Though A Cappella means “in the style of the chapel,” in Italian, collegiate A Cappella has come a long way from the classical choir performances of early days. It has developed a specific style that shows up in live performance and musical sound. Because a cappella groups come in all-male, all-female, and coed varieties, gender stereotyping is common, even among insiders to the scene. At Brown, the Intergalactic Community of A Cappella fosters interaction between groups, making the University one of the most cohesive a cappella units in the country. Collegiate a cappella started first on Brown's campus with the Jabberwocks in 1949. Since then, the cappella community has expanded to 14+ groups with practically every style. Looking from the outside in, one would say our a cappella community is fairly unique and has plenty of different characters to keep the story of Brown a cappella interesting. We decided to do intensive research on the a cappella scene at Brown University because it is something we are all passionate about. We are all members of a cappella groups (though we made it a point not to focus on researching our own group for objectivity's sake). Although this "insider-status" may have helped us gain information about the scene or cause us to have certain opinions about it, we tried to stay as open minded as possible when conducting interviews, fieldwork, and observing performances. This is what we found!
Blend:Musicality and Personality
As it stands, Brown University is home to 14 a cappella groups. Because there are so many, each has had to find and occupy its own niche. Every group has carved out its place in the landscape of Brown’s music scene by acquiring an inclination towards a certain genre. For example the Ursa Minors are more girlie, up-tempo, poppy songs; the Bear Necessities are more pop rock with lots of volume; and the Higher Keys are jazz/pop. The common poppy beats of a cappella result in the familiar “bop”, for as McClary argued music’s power lies in its ability to influence the body (McClary 1994: 36). Each different genre has its own set of musical priorities whether it is energy, projection, flexibility, etc., but the highest priority no matter the genre is blend. By definition a cappella is solely voices, which is a blessing and a curse: a blessing in that the human voice can blend wonderfully under the right conditions, but a curse because it is difficult to maintain those conditions. All voices must acquire the same or nearly the same timbre in order to harmonize well. Edwin Liemohn describes the struggle to maintain similar timbres well in his article in the Music Educator’s Journal:
Since each voice has its own characteristic overtone pattern, which determines its quality, the problem of securing good intonation and blend will be reduced if voices can be quite similar in quality, thereby eliminating pitch conflicts in the overtones produced by the various voices. (Liemohn 1958: 50)
So, in effect, each a cappella group is made up of similar voices, so as to maintain a good blend.
A prime example is the Bear Necessities, an all-male group who have quite a distinctive sound.
Each member possesses a musical-theater-type sound: belting, projecting, richly colored. It is a soloist’s voice, which would usually be a problem for subtle task of blending. However, since each voice has the same “musical theater” timbre, blending is possible. Just as each group has its own sound, it has a personality as well. In both Sami’s and Brady’s interviews, the interviewees talk about the perceived characters of different groups. “Angie” described the Chattertocks as “hipster” and Dom categorized the Jabberwocks as very “bro”.
<---Hipster girl
Whether the group agrees or not, it is how they are seen by the rest of the community. It can be a self-fulfilling prophecy: a group is noted for being of a certain temperament which draws people of that temperament to it. Nonetheless, with members of similar disposition a group can act as a more cohesive unit, learning how each other interacts and, most importantly, sings.
Leonard van Camp puts it best when he says, “It is a matter more of feeling than hearing.” (Van Camp 1965: 237). Knowing how your fellow group members acts and reacts is more important than having a good ear. Developing this sense of togetherness is what many in the community regard as the most important aspect of a cappella. From the exact moment of a new member’s being “sung in”, he is considered one of the family, lavished with hugs and congratulations. Yet, he is, in most regards, a complete stranger; no one in the group knows much, if anything, about him except what they learn at call backs. Going on tour, then, serves as a way for new members to be absorbed into the group (see Sami’s interview with Dom for his thoughts on tour). Tour usually involves a week of travelling with one’s a cappella group, singing together and living together. Through this experience, the members form bonds with each other that may not have arisen organically because of the differences of social lives between them. Cohen argues that music is “a human activity involving social relationships, identities, and collective practices” (Cohen 1993: 127), and in the context of intra-group relations a cappella is most definitely an enabler of all that is listed.
On the other hand, when seen from an inter-group perspective, a cappella falls flat. Most people that we talked to saw no tangible increase in mingling with other groups. There was some hanging out between members of groups, but that was mainly because they shared a commonality, like being in a musical together or something along those lines. The only time when two entire groups would interact would be if they sang together in a double concert or arch sing
Some may read the lack of interaction as a bit of animosity. With so many groups, one would suspect there would be competition. We received two different answers on this question of hostility. Julian Cihi (Bear Necessities) said that in his experience there is no rivalry between groups, but “Angie” (Ursa Minors) stated that between all-girl groups there is a level of cattiness. Be that as it may, I think that as a whole, Brown’s a cappella community is fairly drama free and that the deficiency of intermingling among groups simply comes down to the groups’ personalities: some don’t blend.
