Full transcription:
Tracy: Hi, and welcome back to Episode 11 of Results May Vary. In our last episode, we spoke with fishmonger turned award-winning podcaster Mike Duncan about how you can design the past. Today we talked to the Father of Contemporary Acapella, Deke Sharon. In college, Deke decided to make a career of acapella even though people laughed at him and thought he was crazy for doing so. Since then, he's arranged for The Social Network and served as music director and arranger for Pitch Perfect 1 and 2, The Sing-Off, and his new show Pitch Slapped which premieres this week on Lifetime. In this episode, we talked to Deke about how you can design a whole new industry based on passion and perseverance.
Would it be fair to say that you have a slight interest in Acapella then?
Deke: I think that would be a reasonable assessment from any perspective, any angle. People ask me like why do you love acapella so much as a question. I don't know. Why do some people love football, as you know, I also love football, but I don't know that we get to choose the things that grab us, but acapella definitely grabbed me. And in a way, in particular with me, I've always been very musical. I saw the potential within it. That was something that I felt like I understood in new and I have this vision. If people only knew if people only realized how wonderful acapella is, both from the inside and the outside, it would take off like wildfire. And the fact of the matter occupies the oldest music. It's a tradition that's been throughout human history. In every culture, you go to any part of the world as a tradition of acapella singing there. It's just that recently, the combination of recorded music and American Idol making fun of people who aren't perfect, and this kind of Western ideal that they're really good people should do and everybody else should stop doing it has warped our sensibilities and taken away from us the gift that everybody used to have, which was that everybody used to sing around the campfire at the end of the day, at the end of the hunt around the piano. I mean, like all these classic novels, everybody makes music together.
Tracy: Yeah. Well, how old were you when you first realized that it had potential? What was your introduction to it?
Deke: Well, I started singing in the crib bouncing my head on my pillow and seeing myself sit before I could speak. My parents were worried I was giving myself brain damage. It was like this little baby acapella headbanger. I kind of got an early start there, I think so I went to Tufts University.
Tracy: Did you go there specifically because of the acapella group?
Deke: There were multiple reasons that I went there. I was also at New England Conservatory of Music at the same time, I wanted a real Liberal Arts education. And I wanted a real conservatory experience like I wanted to walk down the hallway and have all these different kinds of music going on in the practice rooms and violinists who practice 11 to 14 hours a day and just the whole thing, like the crazy long-haired composers and that kind of experience.
Tracy: Sorry, I was just curious. Like, it seems like all of this was more or less self-directed. Were you getting any support? Or was anybody a part of your experience up until you got to college sort of encouraging you? or how did you navigate your way?
Deke: Well, everywhere in the music world, music educators, people teach music, they don't do it, because they're going to become rich and famous. People who go into it have a deep love of music and are always looking to help inspire music in young singers and young musicians. So every person that I worked with, who was an adult, helped me and touch my life in some different way. And particularly the choral directors at my elementary school and then at University High School, Dr. Bruce Ahmad, who's still there, the longest-running member on faculty, he was phenomenal, and a professional musician. He creates music and conducts and directs American Bach soloists. And he's very involved in the California music scene. And yet for him, high school music education was his passion. And I was lucky enough to be able to study under him for four years. And it rubbed off and he didn't expect. I mean, I think something that said, when you're reading Malcolm Gladwell, and you get this perspective, like what helped people through their journey, this through the road less taken, and it's several people who help you find your own path. And don't expect less than excellence, don't talk down to you don't dumb things down for you. And then when I was at the New England Conservatory of Music, I joined a department then called Third Stream Studies, it was the only place in the world you could study this now called Contemporary Improvisation. And the first two years of it are crazy ear training. You start by having to memorize like 100, 120 different melodies from around the world. And then there's nutty, intervocalic, ear training, being able to hear all these intervals and that person would stab the piano and play like five-note chords, and then another one, and then another one. And then another one, you'd have to just write down with our chord characters. So you see, you get a sense of what chords colors are, how they sound so that you're really quickly able to identify this stuff. When I got to the New England Conservatory of Music, in fact when I tangled with a young artist vocal program before that, I was honestly frustrated that people weren't better than they are. And that sounds a little snotty, it sounds a lot snotty but hey, I'm from San Francisco. That's what we do. We're pretentious, that's our go-to. I couldn't believe the number of vocalists in this vocal program who didn't know what the circle of fifths were, who didn't have any understanding of music, they just liked to sing and had a nice voice. And it goes to the old adage, unfortunately, that there are singers, and then there are musicians, and that bugged me. But when I got to the New England Conservatory of Music I placed out of all of the undergraduate theory they taught. So when I shifted from my third-string major over to fearing composition, I