sing a bunch of gigs during the year and people will clap for you. And then you get to go to like Ecuador or China or Greece for free, because we go to Yale and people want to hear white boys from Yale sing songs." People are absurdly nice to white boys who sing. And... and so that was like, "Eh, cool...".
Morgan [00:14:18] But I was really interested in having a musical experience, especially because I wasn't going to do musical theater or classical singing at Yale. And so the fact that they were enthusiastic about sharing that with me and were interested in, at least in that moment before I was even in the group, interested in the fact that I also wanted to make music and that I really appreciated what they had done was, um, it was nice.
Zane [00:14:51] Let's hear a bit of that Yale a cappella sound that wooed Morgan into joining the group formerly known as The Duke's Men of Yale. From their 2017 album, Golden Hour, here's The Duke's Men performing Britney Spears' "Toxic" [00:15:08] [Music excerpt: an a capella choir sings the first line "Baby, can't you see?" together in close harmony before the arrangement of the songs grows more complex with vocal beat boxing and introduction of a solo singer.].
Zane [00:15:06] Why do you think that Doox was the first ensemble to make that transition to... to opening it up to all genders?
Morgan [00:19:12] So something that Giacomo and I were talking about a little earlier or something that Giacomo told me about was apparently the pink wave that happened in the 90s of... of the group, right? So if you want, you can tell.
Giacomo [00:19:27] Well, the pink wave was basically what we were referring to as sort of like, in the mid 90s, it was the first sort of wave of openly gay members in the group. And I think it was during a time when it was still, you know, the Clintons were in office. I mean, the first Clinton was in office, "Don't ask, Don't tell" had just become policy. And so, like it was very much still this culture in this time of like, "Ah, you know, let's... let's not... let's not be terribly out or whatever." And The Duke's Men at the time was the first group of where we were like, "You know what? Actually we're going to break down these barriers. Like, it's fine. You can you can audition, you can be openly gay members." I mean... and it's sort of what's interesting and thinking about... it's something that Mari... Mari Esabel Valverde told us, which is, you know, when we asked something about the first trans folks who were part of a group or the first non binary folks who are part of the group. And she's like, "Oh, no, no! We've always been there. You're just aware of it now." And it was... The same was true in the mid 90s where folks were coming out. It's like, "We weren't the first gay members of this group. I mean, please!" It's a... it's an all men's a cappella group, like at Yale, of course, you know, there have been members throughout it. But it was something about that period of time where the mentality shifted and it just wasn't a big deal anymore. And so the fraternity that existed extended into what we called the pink wave, which was more and more members felt comfortable coming out. We started tapping members who were openly gay, and now it's just not an issue at all. Like I think that it's sort of followed suit. Which is interesting to sort of follow up to you, Morgan, where now you've got the Doox who are like, "You know what? We're going to smash one more barrier." What was that like to be the first person now who was joined into this group? And you told me a little bit about it a couple of days ago, but I guess did you... did you even think about it that way? Is this a momentous thing or are you just sort of like, "Eh! I just want to sing."
Morgan [00:21:16] From what I understand, or actually before, that... something that is important about what you just said about gay folks always being there is that I am almost 100 percent certain that non male people have always been in Doox... Like long before I got there. And so there is a big YDN (Yale Daily News) headline and a big hoopla because I have this hair and this body that screams that I am not like the people who have come before me in this group, in this very obvious way. But I'm also extremely aware that that is only the narrative because I am... because my non-maleness is so obvious in a way that the... the gender diversity of the group hasn't necessarily been in the past. So there's something about optics there.
Giacomo [00:22:08] Was it... was it a big deal? I mean, what was the experience like for you to be the first person? I mean, did you think of it as this momentous thing?
Morgan [00:22:17] Umm... No. For me, I just... Or did I think about it as a momentous thing? The short answer is "no". Part of the transition was aided by the fact that there were so many queer members of the group and so much gender diversity from the get go. So I didn't feel like my presence there in that environment was a massive departure from what the culture of the group had already been. And I also like... I'm a gender studies major in college. I'm very liberal, I think, when it comes to gender [laughter]. And... and so for me, it was a little bit like an experiment, you know? What would it be like? I think, oh, oh!... And this is also important. So I... in talking with some of the other members of my top class who were invited into the group in the same year that I was, something that is true, I think is that I didn't expect really to fit in anywhere at Yale to begin with. Umm... coming from what is essentially the Midwest near Canada, equidistant... Like people don't believe me when I say this, but Buffalo is the same distance from New York and Philly and DC because it is so far west and being like black and Hispanic and having and like using "they/them" pronouns. And I... I didn't expect that it would be easy for me to fit in anywhere. And so it wasn't as if I was giving up something by joining a group that was composed of people who were ostensibly unlike me in this very important way, which made it feel very easy and not risky in the way that I think people imagine it was.