Performance:Snickers and Squeals
When Susan McClary describes “the music itself” as “socially mediated patterns of kinetic energy, being in time, emotions, desire, pleasure and much more” (McClary 1994: 33), she eliminates the possibility of discussing music ethnographically without examining the performative aspects and audience responses to that music. The reaction to a genre of music is what allows that genre to exist as a subculture. Without performances and a fanbase to watch them, music would neither exist nor have the impact it has on society today.
While we were doing our research on a cappella, therefore, we made sure to ask questions about performance and fans to the members of the groups we interviewed, and to observe on our own the performances to witness firsthand what they meant.
There are a couple of things that seem to be keystones of a cappella performance. The first is an arc formation, as can be seen in this video. (N.B.: an arc is more like a "Half Circle” of Life). We noticed this at every a cappella performance we attended, as did Joshua Duchan in his ethnographic study of three a cappella groups from different Massachusetts Universities. When we asked our informants why groups preferred an arc formation, they all cited its acoustic value (it allows the performers to hear each other), and the ability of everyone in the arc to see each other and communicate with their eyes. Many often cited the increased connection and focus between group members that occurs during performance, as well as the boost in energy a live audience provides. Duchan also noticed, much as we did, that “many groups use choreography as well as spontaneous finger snapping or bobbing to the beat,” even “lower[ing] themselves physically during quiet musical passages...[to] coordinate the song’s dynamics and perform them more dramatically” (Duchan 2007: 205). This movement is often referred to affectionately as the “a cappella Bop” by scene insiders.
There’s definitely a difference between performing off-campus and on for a cappella groups. At a formal concert, “a group typically sings most or all of its repertory for the semester, usually between eight and sixteen songs” (Duchan 2007: 197). These big concerts are often rewarding because the audience has come specifically to see the group perform, whereas they may not have at the more casual social functions or paying “gigs” at which groups often perform. As Duchan notes, certain conventions of performance are common to all a cappella groups: these include “venues, the use of guest groups, social aspects of concert programming [and] stage formations” (Duchan 2007: 201). Many of the group members we interviewed at Brown, however, liked “Arch-Sings” the best because of their informal nature and reactive audiences. As Titon expressed in his article about Ethnomusicology, “the performance, audiences and performance times can be used to construct a set of expectation about music in the community, [with] some kinds of music...appropriate to several locations, times and audiences” (Titon 2002: 105). This seems to be the case with A Cappella. Brown groups have cited performances at such diverse locations as hospitals, the salvation army, house parties, and a pier in San Francisco. A Cappella seems to be a culture that is acceptable at many occasions and to many people
With this in mind, we decided to do a little research on the fanbase of Brown A Cappella. When asked who they believed their main fanbase to be, most of the performers we interviewed mentioned Musical Theatre people, their friends, and other A Cappella singers. With the extensive promotion that many groups do for their shows with Facebook events, table slips, and postering, one would think that A Cappella performances would attract a wider fanbase.
The limited fanbase seems to make sense, however, when considering Slobin’s definition of an affinity group (of which an a cappella Group is an example) as a “charmed circle of like-minded music-makers drawn magnetically to a certain genre that creates strong expressive bonding” (Slobin 1993: 98). A cappella people (many of whom participate in Musical Theatre) tend to like A Cappella music and have friends in other groups, and they are therefore more inclined to go to concerts. As we learned from interviews, however, many a cappella members also go to other groups’ concerts to analyze their performances for comparative and educational means. No matter what their reasons though, an a cappella audience is an interactive one. We heard woots and cheers, especially following an impressive vocal display or a particularly funny dance move. Occasionally, audience members will “[call] out the names of friends among the performers,” making many a cappella performances personal experiences (Duchan 2007: 201).
One of the more interesting aspects of fandom that we discovered through interviews and observation is that girls are more consistent fans of a cappella than boys. Girls simply seem to be more supportive of the scene. “If you like a cappella, and you’re not in a group, and you’re a guy,” a male member of the Higher Keys revealed, “you’re probably gay.” Although it seems like a harsh critique, we did witness severe stereotyping of people within the a cappella scene, even at a liberal institution such as Brown. Perhaps this is the reason why male groups seem to get more attention on campus (see next section!).
A Cappella Community:Intergalatic Interactions
The a cappella community on Brown's campus reaches far and wide and overlaps with many other activities but still manages to keep its own element of character. One member of the community says that Brown has a "very warm community...everyone knows each other." However there is a general consensus that the community as a whole isn't really integrated, but there is a desire for more integration between the groups. One member believes "it would relax the competition." Recently two groups on campus, The Higher Keys, a jazz/pop co-ed group, and The Bear Necessities, an all-male, all-suspendered group, did a flip flop arch sing in which soloists were swapped between groups as they perform and one member wished for that to happen more frequently: "What we did with the Bears, the flip flop arch sing, we should do that more often."