had to take all graduate courses. And I say that only because I went looking to understand how music works and would buy music theory books and books about music and listen to music and try to figure out what it was and analyze it. Because I was interested in the nuts and bolts of it. And I think that's one of the most essential tools in any field, knowing how something works, just saw a great interview with Steve Martin last night and somebody asked him, so how do you make it in this business, how do you make it in this industry? And his response to that person was not what they wanted to hear. But it would be better than anybody to be so good that you're undeniable, like make people need to call you because they want what you can do and what you have. And I'm constantly barraged with people, how do I make it an acapella. how do I get more involved in acapella and how do I do more? I mean, forget the banjo in the movie industry, and screenwriting and plays and novels, and he creates so much material. But most importantly, he created the brand of Steve Martin and his style of humor. But he worked hard. He was at Disneyland, seven days a week and he studied the magicians, and he studied the performers and those like old-timey theater performances, and he really understood balloon animals and he understood the timing of jokes. And I continue to aspire to that level of craft, that level of knowledge of everything. So it doesn't matter what somebody throws at me if they're like, Oh, we want to do this kind of barbershop thing or this vocal jazz halos thing, this gene purling sounding stuff. We want to do something that sounds like the Bulgarian women's tradition and or you know, or we want to sound like ladies with black Mambazo or earlier than the original recordings of the Lion Sleeps Tonight. Whatever it is, that's all acapella. And I've gone out of my way to study and understand acapella music from around the world. So I have those tools, I have those colors, because ultimately, I want to paint with all those colors, and no one's going to tell you how to get those colors, no one's going to tell you the right thing to do. So if you want to be an animator, watch every cartoon ever made, understand how it worked with forced perspective, and the road of scoping stuff that was done by Ralph Basky. Like everything goes deep, no more than everyone knows every single bit of information. So when that phone call comes, and someone's looking for someone, you can say yes, and you'll be on the right track already.
Tracy: I love that because when you said earlier that you were kind of underwhelmed by other people. It points to a drive and curiosity that results in having the knowledge To be able to apply your creative craft in a way that's different from other people. And it's not that people are kind of born loving singing and being compelled by that. But it wasn't an innate talent. It took practice and time, and energy and passion.
Deke: It always does. And the thing that frustrates me so many people say this of, of millennials and people getting out of college right now, but honestly, it's probably the case for every single generation, you know, and that is the idea that people want to just jump to the top. And people ask me cool, I want to be like, Pentatonix, I want to be rich and famous. And that's nice. So does just about everyone else. That's not a thing. Your desire to be famous is not a commodity of any value whatsoever. Nobody cares. What is it that you can do? That's great. What is the gift that you have that you want to give to other people? How do you want to change the world and make it a better place? That's the thing, I think.
Tracy: That really resonates with me, I had the same experience at IDEO, which is a really great company to work for. And people would always reach out and say, Hey, I read up about it and I really want to work there, like I think I would be a great fit. And yeah, I'd said the same thing like you and everybody else. So show me what's different about you why you stand out from other people. But it is the idea that if you feel connected to something, it's almost like you feel like you deserve to have it because you've recognized its value.
Deke: Yeah, I think that's right, the thing that I want for my children, the thing that I want for everybody that I work with, is to help them find their passion. And I don't mean something they like, everybody likes a lot of different things. I mean, the thing that makes you get up in the morning, the thing that you would do, even if you weren't getting paid, and frankly, if you're gonna make a career of music, that might be the case for a long time. So it has to be okay with you. In fact, I was looking around at my life just before this whole thing off Pitch Perfect thing blew up. And I was happy. I was like, well if this is what I'm doing, I get to travel around the world and work with some choirs and help people and do some arranging and help spread harmony through harmony. This is my life's work. This is what I wanted to do. I'm perfectly happy, I succeeded. My goal, yay. And I'll just keep moving forward. And then all hell broke loose. I mean, it just went ballistic. And I can tell it everywhere now. Which is amazing. Because when I started this whole thing, the idea was to help spread this harmony and help share with other people the experiences that I've had when singing and give them an opportunity to have a similar experience. When I was in high school, I would go around to all the different CD stores and try to find other vocal harmony and acapella albums that nobody knew about. I mean, there was no place or central clearinghouse for information on this stuff. So I'd have to go digging it. Oh, here's this group from the Netherlands called Montezuma's Revenge, and, oh, there's some cool Mills' Brothers stuff that it's got a guitar, but then there's a comedian harmonist from Germany that are similar, but they're singing in German, sometimes some of its acapella. And, like you had to dig deep. It's so much easier now with the internet. Whoa, it's easier.
Tracy: I mean, in those moments, what was fueling that drive in you?