Giacomo [00:24:28] So what did you think? Here you are. You're the first person who sort of breaks this barrier for these all men's groups. And then I think, was it the next year or maybe two years later, you hear that the Whiffenpoofs, which is the oldest founded in 1909 - the oldest, I think, collegiate a cappella group, certainly oldest at Yale, but I think it is actually officially the oldest collegiate a cappella group, follow suit. And they're known for I mean, for our listeners who don't know. I mean, the Whiffs have an august history there. You know, Rudy Vallée sang The Whiffenpoof Song. It was actually, I think, part of World War Two history and the CIA. And there's all sorts of crazy things. I think Ella Fitzgerald was an honorary tap into The Whiffs and things like that. But here they are now. They have sort of changed this as well. And it feels like there was a little bit of a wave that sort of followed suit. What do you think when the whiffs followed suit?
Morgan [00:25:22] It was the same year, actually. So I was tapped in the fall. And then that same spring, the Whiffenpoofs all of a sudden had a member who was not a man. And that also is a thing with its own history. It is not as if the Whiffs one day up and decided, "Mmm, we're over it! [laughter] We're gonna... we're gonna like break this 110 year history of there being no woman in this group and, like, do something different." It wasn't that. People have been agitating for the Whiffs to include people who are not men since at least the 80s, if I'm not mistaken, for... There's a long history of protest auditions of very talented non-male singers auditioning for the Whiffs just so that they can make them say, "Yes, you are a better vocalist than like a third of the people who we're gonna invite into this group. But you still can't hang because you are a woman. And... and so there was a long history of that happening probably every year. And I...
Morgan [00:26:39] Oh, actually! [laughter] This is like maybe a part of the history that isn't talked about often. There are like articles in the Yale Daily News about it, but the same class of Whiffenpoofs - it was Kenyon Duncan's pitch year. So the class of Whiffenpoofs that voted, "Yep, we are going to audition - we're gonna welcome people of all genders." There were a lot of Dukes in that class. And I think that the Duke's having had that conversation at the same time in a situation that maybe felt lower stakes, primed some of them to have that conversation with regard to the Whiffenpoofs. And if I'm being honest, when - her name Sophia, the first non male Whiffenpoof - when she was tapped, I was sort of like, "Damn! I sort of wanted to be first!" [laughter from Morgan and Zane]
Giacomo [00:27:36] In my heart, you broke that barrier first as far as... not even just in my heart. In fact, you broke that barrier first, as far as I'm concerned. And by the way, for folks... for folks who are listening and may not understand this by the way, the way that the a cappella system works also is that there are two senior groups. There's the Yale Whiffenpoofs, which had traditionally been an all male group, and Whim 'n Rhythm. And they are what we refer to as the undergraduate group. So your freshman through junior year, you sing with a group like The Dukes or the Alley Cats or Mixed Company, lots of wonderful, incredibly talented groups. And then when you're a junior, you audition to get into the Whiffenpoof. So that's where Kenyon and other folks had come in with informed opinions and said, "Hey, it's time for a change because we just have been having this conversation for some time."
Zane [00:28:19] Let's hear some more of that new Doox sound. Here are Morgan Baker, Paloma Ortega and Charlotte Polk singing Fleetwood Mac's "Landslide" [00:28:29] [Music excerpt: a trio sings in close harmony. The song is arranged so that it sounds halting and somewhat hesitant, as if recounting past regrets in a relationship.].
[00:31:22] The reason that a lot that so many people had been agitating for so long to have to include women in the Whiffs is because the Whiffenpoofs are an insane experience that is facilitated by the Yale name in which, for at least the past decade or so, all 14 of the Whiffenpoofs have taken the year off to sing two hundred concerts and travel the world, visit all six inhabited continents. It is a, I'm told, [laughter] lush lifestyle where you are jet setting and you rack up all these frequent flier miles. And it is... and it is a six figure a year nonprofit organization. And for all of its history, there were no women just because. Obviously not just because, but there were no women just because. And that obviously felt really unfair. And there is and continues to be a massive gap between what the Whiffs do and what Whim 'n Rhythm does because of a number of very complicated factors that the... that every group, at least as long as I've been at Yale, has been working to rectify. But it... yeah, it's an important thing that happened. And it's sort of... it's a very liberal kind of thing, you know, to say, "Mmm, yes! This bastion - this concentration of privilege - let's make it better by inviting women and act as if that, like, you know, solves the fact that it's sort of messed up." That we, as 21 year olds who are like, you know, it's a new... Whiffenpoof group every year that we get to piggyback on the reputation of this institution and... and profit so much from it. But that's why it was important for, you know... The weeds were here! [laughter]
Giacomo [00:33:25] [laughter] Well, let's... let's talk about that maybe. Let's... let's shift into sort of some of the musical details, if you will, of singing with The Doox. So tell us, what part do you sing? Do you... do you still consider them to be the TTBB parts or like do parts... are parts meaningless?
