Schools
Five Guys Come to Syosset
A musical experience at a local elementary school provided entertainment with an educational slant.
On Tuesday morning students from were treated to the performance from a cappella R&B/soul group, Ball in the House. These five captivating and charismatic men had the students mesmerized as they used their voices as instruments.
Craig Range, Dave Guisti, and Patrick McCarthy are the tenors; Ryan Chappelle’s deep, rich sound is the baritone while Jon Ryan, one of the founders of the group, uses his voice to emulate drums.
Ordinarily performers get on stage and do their thing and leave, but this musical quintet took the time to give detailed explanations and informative demonstrations on how they accentuate their voices with what they called EQ’s (referring to an equalizer, it is a processor that allows you to manipulate a sound's frequency spectrum to create more or less vocal depth).
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“Although we each have an individual sound system, known as our voice, the bottom line is we work together as a team,” Guisti said.
Considered a Boston-based group, they come from all over the USA; Although Dave and Jon are from the Massachusetts area, Patrick is from Maine, and Ryan is from Nebraska. Craig, originally known with the last name Cacciola, is from Rockville Center.
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“Cacciola is a name I would always have to spell, Range is much easier," he said, then added when asked about his connection to the area. "I graduated from Lawrence Woodmere Academy and competed in sports against a lot of the North Shore high school teams from around here,” he said.
Their big claim to fame was winning the Today show talent competition; the appearance on NBC segued to an audition on America’s Got Talent. “We made it through to LA, then on to Vegas where we were unfortunately eliminated. But it was an amazing experience overall,” Guisti said.
Besides those venues, they have performed with such artists as The Beach Boys, Gladys Knight, The Jonas Brothers, Jessica Simpson, Fantasia, Blondie, The Temptations, Smokey Robinson, KC & The Sunshine Band, and Kool & the Gang.
The students were in awe of their extensive tour schedule listed at over 250 gigs per year. Guisti asked the students how many of them are involved in musical arts and almost the entire group at the assembly raised their hands. Ball is the House was quite impressed and Village School felt the same way about them.