Deke: That I don't know. I don't know. I mean, what makes people excited? What makes you get up in the morning? Why do you love something? I think we don't entirely know that. And your best bet is to try to trigger it and find something more than an infatuation that's short term, try to find something that's a long term love. Because the other thing is if you're doing something as a career, you're going to be exhausted, you'll hit burnout at various stages. You want to love that so deep that you move through it. So it's different from like, oh, I took a watercolor class, and I really like watercolors. And that's fun. And I'm enjoying painting. It's different from that. It's like you fall asleep, and you have visions of if the paint gets a little drier, and then you apply it to a wet Canvas, how it spreads and how much it'll spread. Like, if you're thinking at that level, then you probably have the bug. Like if you're dreaming about it.
Tracy: Yeah. I wonder, was there a moment in your earlier life when you were finding this passion, where you hit a really huge roadblock or impediment that almost knocked you off of your path?
Deke: Oh, sure. A big one. In fact, it's kind of a legend within contemporary acapella circles. Let me set the scene for you. I go to Tufts University. I'm really excited about the Beelzebubs. I have learned a bunch of their music and have some of their previous albums because the one from my high school acapella high school choral program was sending back a couple of arrangements. And so I knew and was excited about the group. And my thought was, this group is so good, their music is so tight. I love it so much. They've got to all be amazing musicians. So I show up for the audition. And I'm really excited about all this. And they say, all right, well, you sing a song, sing a tune. They're like oh, that's really nice. Now let's check your ranges. Have you seen some scales up and down as well I can tell you, here's my high note, here's my low note and here's my break and they're like, whoa, whoa, hold on, kid. We'll test it anyway, and then we'll let you know. So then we sang it up and down. And they said, well, you're exactly right. Those are exactly the notes. I was like, okay, good. And then they said, I know we'd like you to sing this song here. It's Vaughn Williams’ song Bushes and Briars. I said, let me stop you right there. I have your album score from the early 80s and I know this is one of the tracks on it and I don't think it'd be fair for me to sing a song that I already have heard. And they were like, well, that's fine, why don't you do it anyway? So I sang the second tenor part perfectly and then I sang the first tenor part perfectly, and then I sang the baritone part, and I stopped at the end, I said, I'm really sorry, I just want to let you know, measure 17 second half of the measure, there's a whole note, it's supposed to be a B, I sang a C, they both work in the chord, but I just want to let you know that I knew I got it wrong. So the thing I didn't know, as if these guys had like one guy who kind of studied music and knew it a little bit, and everybody else's, like Pre-med and Computer Science, like whatever, right? So they're looking at me, and they're like, who's this freakazoid kid. And meanwhile, all I'm trying to do is let them know that I'm at the lowest level and ready to learn from them in this group, right? Yeah, there's a total disconnect. Then I come back for the callbacks. And I'm going to sing really well. But I'm worried that maybe I'm not going to be able to blend in as well. And I blend. Blending is one of the key things I've done. I was just a band choir when I was five years old. But what happened is we'd stand and sing in a circle. And different guys would come and swap places next to you so they can hear your voice. So I would turn toward them and sing a little louder so they can hear my voice. Anyway, I think I freaked them out. So I didn't get in the group, bottom line. And they were like, yeah, we just don't feel like it's a really good fit. So I was crushed. Like, no one's ever wanted to be in the bubbles more than I do. So then I wait until the spring. And I moved to the Arts house and had a roommate who also was a Voice major at New England Conservatory. And I convinced him like let's try it for the Bubs and he was like, I did before, I don't know if it's right for me. I said no, it'd be super fun. Long story short, he gets in and I don't which is terribly awkward. I go right back into the audition. And they still all these guys are seniors and they're like this guy. I don't know. He's just overzealous was the word they used. And my roommate feels terrible because he didn't even really want to do it. But I convinced him it would be fun if we both do it together. The upside of the story is that there's a nonfiction book written about the college acapella world, this chapter about me in there, and it tells this story. And that got reworked. The book is called Pitch Perfect. And that got reworked by canon into the first movie Pitch Perfect. Where Skyler gets in the troublemakers. And Benji doesn't. He's the awkward kid on the other side of the room with the Star Wars posters and the magic. And I swear to God, no Star Wars posters in my life. No magic, never done it. But I guess it was just too good a story to let go and not have in the movie of this kid who wants nothing more than to be in this acapella group. But he's just like, it doesn't work.
Tracy: Yeah, when you're telling your story. I was like, wait a minute. This sounds like Pitch Perfect. I just watched it the other night.