Morgan [00:33:42] As of today, we still identify as a tenor-baritone-bass group. And that's on our website and that's what you'll hear us say. But internally, the voice parts mean very little. Especially when you're thinking about what the... the span of notes that you would sing as a T1 in arrangements like post twenty... like 2000. Much wider - than the span of notes that a tenor one would sing in arrangements from like the 60s, 70s, 80s. So to say that we're like a tenor-baritone-bass group, if you're imagining that we're singing traditional choral voice parts is misleading. I would say that T1 is more comparable to an Alto 1/Sop 2 part in a SATB group.
Giacomo [00:34:37] So how has the rep actually changed since you've joined the group?
Morgan [00:34:43] I think the way that the repertoire has changed has been reflective of broader transitions in vocal music. They're... like specifically with regard to changes in recording capacity and amplification. We can do things now that you wouldn't have been able to pull off in like 2000 just because of the way that mixing and mastering has... has advanced. So there is a lot less homophony in the music that we sing now. But we also sing a lot of music still from the 70s and 80s, especially when we're performing live, where we don't have the benefit of multi-track recording.
Giacomo [00:35:35] So I was going to ask as well, and it sounds like one of the things I happen to be part of the group that did the very first... Gosh, what was it? The collegiate a cappella competition that we did with good old Deke Sharon and we went to Lincoln Center and I think we were runners up to the Loreleis of UNC at the national level. So we went around telling everyone that we were well, we didn't win. We were the best all men's group that year. So like we took that and just ran with that marketing. It didn't do as much good, but we still ran with it anyway. But you all now are known for doing quite a few different adjudicated competitions. When did that... I mean, why that tradition seems to have continued on. What do you all find interesting about it?
Morgan [00:36:17] That is a very new thing and really only a thing because of the pandemic. In a normal year, we would be spending most of our time in rehearsal or gigging and that's probably eight to 10 hours a week, depending on the week. And so there's not a ton of time. Or... I'll backtrack. There are groups, and there's one group on campus that does this, that spend their time preparing for these competitions. It's a very particular kind of thing where you have like a ten minute set and you rehearse the heck out of it. We choose not to compete and instead choose to focus our time on gigging live to make money, to be able to go to Greece and Ecuador and what have you. So that is typically our focus. In pandemic, where obviously that's not possible and we're not rehearsing six hours a week, it's been a question of, "Well, like what do we do?" And the fact also that the ICCAs (International Championship of Collegiate A Cappella) were virtual this year meant that we didn't really have to do choreography, which we don't like to do. We didn't have to rehearse a big set and like be ready to perform it live. And... and so a lot about pandemic has played to our strengths as a group, especially recently. We have had a lot of fun and a lot of success with recorded a cappella, especially. I have this list on my phone of the many things that we've won in just the past year because we've had the opportunity to focus so much on recording. And yeah, so it's really been a thing that's been borne out of pandemic.
Zane [00:38:10] Let's hear one of those award winning recordings, an arrangement of Vulfpeck's "Animal Spirits" [00:38:15] [Music excerpt: a heavy beat like the sound of a bass drum with hand claps introduce the excerpt, with the choir singing in close harmony. The song is, on the surface, about a possibly mismatched couple, but also alludes Keynes' "animal spirit" - the instincts and emotions that guide human behavior.]
Giacomo [00:41:31] So we talked a little bit about what your experience was like and sort of coming into the group and for you, it sort of felt like a bit of a non-issue. And it sounds like for the members of the group is also a non-issue as well. Have other groups followed suit? I mean, are you seeing it... aside from the Whiffenpoofs, have any other groups sort of made the same leap?
Morgan [00:41:49] Not as of yet. I've heard rumors that, like, as you do, that some of the other all male groups on campus are considering going all gender. But it's... there's been no actual major movement on that yet.
Giacomo [00:42:11] Well, let's... let's play devil's advocate. Why wouldn't you? I mean, why wouldn't these groups do that? Is there something that's unique or different about why? I mean, do you have any thoughts about why these other groups might still exist on campus and potentially not invite non male members?
Morgan [00:42:28] Yeah, I mean, one of the things that people said about Doox as Doox was preparing to go all gender was, was this catastrophizing about... "Well, once you have people who aren't women, uhh... The people who aren't men, the sound is going to change and the sound of the group is going to get worse because women can't sing tenor and it'll ruin... it'll ruin the sound of the..."
Giacomo [00:42:57] "... the sanctity of the sound", if you will. I don't know who blessed it, but apparently there's the sanctity of the sound.
