With a CASA nomination for Favorite A cappella Event of 2011, SingStrong faces high expectations in 2012. But the 2012 line-up including three ACA-TV-stars, and the sell-out of all shows in the 

first week of ticket sales is a strong start.

     Pentatonix, Afro-Blue Vocal Band, Maxx Factor, Masai "Electro",  Da Capo, Blue Jupiter, The Edge Effect, Julia Easterlin and Alex Glenfield make appearances on Saturday and Sunday while GQ, THUMMp,  Dhamakapella, InChant, Shameless, Capital Blend,The Cocktails, Note-oritey, The RAMifications of VCU and The UNCG Sapphires battle it out for $1,000 in Friday's ACA-Idol competition. 10 HS groups, several college and semi-pro groups and the newly formed Single Singers will all perform as well.

2012 boasts one concert Friday, four on Saturday and one on Sunday, as well as over 30 classes and coachings. And, as in past years, all proceeds go to support the Alzheimer's Association and local music programs.

SingStrong is a success story that's looking to expand. If your area is ready for a charity a cappella festival that has to be heard to be believed then email and let's get the conversation started!

According to a July 2011 article by ASCAP contributor Chris Castle, Kickstarter monies are likely to be taxable for many artists. 

Castle's analysis starts with the presumption that you aren't a non-profit and that you have entered into some kind of contract with your contributors, like, "If you give us money, we'll give you X ."  Castle believes that as a result of entering into this contract, you may owe self-employment tax, sales tax, and other taxes.

For some artists, all this comes as an unhappy surprise.

Artists need to keep the possibility of heavy taxation in mind not just when tax deadlines come around, but right at the outset when setting their Kickstarter goals. 

If an artist promises a set of rewards based on the belief that they get to keep 100% of the monies, but then later discovers that they owe the IRS a big cut, Kickstarter runs the perverse risk of costing a group more than they raise!

Artists are strongly advised to speak to their tax advisors both before and after they participate in Kickstarter.

Late on 6-24-2011, The New York Legislature finally recognized the rights of gays and lesbians to marry in the now greater State of New York.
I was initially overjoyed at this wonderful news. All citizens deserve equal rights. It's that simple. If I have the right to marry, so should everyone else. But then I became concerned.

When gay partners weren't offered medical benefits because they weren't part of a married couple, insurers, under pressure, started to offer benefits to those couples in domestic partnerships. That had the effect of helping gays, but also those in committed relationships who chose to remain single.

Now that gays can marry, I can't help but wonder whether health insurance companies will use this as an excuse to stop offering the domestic partner benefits that exist today. I truly hope not.

The future I'd like to see is a "plus one, plus kids" system. You, plus any one person you like. Your mom. Your dad. Your grandma. Your sister. Your best friend. Plus your kids. Finally, single people would start to be treated on equal terms with married people.

I'm deeply, profoundly happy to see gays enjoy the rights that so many of us take for granted. But I long for the day when the government leaves marriage benefits in the realm of religion. Let people marry or not as their heart determines, and leave the special rights, financial benefits and tax breaks out of it completely. 

Given how many singles there are, it's the fair thing to do.

In 2004, Toxic Audio rocked the New York off-broadway scene with their Drama-Desk Award-winning show, "LoudMouth". It was filled with richly harmonized soft rock and jazz classics, a huge octave dropped bass and adorably comedic skits. 

In 2007, Charlie and Jeff La Grecca and Sean Altman brought their outlandish a cappella comedy, "Minimum Wage" off-broadway and became the toast of the Fringe Theatre Festival, grabbing the prestigious honor of Fringe's Top Ten Shows of the Decade. 

In 2008 and again in 2010, "In Transit" made their award-winning off-broadway run, creating a musical from "beneath the streets" and winning the 2011 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Ensemble Performance.

Now, a new off-broadway a cappella musical is coming to New York, "The VocaPeople." White faced, bald-capped and red-lipped, these singers promise a sound that highlights the zany, goofy, over-the-top side of a cappella. 

If you'll be in New York on or after June 23, 2011 and you want to help a cappella grow, consider grabbing some tickets to VocaPeople. In the fall of 2011, In Transit is scheduled to return. With two off-broadway a cappella shows, fans can hit NYC and make a weekend of it!

Overlapping Patterns Change Probabilities

If we tossed a coin repeatedly and we looked for this pattern HTT
vs.
If we tossed a coin repeatedly and looked for this pattern HTH

We would intuit that the average number of tosses until seeing either of the patterns is the same.

It's not.

The actual average number of tosses until the first pattern occurs is 10.
The actual average number of tosses until the second pattern occurs is 8.

The explanation lies in the fact that the second pattern "HTH" overlaps itself.
One can achieve two instances of HTH in the pattern HTHTH. One cannot achieve two instances of HTT in any combination of 5 coin toss attempts.

True and False Positives and True and False Negatives Must be Counted in Percentage Analysis
Assume 100 persons of every 1,000,000 have HIV.
Assume a  test for HIV is 99% accurate.
The result shows positive for a particular person.
What is the actual probability that the person who tested positive has HIV?

Intuitively, we want to say 99%.

It's not. It's not even close.

Of all those who test positive, less than 1 in 100 will actually have the disease!

Why?

There are two groups being tested, those who do have HIV and those who don't.
Of those who have HIV (100 people in a million), 99 people will test positive. One will FALSELY test negative.
Of the remaining people who do not have HIV (999,900 in a million), 989,901 (or 99%) will test Negative and 9,999 (1%) will FALSLY test positive.

So, of the million tested, 10,098 will test positive, but only 99 of those will actually have HIV. That works out to less than one percent chance, specifically, a  0.98% chance of having the disease if a person tests positive.

His final example was of an expert who testified in criminal trial.

Probability is Profoundly Affected by shared Causation

The trial was of a woman who had had two children die of SIDS (sudden infant death syndrome). The prosecutor was making a case for how unlikely two such deaths in the same home are.
The expert made the claim that the chance of one child with SIDS was about 1/8,500. Therefore the chance  of two was therefore 1/8,500 x 1/8,500. This = 1/ 7,2250,000. Of course with the jury hearing from an expert that the chance of the events occurring by "chance" was so low... well the woman was convicted.

There are some major assumptions involved in this calculation. The largest being that what causes SIDS once is wholly independent of what causes SIDS twice. This is to say that NEITHER NATURE nor ENVIRONMENTAL FACTORS -both of which are common to both infants, are factors in SIDS. This is so unlikely as to be nearly impossible.

The woman's case was overturned. The expert is currently under investigation.