Deke: Yeah, it was great because of the movie. I told Ben Platt. I think I told him until we were making Pitch Perfect 2 and he was like, dude, you're fucking with me, are you serious, I'm you? I was like, no Star Wars. No magic. I swear. No dove releases, I promise. Anyway, he was laughing. He's a great guy, by the way. Anyway, so then the third time around, it's the fall of my second year because it's a five year program. So it falls in my sophomore year. And I realize there's only one way to get in this group. And that's to act like I do not care at all. I don't give a shit. So I go in there and they say, okay, auditions, what do you want to sing for yourself? And I said, you know, I don't know. I haven't really thought about anything. Maybe. I don't know what you wanna hear? No, like, oh, uh, so I guess it's summertime or something. You know, some time and I live in New Jersey. Like, I was like, who cares solo? And then Okay, here, my scales. Great. Here's my up and down. Fine. Okay, so I'd sing this, okay, great, whatever. And I just waltz through that whole audition. Like, I did not care at all I got in the group. And of course, I got into the group. Oh, good. I'm a music director. Nothing. I mean, that's the funny thing. So then, I was the music director of the group and was constantly pushing and in the group developed a new sound involving vocal-instrumental sounds of percussion and took that into being professional. And like all the rest, the study was written, but it was actually very helpful to me because the music director is the one who calls the people who make the callbacks but don't get in the group to tell them and I could empathize with them better than anyone before me or after what it's like to really want to be in this group and not get in. And I always tell people, audition again, don't give up. Keep going. Frankly, not getting in the group until the third audition, coiled my spring tighter and may have been a fueling source for me. It may have really helped drive me to do everything that I've done in my life because I learned, if you really want something you don't give up, you don't give up. And it was a hard long freshman year. And I'd go to the concerts and I'd sit there and listen to them sing the same song something I should the second tenors flattened guys come on, like you don't I mean, I really saw that it was a bit of an off-year and like, they weren't all the way up to par. And it was frustrating for me, like, if I run this group, I'd be able to make it better. Okay, all right. I just need to get into this group. I just need to figure out how to make that happen.
Chris: As you're telling your story, I'm wondering if are there people out there that seeing that you say that you look at them, and you go, you know, no matter how much effort you're gonna put into this, the penalty is just too high, you're just not going to be able to pull this off. I know, it's contrary to everything I'm hearing from you. But is there anybody out there where you tell them? You know, you just, well, maybe singing is not your thing
Deke: Everyone can sing. If you can speak, you can say and now so many people in American culture say I'm tone deaf? And the bottom line is no, if you talk like this, your tone-deaf. If you can't say if your voice can't rise at the end of a question, you tend to have like, what are you doing right now? Like if someone can't you know, what's up, you know, what's up, you know, and if you can't have a rise and fall in your voice, then you are fully tone-deaf. But I think there are like three people on the planet who are actually technically like, all of our sax problem with their brain tone-deaf, everybody else is not tone deaf. The problem is a matter of matching pitch. And just as, okay, not everybody's gonna be Michael Jordan, right. And maybe someone's like, I want to be Christina Aguilera. Well, she just has a certain amount of vocal fluidity that is coupled but she has an incredible instrument. And she's been singing every single day, since her very young life as a mini musketeer, whatever they were called, right. So she's ahead of you, you will probably never catch up with her unless something strange happens. However, to use the basketball analogy, hitting a note is like hitting a free throw. And if you've not been shooting hoops, you shouldn't expect to get the ball in the hoop very often. But if you go and you start shooting hoops every day after work, just for an hour, you start getting better, you start getting better, you start getting better, you may never be a professional level, but you can absolutely do it at the level that is enjoyable. And that is of quality, end of the story. But everybody can, everybody is used to singing, joined a local choir, got together with some friends, going to karaoke night, the vocal cords are just muscles and it's a muscle that everybody can use. It's just hugely underutilized in our culture. I think it was when recorded music started becoming popular John Philip Sousa that, you know, the March guy, Stars, and Stripes Forever. He remarked that this will change and in many ways ruin music in America around the world. And he was right. Because before then people had to create music, if you wanted music, you made music. You have some friends over for dinner after that somebody retires to the piano and you have a sing-along. When's the last time anybody you know, anywhere ever had a sing-along? Maybe a caroling party. But even those are an anomaly. Like it's so rare now for people to get together and sing. And it used to be a given standard. So our culture has really changed. And that's why I say as people sing in the shower. people sing while they're driving to work, but people are afraid of getting in front of the people. And singing because Simon Cowell has so tainted, so poison to the well. So destroyed people's own sense of their ability to sing through this horrible pageant where they take people and they are terrible. It's terrible.
Chris: To say, I'm giggling because it's an interview so timely. Alyssa and I are, we don't sing and I can barely play guitar. But we're doing a duet at our own wedding in front of 70 people just because we thought that seemed like a good idea at the time. And the way that we set it up as it'll either be cute because it's horrible and people laugh because look at this couple just trying or it'll be something where it actually sounds pretty good. And we'll be really proud of ourselves. So either way, it's a win. But I'm nodding as you're saying how rare, it's so rare that we will casually do that.