Morgan [00:43:02] A lot of rhetoric about purity and preserving this thing that, frankly [laughter] for a long part of Duke's history, wasn't super sophisticated. It's an interesting question and a worthwhile question about what is worth preserving in tenor, baritone, bass music. What is worth preserving in... about music and ensembles that were intended to be all men? I believe very strongly that it would be wrong for a group to do it just to go all gender, just on principle. And for that reason, I am glad that what we are not seeing on Yale's campus is historically all male groups rushing to go all gender because they're told that that is like the right thing to do. Something that was important to me in feeling comfortable joining Doox was that I knew that every single person who I would be singing with wanted me to be there. Every single person had voted and said, "Yes, I am excited about singing with somebody who is not a man, maybe if they happened to materialize in auditions." And if that weren't the case, if I hadn't been 100 percent sure, then that wouldn't have been a space that I wanted to be in. And so I think that it's important that groups really do answer that question for themselves about what is... what is worth preserving, what the core of the ethos of their group is. And for Doox, the people who came before me decided that actually being all male wasn't core to what it meant to be a member of Doox or The Duke's Men. For other groups, that might not be the case. And I think that that is important to recognize.
Morgan [00:45:07] Now [laughter], what I will say is that none of those premonitions have come true about people who are not men ruining the sound of the group. We just released a... the last of our two part album that we've been working on for the last two and a half, three years. And the silent killer on especially the second volume is one of a woman who we tapped last year, Archer Frodyma. I mean, she's on almost every track and is like... turns it out, all of the time. She just adds something that is so special. And I think the same goes for Charlotte and Paloma, who are also the other non male members of Doox. And, you know, it's the four of us and that's all there are. And we have the awards to prove it, frankly speaking. We... I think just recently one runner up best collegiate song, mixed voices at the Contemporary A Cappella Recording Awards. And if... you know, there is... there's incongruency between the assumption that having non male voices will ruin the sound of the group and the fact that we are turning out music that slaps.
Zane [00:46:36] What was the song that won the award?
Morgan [00:46:39] I think it was "Levels". Yeah... I'm pretty sure it was "Levels" which also won like... Won outright best mixed voice arrangement. So that was also done by Ethan Treiman, who is like our star video editor and such a gem and such an asset.
Zane [00:46:54] Here's that silent killer. Archer Frodyma performing with the Doox, singing the first solo on "Levels" by Nick Jonas [00:47:02] [Music excerpt: a solo singer establishes a rhythmic ostinato on a nonsense syllable. More singers are added to provide harmony and finger snaps before a female vocalist sings the solo.]
Zane [00:49:58] So I'm interested to talk about... about the sound of... of about Doox' sound before and after the inclusion of all genders. I actually personally went and looked up some older albums and listened to, you know, the sound of Doox before you were introduced into the group and then before this newest, you know, two part album that you all just released. And so I have a few opinions about the differences between the sounds, but I'd actually like to hear, you know, your thoughts, you know. What... what do you think differentiates the sound between the older sound or an all male group versus a group that includes all genders, but it's still written for the same, quote unquote, voice parts.
Morgan [00:50:42] That's a good question, and I'm really curious to hear what you have to say as someone who's not inside of it - because to me, to a certain... I've never sung with the group when it's been all male. And so to me, the sound of the group that I'm most intimate with is the sound of the group with me in it, even as we're singing those older arrangements. So I don't... yeah. But I think what... and I was just talking about this with Ethan also, that the... I was lamenting and was saying, "Ugh... like the way that we sing 'Open Arms' now, which is an arrangement from time ago - It's just not the same as what it was with that like now when I was a first year. Oh, poo, too bad." But then in saying that I was like, "But wait. Like the way that we sing the other music that we sing is leaps and bounds better than... than how we were doing it my first year in the group." So I would say, and I'm curious whether you agree, that I think our high end has become far more sophisticated, versatile, facile. I think that's probably a big difference, especially live. I... yeah. I'm curious to hear what you think.
Zane [00:52:12] Well, I feel the same way, you know, as I listen to... obviously, I didn't... wasn't able to find a song that was recorded pre all gender. And then another that song again being recorded by the all gender version. And so I couldn't compare apples to apples. Exactly. But I did feel the same way that the upper range of the sound is... it's sweeter. There's something more generous about it, something more tender to the upper part of the range. And that's I mean, that's just a physiological thing. I mean, when you take a male voice and you have them sing up in this upper register, but in a certain style, because that's the style of music that we're talking about. There's an edge to it and a non male voice doesn't have that edge, which to me I actually preferred. But I could see why that... and Giacomo and I talked about this a little bit earlier - in like a barbershop quartet, right, part of what makes a barbershop quartet sound like a barbershop quartet is the fact that it's all male voices and they do everything they can to match the timbre of their voices so that it's... it's almost like four of the same voice, just singing in different ranges. But so much of the color and the timbre of their voices is identical or as identical as they can get it. And that's how you get that pingy sound that a barbershop quartet has, which is what I think we love about a barbershop quartet. And one... I'm gonna point at Giacomo, because he would make this argument, I think, is that there is an aspect of a cappella choral music that should have that sound, that characteristic a cappella sound of all male voices, but singing in a range that's higher up that has that, like, edge to it, that ping to it, that a non male voice doesn't necessarily have. And I would argue that there should be room for both. And I think, actually, Morgan, you're making that argument as well in your statement, that you're glad that of the 14 a cappella ensembles at Yale, they aren't all just jumping on the bandwagon and saying, "Well, we should just be all gender because that's what everybody's doing. That's the right thing to do." Maybe it's not the right thing to do because the sound that they're going for as an ensemble should be that the former should be the sound of all male voices singing in that range and having that edge. So, I mean, I could talk about this for a long, long time. But those are my preliminary thoughts about the differences. And so...
