Happiness, Inc. has completed two choreography camps, amounting to 30 hours of learning the show for the 2024-25 season, however, one critical camp for the success of their season took place over the weekend of October 12-13.
Brett Carroll is a vocal music director from Burbank High School in Burbank, California. He works with show choir groups in Ohio, Indiana, Wisconsin, Iowa, Virginia, Alabama and California on their vocal pieces. Carroll has been working with Happiness, Inc. since 2012.
“The thing I like most about Brett is how quickly he is able to get new singers to sound great,” Happiness Director Storm Ziegler said.
Returning happiness members have had the opportunity to work with Carroll for several years.
“I gotta be honest, the process isn’t my favorite thing,” senior Jordan Harvey said. “But the product that comes after is what I really strive for and look forward to because we go from sounding like just a bunch of kids who’ve never sung before to an actual show choir that I think could win competitions,”
For new members, “Carroll Camp” changes their understanding and execution of choral songs. New member and sophopmore Becca Miller was optimistic for her first camp.
“What I’m most excited for is to see how we progress,” Miller said. “I’m mainly nervous because the whole weekend seems pretty intimidating, but I am really excited to see what it’s like and what Brett is like.”
Like Ziegler, Harvey and Miller, Carroll also looks forward to hearing what new sounds groups can create.
“Every year is different,” Carroll said. “I just like to see what kids can do and it’s exciting to see them get excited about the progress they make and when they go ‘oh’ and they get it and the light comes on and me going ‘yeah that’s right’ i think they hear it too and it’s very exciting to see people do things that they didn’t know they could do.”
Carroll goes into working with groups essentially blind—he has to decide what pieces the group needs fixed in the moment.
“When I go in with a group I don’t know what they need and every group is different and every year is different and every group has what I call their thing they need fixed and diagnosed,” Carroll said. “So every time I go into a situation and I have to kind of go, ‘OK, what do we need, what’s going on, what can I help the most with?’”
Ziegler had his own favorite piece of growth over the weekend.
“I like how the women sound [now] versus how the women sounded [before],” Ziegler said.
Carroll also concluded his favorite moments with the 2024-2025 Happiness group.
“I think this year’s group is exceptional because I feel like there’s a lot of potential and it sounds like the groups put in a lot of work before I got here,” Carroll said. “I can hear the group’s been working really hard, this has been a little bit easier. They are ahead of the game a little bit, so we can even go farther which is always exciting.”