Deke: Yeah, but it's going to be great because here's the thing that people forget about music. Music is an expression. Music is emotion. Nobody at the end of the day picks up their iPhone, their iPod turns on the radio and says I want to listen to the most intune piece of music I have. I want to listen to the most technically precise thing. No, no, if that were the case, the Alan Parsons project would be the Beatles. The fact of the matter is people listen to music because it gives them a feeling. It gives them joy. And that's why people go hunting on YouTube and find these unknown singers or some child or some moment some video of someone's singing at their wedding and you tear up because it's so honest, so powerful. I just worked with some singers down in San Diego this past weekend, and they were incredibly powerful. Technically, they were really good. But they sang with all these kinds of fake gestures that come from the sweet outline tradition. And so when I closed my eyes and listened, it sounded really nice. But I opened my eyes. And it just, their faces were kind of fake and their hands were moving in their heads, shaking, and it just felt like a giant pulling on. And the song was You Are My Sunshine, oldest thing ever, right? So then I told him guys, I had to stop them. And I had to call him out for all of these fake movements. I said you have to sing music, that means something to you. Otherwise, it's meaningless to the audience, you have to connect with them. And one of the women's eyes started tearing up. And it took a little while to get the story out of her. But it turns out her husband of 14 years, lost his battle with depression the previous year, and he was her sunshine, and all of a sudden, shit got real. And I said that that's really singing about that. And then we started working together. And it was a transformative experience. And all of a sudden, the audience was like tears in their eyes. And somebody captured this moment on their iPhone or something grainy, the sound isn't good or whatever. And in the past 72 hours, it's been viewed 25,000 times on Facebook and forwarded over 500. Like, it's like a masterclass with a barbershop group. But it's real music, they did something real. People want that so much. Now they're so hungry for that experience, for that sound for that real connection with other humans. And that's one of the things that acapella does better than anything. And the reason I'm telling you all this is that when you're up there, and you're singing that song, with your new wife, don't get caught up in Oh, this isn't good enough for Oh, I should be more polished or whatever, no, just sing the song. And it will take care of itself. That's what we don't have in our culture anymore. And that's what people want. I guarantee you, it'll be a beautiful moment. It's, by definition, it's a beautiful moment. This is the fact that you're doing.
Chris: Yeah, a question. We talked to a lot of successful people you included, and you've got people to find their thing, and they lock on. And in your case, it was at one point, it wasn't necessarily your thing, and you just kept persevering. And lo and behold, it all worked out with a lot of time and energy. I'm curious now, in your life, do you still take on things in new categories that you suck at? Or do you allocate the majority of time to the thing you're really good at?
Deke: When I'm arranging songs, I try it and I've done over 2000. I try every arrangement to put something in I've never done before, to try something new to continue to push the envelope and I always have a fallback position. If it doesn't work, it's not like everything is genius. But I've found that my life's work is to spread harmony through harmony. So I'm continuing to do that. That's where I should be spending my time. It's my vocation and my avocation. It's my passion. And much of my time is spent doing that. However, I like moving outside of my comfort zone. And in fact, who expects to get a phone call from Lifetime Television saying they want to build a reality television show around you at age 47. So I had never been an on television personality. I'd never worked with a high school group for more than a couple of hours. And yet, lo and behold, a couple of months ago, I found myself in Cherry Hill, New Jersey for two months, working full time with a high school acapella group and having three cameras follow me everywhere and capture that whole experience of what it is to make music, not just on stage, not just with professional singers, but with this ragtag after school Bad News Bears type program. So that was unexpected. And now I'm working on a musical that's going to Broadway and hasn't done that before. I mean, I sang in musicals when I was in high school, but that takes me outside my comfort zone. And like that, so it's definitely the thing I should be doing with my life right now is the thing that I'm doing. But it's not a matter of me continuing to do it in the same way. I want to expand out what acapella is doing and how it's permeating the major media right now, in hopes of inspiring more people to sing and get more vocal music out there.
Tracy: It seems like your dedication when you were saying earlier, make yourself be the person that somebody calls because you're so valuable. It seems like this is a moment for you that you've spent all of your life working towards this and having successes and high points. It's all sort of coming together. Like you said at the age of 47. Why do you think that's happened now for you?