Giacomo [00:54:52] Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I've always - just to add my two cents to that - I've always thought that that homogenous sound is also just kind of boring. And that's so not Doox, right? Like, I think anything we've ever done is just going to be iconoclastic and different and weird. And we always try different things and we're experimenting with the sound. I mean, some of the arrangements, even when we think of, oh, I don't know, some of the more recent arrangements, like, oh, I don't know... "What a Good Boy" which you sang, which is fantastic, which has lasted 20 years. And then... what was the Fleetwood Foxes?... The Fleet Foxes - what was the...
Morgan [00:55:27] "Helplessness Blues".
Giacomo [00:55:28] "Helplessness Blues". Yeah! Which even that arrangement, I just think it sounds... Because what's funny is that when you look at the history of the last 30 or 40 years, right? Like men's voices have been creeping up so that the new sort of standard is that men who sing like... There's a joke that, like, "Everybody's a baritone, but really I'm a countertenor, you know. I can also be a bit of a countertenor. And actually, it takes a very special voice to sing those parts very, very well. And they are few and far between, actually. And what you wind up with instead is sort of an insistence on like, "Well, men's voices can do this and we're just going to squeak and shriek our way all the way up to the top." And it's actually not pleasant very often [laughter from Morgan]. You know, like you wind up with something that is... not only is it not homogenous, it's just not very good. And so it's interesting to be like, "Well, these are the arrangements. This is the music. This is what we want to express. Here you go." Let's add some non male voices to really round out the richness of that sound. In my... for my two cents and for my ticket price. I like to hear that a little bit more myself.
Zane [00:56:27] Same.
Morgan [00:56:28] There is so much to pull out from this discussion. One of... when I was a first year and I was the only non male member of the group, I... the two other T1s in my section both had that very strong like nasal placement barbershop sound that you're talking about. And I worked so hard to be able to pull that out of myself for the sake of blending. And I got very good at it. But what it has meant for me as someone who's becoming more comfortable soloing and less invested, right, like similarly invested, but umm... Less willing to just be a shoe singer and have that be the thing that satisfies me is breaking out of that, because really Doox has been where I've learned to sing. And so I spent the first year where I was singing the most ever in my life, learning how to emulate that sound that really didn't sound like me. And as... and was like a bias that I've had to... that I'm still working on unlearning, as more people with very different voices come into the group. I came in and was like, "Gotta assimilate!" Because I was the only one.
Zane [00:58:01] Was that expected of you? Was it ever expressed to you like, "OK, Morgan, you've joined the Tenor 1 section and well, you know, we'd like you to sound like the other Tenor 1s." Was that ever expressed to you or implied or in any way whatsoever? It was all... it was all your own...
Morgan [00:58:18] Yeah, that was all me. Nobody ever said to me that I needed to sound differently. And I think a lot of that was me wanting desperately to be good, because what I... what I didn't want was to be a part of the group and to have people question why I was there. I did a lot of work to make sure... a lot of work and a lot of mental labor to convince myself and to do the work to make sure that that wasn't the case. As if I can control how other people perceive me in my presence in the group. And that became very obvious to me as like we'd sing concerts and do Q&As and people would ask me silly questions. But no, nobody was asking that of me. It was really me demanding that from myself. And it's been a process and a time for me to really come around to the fact that the... the upper end of our group can sound different and be good and be really good and and be something different that, you know, really serves the voices that we have instead of the voices that are like on the studio recording or the voices that we had ten years ago, five years ago, two years ago. And I feel really privileged to be a part of a group that is really intentional about that.
Morgan [00:59:50] The other place that shows up is in auditions. So the year after I was tapped, all of a sudden it's like, "Oh...well! What do we... What, if anything, do we want to preserve of this very particular..." you said like a barbershop kind of sound that has an edge. "What, if any of that do we want to preserve? And what does that mean for the number of non-men that we can admit?" Because at the end of the day, Doox is still tenor, baritone, bass. That is, you know, we have one person who's singing T2, but physiologically speaking, people with like - the language around this is hard and imperfect - but like people who are not male are probably not going to be able to sing those bari and bass parts and will probably struggle with T2. And so there's like a built-in... there's a built-in ceiling to the number of non male members that we can have physiologically speaking. And that is something that we... that we think a lot about in terms of... if we're a group that's invested in equity, what does the ceiling mean for us?
