Collegiate A Cappella:
From the Yale Whiffenpoofs to ARRR!!!, a cappella is a realm of student musicianship with a vast and diverse range of styles and genres. Within the past 20 years there has been a boom of popularity, and a burst of a cappella groups on many different campuses. The styles have greatly expanded to include rock, jazz, funk, alternative and hip hop, which has brought an entirely new culture of percussion and beatboxing methods. Along with secular genres, new spiritual and religiously themed groups have started as well. Brown University's intergalactic world of a cappella is a grand world, indeed, with more students involved in a cappella per capita than any other university in the nation. I plan to work in collaboration with Brady Waibel and Sami Horneff in observing, studying, comparing and presenting the ins and outs of Brown's a cappella community.
Some of the questions I would like to raise are:
1.) How integrated are the groups on Brown's campus? If not very, what is reasoning behind the lack of integration and overall communication between groups?
2.) Are the styles of the different groups prohibited from being similar in anyway to prevent competition? Does it occur naturally?
3.) When it comes to singing publicly, why an arch?
4.) Are fans of a cappella generally one gender over the other? Which gender and why?
5.) How do co-ed and single sex groups interact? Do they at all? How are the interactions different?
Ways we hope to explore this music scene and answer these and many other questions include interviews with members of a cappella and their fans and observe rehearsals and performances. Objectivity will be key, seeing as we are all involved in the a cappella community, and that can be accomplished by interviewing groups that we are not members of. By looking at a cappella from the outside in and comparing the different groups and styles, we hope to gain a better understanding of a world and scene we exposed ourselves to early in our collegiate careers.