Deke: The thing that I told myself, when I was graduating, I was starting a career if this was it, if people only knew how great this is, they would love it. And that's been my mantra all the way throughout the experience of singing in an acapella group of other people. The IT professional amateur is transformative in that the sum is greater than the individual parts of the interconnectedness of your voices. It's unbelievably powerful, and I highly recommend it to anybody who hasn't done it before. It's so much fun. And music is the engine of international language, it speaks to things that you can't use language to say, and the connection that you have with the other people in the group. It's beyond any sports team. And if you do it right, you always win. I mean, that's another great thing about music and particularly singing. But to get back to your original question, the nature of I always knew that. It's great. And it was a matter of distribution. It was a matter of getting it out there. So that's what I did. I started a nonprofit organization, I started a publishing company, I gave away arrangements to help groups get started whenever possible. And when I graduated from college and started the contemporary acapella society, there were maybe 200 College acapella groups. Now there are over 3000, I wanted there to be a march madness of acapella the same way there is for basketball. So I started the N-double-CA, which became the ICCA, the International Championship of College Acapella, which is now in the movie Pitch Perfect. That's kind of the centerpiece of it. It's a real competition. I started it shortly after college, because I knew to popularize this kind of music, you needed some kind of a competitive form, on the collegiate level, and so on, and so on, and so on. So, this was always the goal. I didn't know where it would go, but it got more people interested, more people interested, more people interested. And again, as Gladwell pointed out, there seems to have been a tipping point and all of a sudden now, everybody knows what acapella is. Back when I graduated, nobody knew what acapella are. Most people didn't if you said the word they thought maybe classical choral music or barbershop doo-wop. church music. I mean, it wasn't really clear. And then maybe 10 years ago, acapella was a punchline. In scrubs in the office, It was like, oh, that geeky thing that people do in college. And then once we got The Sing Off on the air, and we could show people what it really was, people started going, Oh, that's actually awesome. That's impressive. I mean, Pitch Perfect, made it really popular. And now it's a thing. So the bottom line is, I knew that it would be popular, I knew that it could be popular. Let me put it that way. There's no point, if I went back and started this whole thing, again, lots of different things could be different. And luck is luck. I mean, I don't take for granted, that's probably the most important coefficient in anybody's life story. But I knew that it could be huge. I just didn't know how, or specifically what my role in that would end up being down the line.
Chris: Next level, are you there at 47, you get this show, and everything's just orders of magnitude, bigger, more influence, more people. And this was a place that you never thought would happen. And so now that you're in this place, I guess two parts of the question is, do you feel like you have a sense of control over where it's going? And do you now have your sights set on the next thing? Or how do you kind of sit in the place where you are now?
Deke: That's a good question. Well, I continue to do what I've done, which is to try to allocate my time as my most valuable resource as effectively as possible. And after being on the road and touring around the world and performing myself in my own group, the house checks that I started out of college, I had to finally leave the group because I'm too busy with too much going on. Broadway coming up, we've got this lifetime show Pitch Perfect three is definitely gonna happen. I've got other great new projects in the works that I can't talk about yet. But the overall goal remains the same. But I do see my role shifting to elder statesman as the pyramid grows taller, and I'm rising up on the top of it, I see that the nature of what I do changes and varies and it's still really important for me to continue to interact with the media on the highest levels. That's one of the most important things because that's where we reach the most people, I feel. And it really is a life's work. It really is a mission to spread harmony through harmony. When you get people singing together from all different cultures, all different walks of life. It not only changes their life, but it creates bonds, connections between people. And that's one of the greatest things about college acapella. You got a group, you got the jock, you got the pre-med guy, you got somebody who's a computer scientist, you've got somebody who's like crazy arts dude, the people in a college acapella group are really varied more of a cross-section of a college demographically than possibly any other pursuit or activity, you find people that I found, I became very good friends with people I never would have met or known in college because you have your circles and you run in your circles. And then you end up having to create things together. You have to work together, you have to agree on things together. You have to push through problems together. That is incredibly valuable. Those skills are unbelievably valuable. And that's part of why the college acapella thing is so great. And it works across life as well. These community acapella groups, there's a group in Memphis called Delta Capella, and they just won a competition and traveled over and performed in Shanghai. I was there with them a month ago and they are a cross-section of Memphis, it's all guys. But their youngest members are like 19, 20, and their oldest members 70, something black and white. They're rich and poor. I mean, it's a real cross-section of what Memphis is. And Memphis is a town that does not have a lot of real integration like that, with these people are friends and their comrades. And so when they perform around the area, they're making a social and political statement at the same time, that's just entertaining people, but they're not doing it with a heavy hand. They're just showing people who they are. And now we're going to sing another tune. Now we're going to sing an old folk song. Now we're going to sing a pop song on the radio, it may seem like our society in our culture doesn't need that right now, particularly as the three of us sit here in San Francisco in our enlightened ivory tower of political and social awareness. But America needs this and the world needs this very, very much. We need to understand each other better, and to respect each other more. And these kinds of experiences singing together, do that better than anything else I've seen anything else I've experienced? Yeah. And hopefully, there's someone listening to this out there who's got a crazy dream. And all I have to say to that person is work hard and find out everything you can about it so that then you're able to create your own success because it's absolutely doable.