Professional a cappella competitions are one way of getting more a cappella groups to perform together. Started in 1995 by Deke Sharon of the Tufts Beezlebubs and Adam Farb of Brown’s Brown Derbies, the Best of Collegiate A Cappella (BOCA), a compilation of the year’s best collegiate a cappella recordings of the year (Duchan 2007:6). Sharon views it as an effective and efficient way of introducing a cappella to newcomers stating, “I started BOCA because I love collegiate a cappella and I wanted to share it with people…having one album where you can end up getting 15 great tracks is the most effective way.” (Slutsky 2005: 20). The International Championship of Collegiate A Cappella (ICCA), also started by the pair, are ways that a cappella groups can strengthen their music and performance, receive recognition for their work, hear other groups and learn from their techniques as well as compete for the top spot in a cappella.
One may think that because there is a surplus of groups on Brown’s campus that there must be competition for the top spot on campus between the groups, but the general opinion on that is mixed. One member of an all-male group feels like it existed once upon a time but says, “I feel like it exists less now, because we get along with so many people.” Competition for members during auditions is present, but competition over all is more unspoken. On the other hand, several members found that the personalities and reputations of the groups are so different, that there really can’t be any competition. However, members of coed groups feel that there is more competition between the single sex groups as to “which one’s… better,” as one member put it.
The overall gender dynamic of the Brown a cappella community is contrasting with the overall gender dynamic of the university. While many view Brown as progressive and feel that the female voice is present, in the intergalactic a cappella community at Brown, there is a general consensus that the all-male groups rule the scene. One member of an all-male group even went so far as to say, “no one cares about the all female groups,” but quickly recanted and masked it as a joke. However, his statement speaks to the notion that girls a cappella isn’t as appreciated and valued as all male a cappella. A member of a coed group says that common stereotypes are, “the sound isn’t as full [with girls a cappella]…the arrangements aren’t interesting.” Another member pointed out that girl (in addition to coed) groups have to work really hard on blending, whereas with guy groups, “it comes easy.” All of this isn’t to say that all male groups don’t get their share of flak from others in the a cappella community. Most male groups are seen as being very fraternal to the point of being “bro-ish” as one member put it.
Other members saw that the most common stereotype was that the all male groups were “all arrogant and all good,” or “cooler, more popular…even if their musical arrangement[s] aren’t as advanced.” A member of an all male a cappella group recalled back when he was a freshmen that the different all male groups had different personalities: “…musically, I always thought the Bears were the best…reputation wise, the Jabberwocks were the coolest group and the Derbies have fun.” There are many different opinions of coed groups’ stereotypes and all are very contrasting. One member found that “there’s more love. Or at least they show the love,” while another says that, “it’s almost too tough to get things done because of battles between male and female. No common wavelength.”
Conclusions
Much like any subculture, A Cappella has a style all its own in aspects of performance and musicality, and attracts a particular fanbase. Interactions between members of different groups and individuals within one group make A Cappella a true "scene" at Brown. Issues of gender stereotyping may affect these interactions, but they do not stop members of A Cappella groups from supporting each other. A Cappella may just be a style of Music, but at Brown it can also be considered a way of life. It brings people together under a common interest, much like any other subculture does. It can foster a sense of belonging and at a school as large as Brown, can create bonds between individuals that grow into everlasting friendships.
Word Count: 2748
Works Cited:
-Cohen, Sara. "Ethnography and Popular Music Studies." Popular Music, Vol. 12, No. 2 (May, 1993), pp. 123-138
-Duchan, Joshua S. Collegiate A Cappella: Emulation and Origniality. Diss. University of Michigan, 2007. Proquest Digital Dissertations. Proquest.
-Duchan, Joshua S (2007). “Powerful Voices: Performance and Interaction in Contemporary Collegiate A Cappella.” Michigan: University of Michigan, 1-346.
-Liemohn, Edwin. "Intonation and Blend in the A Cappella Choir". Music Educators Journal Jun.-Jul., 1958: 50-51.
-McClary, Susan (1994). “Same as It Ever Was: Youth Culture and Music.” Andrew Ross and
Tricia Rose, eds. Micropone Friends: Youth and Youth Culture. London: Routledge, 29-40.
-Slobin, Mark (1993). Subcultural Sounds: Micromusics of the West. Middletown: Wesleyan University Press, 98.
-Slutsky, Corey Brian Music Without Instruments. Diss. University of Southern California, 2005. Proquest Digital Dissertations. Proquest.
-Titon, Jeff (2002). Worlds of Music. New York: Schirmer, 464-474.
-Van Camp, Leonard. "The Formation of A Cappella Choirs at Northwestern University, St. Olaf College, and Westminster Choir College". Journal of Research in Music Education Winter 1965: 227-238.
The Group
Ethnographic Moment: Sami
A Cappella Community: Chantel
Intra-Group Relations: Brady
Performance: Sami
Conclusion: All
