The Adventures of SoJam with the Outskirts!!!

By: Katrina Leung aka KatKatRinRin

I am a senior at Haverford College (...graduating soon yikes!), which means that I have been singing with the 'skirts for almost 4 years now. I have always felt close with my fellow acabuddies and we have always strived to create great music, but in my opinion SoJam was a turning point for us. SoJam brought the group together even closer than we have been before and inspired us to push for more musically.

One of the most important things we learned at SoJam was how good we could be as a group. We saw multiple collegiate as well as professional groups perform and their energy, music and choreography were all on point. The groups at SoJam had a completely different attitude towards acapella than the groups on our campus. They made us believe that we could improve and the workshops gave us the starting tools to make that change. Some things we learned were how to emote as a soloist, run an efficient rehearsal, really warm up our voices and how to think out of the box. We also performed at SoJam, but we were not ready in any sense when we got to North Carolina. I was nervous. After a not so successful rehearsal the night before our Acabomb, we only had a 1 hr lunch break before the performance to get our act together. After just half a day of classes and watching the acapella groups compete the night before, we were inspired, focused and determined to perfect our set before it was our time to sing. The set we had before that 1 hr of rehearsal before the performance was completely different to the set after. If you had heard just a recording of the before and after you might think that it was two different groups singing. We were emoting, utilizing dynamics fully, we had so much energy and we felt like one unit. I was in awe of our fast improvement and it really showed me and hopefully all of us that if we could improve that much in 1 hr, what we could do in a year is mind boggling. By the end of the weekend all of us were pumped to get back to school and really get working on our music.

We worked hard at SoJam but we also had so much fun. We all love to sing, so the classes and performances were so great! The (10 hr) car ride to and from SoJam was a great bonding experience. You can imagine how much singing was involved with a car full of acapella people. After each day of classes we would go back to our hotel and hang out. These were probably the most precious moments for me because I got to know the 'skirts in a whole new context. I feel like we became so much closer as a group because of this experience.

All in all, SoJam was a very positive experience for our music, inspiration and bonding. It will be a memory I carry with me long past May 17 2015 (my graduation). Joining the Outskirts was one of the best decisions I made during my college career and I can't wait to see where this new knowledge and energy from SoJam brings us!