Tracy: Yes. What a superpower
Chris: Superstar. Super voice. Pitch Perfect.
Tracy: That's right. I mean, he basically, you know, wasn't the only person but was one of the most instrumental people in bringing acapella to the world.
Chris: Yes. And right off the bat, you were asking him about his path. And you asked a pointed question around. How did you fall in love with this? And how did you know this was going to be your pursuit? And his response to you is really interesting, sometimes you don't find it, it finds you. Yeah. And I think our listeners would either respond favorably to that, which is like, Oh, cool. Well, it'll find me or they'll listen in a little bit of frustration, which is like, ah, man, mine hasn't found me yet.
Tracy: Yeah. Well, it's interesting. I just was yesterday, watching Elizabeth Gilbert do her soul Sunday talk with Oprah, about passion, and how she used to really talk about how important it was to find your passion. And once you found it, you could just go to town. And, you know, it's like, that's great because she's the kind of person who has found her passion, similar to deep. But she got this really long Facebook post from a woman who was so frustrated because she felt like there was something wrong with her, that she tried searching and wanted to feel this fire inside of her. And that that simply wasn't her reality. And so Elizabeth Gilbert was talking about this concept of either being a jackhammer, where you know, you're passionate, you just drill down, or being a hummingbird, where you're sort of being led by curiosity, and you're pollinating all of the other people in the world with your different interests from, you know, time to time as you're changing up. And I really like that. I think we've talked a little bit about passion on the show before with Jessica, and others, and I wanted to bring that perspective to our conversation as well.
Chris: Right, right. And it goes on the heels of what would you be willing to suffer for? And I think that's true when I think about that article. And I think about when I listened to Deke, that that's certainly true. In his case, he put in a lot of effort to get to where he is. And the other part about his story is there are a lot of people that put a lot of effort into him to bring him there. And it really stood out to me just how many people invested in him and believed in him and just the importance of these mentors and people that you find on your path that believes in you. Yeah. And well extract it out of you, you know, as you hear him talk about his processes, some natural born gifts, you know, his ear sounds like it's very, became very natural for him. But that alone wasn't enough. He needed to be trained, and he needed to know the way and he needed to be exposed. And you can just imagine how many thousands of hours he's invested in his year and his training.
Tracy: Yeah, absolutely. And it's when people talk about somebody being self-made, you're meeting someone halfway or you're meeting multiple people halfway, you're doing your part he did his part. He was really looking into different types of acapella singing, and he knew everything there is to know about music. He was putting in that time and effort, and because he was doing that, and people were there supporting him, those it all worked symbiotically. That's right.
Chris: The other thing that stood out for me that I found to be a little sad really, is on the other hand, in a modern America, we're very liberated to explore whatever we want. And on the other hand, I feel like it's sad that when we were talking about singing just how singing is now reserved for the greats, you know, you're either good at it or you don't do it at all. And there seems to be a maybe a funky way of saying it's kind of like a demise of vulnerability like we're living in the demise of being publicly vulnerable. And I think for our project, that's, in some ways, we're trying to reinvigorate that to expose a little bit of your vulnerability to start to grow and nurture and go forth with this idea that we just don't sit around and sing anymore is, I think, pretty sad.
Tracy: Well, it's interesting to me, because it's almost it gets a little bit back to what Steve Coleman was talking about where, you know, you have creators, and then you have people who just sort of sit back and consume, and we have all these distractions, we have all of this content being provided to us. And I was just talking to some students today, who were well, they were saying, How do I design productivity? At the end of the day, when I came back from class, and I was asking, Are you really talking about wanting to be more productive after you spent a whole day of being productive? Or are you looking for a way to unwind that feels productive, you know, like, right, there's a, there's a difference there. And you have to have a balance. And we have now gone so completely to one side, which is to just sit back and consume, where we used to be creating together because that's how we created closeness and entertainment. You didn't have American Idol or whatever, to watch other people be vulnerable. You just did it yourself. Right?
Chris: Because I think of our podcasts like that. I look forward to it. You know, it takes effort, but we like doing it. And I just think of it as a productive craft. That's a relief. Not necessarily just more work. But yet I feel like we're producing something. And that feels fun. So good for us.
Tracy: Yeah. Yes.
Chris: The other thing, though, that I wanted to mention is we recorded the episode weeks back, and soon after the episode, just by coincidence was our singing debut at the wedding. And, and his points were spot on just, it didn't sound perfect at all, yet, it was totally perfect and really fun. And probably one of the highlights of the experience. And the overall experience was awesome. And so this is super fun, and just really validates that kind of just sticking your neck out there and doing something really unexpected. So that was fun.