Morgan [01:01:03] But in the moment of auditions, it all of a sudden like it couldn't just be about, "Well, does she have the notes? Do they have the notes?" It also had to be about do they have the kind of sound that we need this person to have in this particular part of their range? Because if they're bottoming out at an E flat, the... there was a question like, is that enough to be able to sing the music that we currently have. And the music is changing, but like, that's a question. And we had to be really careful. Like we didn't have the... We didn't have the luxury of being able to use euphemism. We didn't have the luxury of - actually, let me flip that around. I think that we were very privileged to not be able to get away with euphemism about the way that people sound. We had to get really specific about what we wanted and we had to really clearly articulate whether what we wanted was what had come before or something different. And Giacomo, you're right - that Doox has always had this history of being very experimental, and you can hear that in the... what we have recorded, you can hear that in what we attempt live. We... because we're not like in the competition circuit, we don't really experience a lot of pressure to sing a particular kind of collegiate a cappella. And because we're self-funded and we're not at the behest of a record label or something, we've got thirteen thousand dollars and can record whatever we want. And that includes a track like "Levels", like "Dynamo of Volition" off our most current album, like honestly... like "What a Good Boy", which has been rerecorded a number of times that are sort of like, "Hmm... is this going to work?" [laughter] Like you see it on paper and it's like, "Mmm... well I don't know about this one." And it's been really cool to be on the leading edge, to be... to be, yeah - sort of independent in that way. And... and so there's a lot of continuity, right?
Zane [01:03:26] Let's hear some more of the richness of the new Doox sound with that sophisticated, facile, non male high end. Here's the Doox of Yale performing "Dynamo of Volition" by Jason Mraz. [01:03:40] [Music excerpt: a soloist sings English lyrics in a fast pace, accompanied by a chorus that sings in close harmony, finger snaps and a dynamic bass line.]
Giacomo [01:07:39] So let's talk about, in our last few minutes we've got together - let's talk a little bit about your next stage because you're singing with the Whiffs this year, which means sad face emoji. You may or may not sing with the Doox again next year, but this now means you are what we colloquially call an "old guy". And I think all of the language here is going to have to change. Which means you are going to now become an alum of the Doox. What do you imagine that this process is going to be like? I mean, what do you think is on the other side of that door?
Morgan [01:08:07] Well, for what it's worth, our language for alums is... Has become gender neutral, I guess, since you were a member. So we'd call what I'm becoming "crust". I am drying out. I am becoming old and brittle, and soon I will just be...
Giacomo [01:08:25] Morgan, you're talking to two middle aged men here. Be careful.
Morgan [01:08:28] [laughter] I am going to be dessicated like that [laughter from Giacomo]. But something that I've really valued as an undergrad is having a connection with the alums. At the very least, the ones that have stuck around and it... I mean, collegiate a cappella is just such a particular time and such a particular space and my... it's not something that you can really share with your parents or like the people who are outside of it. It's really niche. So it... and also collegiate a cappella has been a really important part of my time at Yale and my growth as a person and as a leader and as a musician. And so it is nice to know that this thing that I'm doing has a history and that there are people who... like that there's a history and the legacy and people who like who... who care who are outside of our little tapped class or active group. And the... the alumni association. So formally, the Duke's Men Alumni Association just changed its name from the DMAA to the DDMAA [laughter]... The Doox and Duke's Men Alumni Association. And I think that that is an important gesture at the least that the formal alumni association is making - that in a year, in two years, there will be non-men who are alumni of The Duke's men of Yale.
Morgan [01:10:20] And I mean, also there... you know, there's been hoopla and misunderstandings across the board about what it means for the Doox to be all gender, older alums who have more of an investment in the space as a particularly gendered homosocial space. You know, they've got their attachments to what in some ways is a different group. But I think it's also true that, something that is true of probably most institutions, but most especially Duke's, is that like the only thing that's continuous is change. Right. And the people who are around, I think, really understand that and are invested in the group becoming whatever it's becoming.
Giacomo [01:11:12] Well, Morgan, I can say as a member of the board who witnessed all of this from the other side, that we couldn't be more thrilled for your participation. And I'm going to also just go ahead and on air, make a pitch for you to join the board at some point [laughter from Morgan]. It won't be very long before we're going to need that leadership to kind of continue into the future, because I think it's... I think you bring a very unique perspective as the first non male to sort of enter that space. And I think... but you also maybe... I mean, this is another question for you, which is like you may just be done with it. You're just like, I did it. I'm tired of talking about this for now. And I mean, what is your perspective about that? Does it feel like something that will... you'll carry forward with you for the rest of your life? Or is it something that you're kind of like, I need a little break from that?
