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A cappella



One of the legendary 50's R&B groups were the Nutmegs, who were also known as the "Rajahs of a cappella". They were the first of these groups to proudly showcase an a cappella format which became their trademark. Later, many other groups recorded at least one a cappella song. The Classics, singers of "Till then", scored a very popular a cappella hit, "I Apologize". Later in the 1970s, The Belmonts released a seminal a cappella album entitled Cigars, Acappella, Candy,[4] which is representative of the genre.

Contemporary a cappella includes many vocal bands who add vocal percussion or beatboxing to create a pop/rock sound, in some cases very similar to bands with instruments. One such group is Rockapella. There also remains a strong a cappella presence within Christian music, as some denominations purposefully do not use instruments during worship. Examples of such groups are Take 6 and Acappella.

Arrangements of popular music for small a cappella ensembles typically include one voice singing the lead melody, one singing a rhythmic bass line, and the remaining voices contributing chordal or polyphonic accompaniment.

A cappella can also describe the practice of using just the vocal track(s) from a multitrack, instrumental recording to be remixed or put onto vinyl records for DJs. Artists sometimes release the vocal tracks of their popular songs so that fans can remix them. One such example is the a cappella release of Jay-Z's Black Album, which Danger Mouse mixed with the Beatles' White Album to create The Grey Album.

A cappella's growth is not limited to live performance, with hundreds of recorded a cappella albums produced over the past decade. As of December 2006, the Recorded A Cappella Review Board (RARB) had reviewed over 660 a cappella albums since 1994, and its popular discussion forum had over 900 users and 19,000 articles. The first a cappella song ever to reach number one on the bilboard Hot 100 was Bobby McFerrin's Don't Worry, Be Happy.

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Collegiate a cappella

Main article: Collegiate a cappella
See also: List of collegiate a cappella groups

One of the oldest collegiate a cappella groups is The Whiffenpoofs of Yale University,[5] formed in 1909, which once included Cole Porter as a member.[5] Collegiate a cappella groups grew throughout the twentieth century. The numbers of these groups exploded in beginning in the 1990s, fueled in part by a change in the style – voices used as modern rock instruments, including vocal percussion/"beatboxing." Some larger universities now have a dozen groups or more and the total number of college groups grew from 250 circa 1990 to over 1,000 now. In 2006, Columbia University's Kingsmen were featured in the film The Good German. The groups often join one another in on-campus concerts, such as the Chimes' Cherry Tree Massacre, a 3-weekend a cappella festival held each February since 1975, where over a hundred collegiate groups have appeared, as well as International Quartet Champions, The Boston Common, and the contemporary commercial a cappella group Rockapella. Some other groups include the Harvard Krokodiloes[6], On The Rocks (University of Oregon), and Simmons Sirens from Simmons College (Massachusetts) in Boston. Co-ed groups have produced many up-and-coming artists including solo musician John Legend, an alumnus of the Counterparts at the University of Pennsylvania, and Siddhartha Khosla, lead singer of the band Goldspot (featured on the OC), an alumnus of both Off the Beat and Penn Masala at the University of Pennsylvania

A cappella is gaining popularity among South Asian youth with the emergence of primarily Hindi-English College groups. Examples of all-male groups include Penn Masala in the University of Pennsylvania and Raagapella in Stanford. All-female groups are less common, but still exist. An example of an all-female group is Illini Chandani, from the University of Illinois. Co-ed South Asian a cappella groups are also gaining popularity. Ektaal, founded in 1999 within the University of Virginia, recently went co-ed in 2006, but prior to that, was an all-female group. Several similar groups exist in other colleges. These groups have attained significant critical acclaim with their distinct style of mixing songs and applying a cappella to styles of different cultures. Penn Masala has songs in Hindi, Arabic, English, Punjabi and Gujarati, with lyrics from different languages in the same song.

Increased interest in modern a cappella (particularly collegiate a cappella) can be seen in the growth of awards such as the Contemporary A Cappella Recording Awards (overseen by the Contemporary A Cappella Society) and competitions such as the International Championship of Collegiate A Cappella for college groups and the Harmony Sweepstakes for all groups.

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Emulating instruments

In addition to singing words, some a cappella singers also emulate instrumentation by reproducing the melody with their vocal cords. For instance, "Twilight Zone" by 2 Unlimited was sung a cappella to the instrumentation on the comedy television series Tompkins Square. Another famous example of emulating instrumentation instead of singing the words is the theme song for The New Addams Family series on Fox Family Channel (now ABC Family). Groups such as Vocal Sampling and Undivided emulate Latin rhythms a cappella. In the 1960s, the Swingle Singers used their voices to emulate musical instruments to Baroque and Classical music. Vocal artist Bobby McFerrin is famous for his instrumental emulation, and Deke Sharon has taught seminars on how to sing a variety of instrumental sounds.

The Swingle Singers used nonsense words to sound like instruments, but have been known to produce non-verbal versions of musical instruments. Like the other groups, examples of their music can be found on YouTube. Beatboxing is a form of a cappella music popular in the hip-hop community, where rap is often performed a cappella also.

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References

  1. ^ William C. Holmes. "A cappella", Grove Music Online, ed. L. Macy (accessed March 22, 2007), grovemusic.com (subscription access).
  2. ^ "a cappella". (2006). In Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved December 2, 2006, from Encyclopædia Britannica Online
  3. ^ Shircago, Jewish A Cappella and Sefirat Omer.
  4. ^ The Belmonts – Cigars, Acappella, Candy. Music Hills. Retrieved on 2007-09-13.
  5. ^ a b The Yale Whiffenpoofs. United Singers International. Retrieved on 2007-09-14.
  6. ^ Rapkin, Mickey. "Perfect Tone, in a Key That’s Mostly Minor." The New York Times, 2008-03-23, Sunday Styles section, p. 1.

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See also

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External links




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