Tracy: Yeah, I was so inspired by the two of you doing that. I mean, I played music growing up. And it took a lot for me to ever get up on stage as a part of a band to do that on the day that I would say is probably one of your most vulnerable days as a human being anyway. And then adding that extra layer on top is pretty superhuman.
Chris: Yeah, not really, though. But yeah. The fun is actually quite natural in the end so deep as accomplished a lot. What I really liked about his storyline is when he was evaluating his life, and he thought, if what I ended up doing is traveling the globe, not making much money, but supporting these groups and bringing the best out of people's acapella experience, then that's that's a pretty good life for me. It is always neat to just hear that the really successful part is really just kind of all the gravy for the hard work that was there and I see Deke could be a pretty happy person, regardless of if that happened or not. And this is giving him an even greater platform for people to be exposed to his great work.
Tracy: I agree. And I think there's something universal that he's tapped in with this. I watched Pitch Perfect. And then over Thanksgiving, we watched Pitch Perfect with my mom who likes to sing and is in a couple of choirs. And there's just something about that natural music and harmonizing together. It's exciting to watch. I know maybe it sounds corny, but I really got into it. I thought it was super entertaining.
Chris: And as you're describing your experience with it. I can't wait for our synthesis episode because there are so many consistencies here. Whether it's the writing or Andy we're or the way that Kira kind of reinvented herself in the healthcare world, or the way that Steve runs writing workshops. There are so many similarities. It's like you could just we're almost getting to a place where I feel like you could find and replace the content area and there's like some very universal truths. And one of the heart-facing universal truths is just that I think people want it to be easier than it is. And in a weird way, it's almost a relief to know that it's just supposed to be hard. So that when it is hard, you're like, Oh, I guess I'm doing it right. Because I think a lot of times you think of hard things like I must be doing something wrong. Because other people have this success. It seems to come easier, or they have their calling. And it seems to just hit them over the head or stuff that we're talking about. But as you go down this stuff, and you realize that no, it's actually supposed to be hard, then when it is hard, you're like, Oh, good. I'm doing it right. Doing it, right. It's supposed to be hard. And in a weird way, that makes it easier.
Tracy: No, it does. Because it yeah, it validates that you're on the right path, for sure. I love that. Well, I also, he talked about this idea of your commodity of wanting to succeed. And I just thought that phrase really stood out to me and saying that it's of no value, like saying I really want something. I always think that when I watch America's Next Top Model, which I watch guilty pleasure models are like, I just want this more than anyone else, and therefore I deserve it. And it's like, No, you know, you could want it as much as you want, but it doesn't, this is great.
Chris: Yeah, like you owe it to me. You owe it to me because I've always wanted to be successful.
Tracy: Right and like the idea too, that it's a commodity, this idea that everybody wants that everybody is saying that to you and you're sitting there. As someone who decides, you know, you move forward or you don't and this acapella world, tell me something different, like, be really good at what you do or be really knowledgeable, have that passion, shine through so that I can see it.
Chris: Right. I had a note that it came up earlier in our conversation, but I think in Deke's words, he said Your best bet is to try to trigger it. And he was referring to the passion thing. And we've concluded this before, but I think that the idea that if you're not sure what it is, then curiosity is the passion. So the search, the search is the passion, which is to me, again, is a big relief. So it's like, if you're in a rut, just start this search again and get passionate about the search, which is pretty easy to start to excite yourself around like, Oh, cool. I'm going to try this. And I'm going to try this. Because even the failures there don't feel like failures because you know, you're just in a curious state. Yeah, there's no expectation. And that's when he talked about being a kid this like a baby acapella headbanger. I love that. I laughed out loud when you guys were talking about that.
Tracy: Well, another fantastic interview. Another generous interviewee and we're on a roll. Let's see what's in store for 2016. All right, that's a wrap. Thanks so much for listening. Our dream is to build a community of people who can create and take advantage of any opportunity that interests them. To do this really well. I'd love for you to participate. Try out and share back your own life design experiments. Or if you've already got a great story of how you've designed your life, we'd love to hear from you on our Facebook page or on our website, resultsmayvarypodcast.com. Our website is also where you'll find show notes and links to all the things we mentioned in the episode. And if you wouldn't so kindly subscribe to the show and share your favorite episodes with friends. that'll add even more people to start designing their own lives. A big thanks to the folks who help us make the show possible. composer and filmmaker HP Mendoza for the Results May Vary theme music, Graphic Designer Annessa Braymer for our logo, and David Glazier for sound mixing and team podcast for editing and of course, thank you so much for listening to Results May Vary.