Morgan [01:11:55] No, absolutely. Um, when I was in high school, I was doing a lot of diversity work and I worked on an affordable housing thing and the campaign to get a guy off the Buffalo Board of Education. And so I was agitating. And I came to Yale and I was like, "Nope, no more! I'm going to take the time to really figure out what it is that I want." Because in some ways, the sort of agitating work that I've been doing has not left so much room for other parts of me that I'd like to nurture. And... and then, like in my third week of college, I was on the front page of the YDN and it's a big thing. And all of a sudden I'm in this position again, accidentally on purpose. And yeah, it's a thing that will always be true. I will... I don't think I'll ever forget the morning after tap night putting on my t-shirt because everyone has to wear their t-shirt the morning after tap night when everyone's picked. And it's saying like having "The Doox Men" across my chest and going to my nine a.m. Spanish class and being like, "Is anyone going to say anything?" Just terrified that some... someone would say something. I could not tell you what I was afraid that they would say. But that happened and has really shaped... It's been a really, I think, fantastic opportunity for me to do my own thinking about what the role of gender in music is and sort of problems of embodiment. There's a strain of gender studies that's not super interested in the body because it's far easier to think about gender as something that's in... only in the psyche, because you can do anything in the psyche, whereas the body is a thing that maybe asserts itself a little bit more intrusively. And it's been fascinating to think about that and what's happening with that and vocal music. And I feel very privileged to have been part of such an intentional community in transition. And that I think more than the title of being the first non man in the Doox Men is what I'll carry with me.
Zane [01:14:43] Yeah. So you just mentioned going the morning after tap night. Would you call it tap night, tap day, tap something - which is when you were selected to be in Doox and you got that shirt that said Doox Men across the front of it and you wore it to your class the next day. So, you know, the question comes up then, you know... What's in a name? Were... were you, you know - did having the name "Mens" across the front of your shirt, was that something that really struck you as being weird or out of place? And then in that same vein, I wanted to mention this new CD that you guys just came out with, which, again, there's two volumes of it. It's called "This Name, Vol. 1", which was released in 2020. And then "This Name, Vol. 2", which was just released, god, just a few days ago. And I looked it up on Apple Music yesterday to listen through some tracks. And I couldn't help but notice that the name of the artist is Doox of Yale, "D-O-O-X" of Yale. And then it says in parentheses "featuring The Duke's Men of Yale." And I thought that was odd. And then every track also does the same exact thing it says "featuring The Duke's Men of Yale" on every track. And I just thought, "I don't understand why there's this need to hold on to this." But now I believe where we're labeling as an archaic label for this ensemble, and yet it's still attached to the new name, the new name of the group. And I just wonder what your thoughts are on that. Like what? Why? [laughter]
Morgan [01:16:13] There's a number of reasons for it. So one of them is practical. We... during rush, when people are Googling us and looking us up, we want people to be able to find us under both names. So when people search Doox of Yale and they find our album, we want people to know that there is like another 20 years of recorded music from what is a continuous group that they can go and they can listen to and they can enjoy. So there's the brand continuity question, which was a big conversation for us when we decided to change the name during the summer leading into my second year. And that mostly happened because we all agreed that it would be silly, like I would have personally felt so silly going up to rush and auditioning and being like, "Hey! Wanna join The Duke's Men of Yale? Not all men!" That... that would have just been bad and confusing for everyone involved. So, yes, there's the practical reason of we want people to be able to find us under both names. And then there is the - I don't know whether to call it respect or reverence or... There is... there's the question of regard, because I personally was a member of The Duke's Men of Yale and so were... I'd say probably half of more than half of the people whose voices are on that album. And we named the album "This Name", quite obviously as a reference to the question of what's in a name and what is important to keep and what is important, what's... what's worth keeping and what is worth moving on from. And this... this... Yeah. This the... The double names. The featuring is... is a manifestation of that. And that's also the... it's the same kind of question is do we rename the alumni association?
Zane [01:18:29] Right. That's good. So it doesn't bother you, per se...
Morgan [01:18:31] No.
Zane [01:18:31] ... to have The Duke's Men still attached to this new title.
Morgan [01:18:36] Yeah, and it won't be forever. Future albums will, I imagine, not be released under The Duke's Men. Because that's not the name that we go by anymore.
Giacomo [01:18:50] Morgan, what have you got coming up that you're excited about? It's now your senior year, your Whiff year, your... you're sadly not going to be able to do the full extent of the Whiff tour, thanks to COVID. But what have you got coming up that you'd love to call our attention to?
Morgan [01:19:04] As of right now, as of today, planning to travel, planning to do public concerts that are COVID-safe, which is very exciting. Talking about being on the leading edge, it is so exciting to be a group of people who are in a position to begin to imagine what gathering and music and community might look like in the after times or the long after times. So barring any complications or really unfortunate worsenings in the state of COVID in the U.S. or in the Bay Area, we will be in the San Francisco area between July 19th and July 31st. And so if you're interested in seeing some live Yale a cappella for the first time in a year and a half, then you can go to Whiffenpoofs.com - that's "W-H-I-F-F-E-N-P-O-O-F-S dot com" - to find more information about ticketing for our public concerts. I imagine we'll also be doing some live virtual stuff. We did some of that in... when we were all quarantined together in February. So if you hop over there, then you can find some information about that. Also with Doox of Yale, in particular, lots of video content coming out right now. So you can find us on YouTube for that. For "Animal Spirits", which was our ICCA semifinal runner up, award winning music video based off of our new album.
Zane [01:20:43] And also that's the one that starts with a little reference to the game Animal Crossings, right?
Morgan [01:20:48] Yes! Yeah!
Giacomo [01:20:48] [laughter] That's really great.
Morgan [01:20:51] Yeah. And we'll probably... Doox.. We'll probably be releasing a deluxe album that includes that. I don't know if you call it a remix or rearrangement of "Animal Spirits", the Vulfpeck song and some other like virtual choir stuff that we did. We did a rerecording of "Helplessness Blues" that'll probably be on there.
Zane [01:21:15] "Animal Spirits" is a Vulfpeck song?
Morgan [01:21:18] Yeah!
Zane [01:21:18] I love that band. Oh my God. Giacomo, are you familiar with Vulfpeck?
Giacomo [01:21:24] You told me.
Zane [01:21:24] Oh, I did. Oh, God.
Giacomo [01:21:25] You told me about them.
Zane [01:21:25] I just... Wow. I love everything they do.
Morgan [01:21:30] Like we... Doox loves Vulfpeck.
Zane [01:21:32] Oh yeah! It's ripe for... for a cappella pickin'. This is great. We will definitely put all the links in the show notes as we always do to all the websites that we want to bring everyone's attention to and to the videos and the YouTube channels and all of that stuff, because Doox is doing... doing some good stuff. I definitely went down the rabbit hole last night and thoroughly enjoyed myself listening to the new CD and in fact your solo on "What a Good Boy"... I am... I have been a huge Barenaked Ladies fan for most of my adult life. And so I know that song very well. And I've now heard three different versions of it, of that arrangement that Giacomo's shared with me because of his connection to Yale as well. But I think [whispers]... yours is my favorite.
Morgan [01:22:17] Thank you! [laughter]
Zane [01:22:19] Yeah. I just... there's... and you know what I got to say, it comes back to what we were saying before about this... this... "sweetness" is not the right word, but there's a... there's no, like, sharp edges on your solo. It's just... It just hits the emotional aspect of the song in a way that I don't think the other soloists did. No offense to Holcombe or to anyone else who sung that solo in the past. But there is something about your rendition of it that I thought really hit home for the song, for the character of that song. That's what I think.
Morgan [01:22:53] I really appreciate that. Thanks so much.
Zane [01:22:55] And we'll, of course, play it, play it on the show for our audience so they can hear your beautiful voice.
Giacomo [01:23:00] Morgan, thank you so much for being with us and for having this conversation and also for being a member of Doox. I have been so thrilled to see your journey and I am excited to see you on the other side of the Rainbow Bridge with the rest of the crust and the Crusties or whatever you call us now. But [whispers]... you're one of us. Welcome!
Morgan [01:23:20] [laughter] Yes. I'm so happy to be. And obviously, I love the Doox, The Duke's Men and and will continue to. Also, thanks so much for having me. It's been such a joy. I don't really get to talk about this all that often anymore because it's been like, you know, forgotten, lost to the annals. And there are far more important things happening right now than what happened in Yale a cappella in 2017. But I appreciate the opportunity to talk.
Zane [01:23:51] Well, we appreciate having you on the show. Thanks for joining us.
Morgan [01:23:54] Thanks so much.
Zane [01:23:55] All right. Have a good evening.
Giacomo [01:23:57] Thank you. Thank you.
Morgan [01:23:59] Bye! Thank you!
Zane [01:23:59] To end today's episode, let's hear Morgan singing the solo on an arrangement that has not only stood the test of time, but has also adapted over time, just as the Doox have. Here's the Doox of Yale singing "What a Good Boy" by the Barenaked Ladies. [01:24:14] [Music excerpt: a note from a pitch pipe is sounded after which a soloist speaks "Don't rush", a bass line is established over which the rest of the chorus harmonizes and the soloist sings.]
Outro [01:30:35] Thanks for listening to this week’s episode of the In Unison podcast. Be sure to check out episode extras and subscribe at inunison podcast dot com. You can follow us on all social media @inunisonpod. And leave us a review on Apple podcasts to let us know what you think!
Chorus Dolores [01:30:53] Tour schedules distributed by Chorus Dolores, who knows happiness is two things: a cat named Jerome and singing in choir.
Credits [01:31:00] In Unison is produced and recorded by Mission: Orange Studios. Our theme music is Mr. Puffy, written by Avi Bortnick, arranged by Paul Kim, and performed by the Danish vocal jazz ensemble Dynamic on their debut album, This Is Dynamic. Special thanks to Paul Kim for permission. Be sure to check them out at dynamicjazz.dk.