Measure for Measure: Preparing against your competitors
By Mike Chin on Apr 1, 2009 in Featured, Measure for Measure
In Measure for Measure, an A Cappella Blog contributor takes a look at both sides of a controversial issue in collegiate a cappella.
It is unethical for a group to watch its competition and plan to counteract others’ material with its own performance.
True: Scouting out the competition and tailoring your set beat them is not right. Competition should be about bringing the very best of your group to the big stage—not about seeing what other people are doing and adjusting accordingly. Planning your set in such a way can manifest itself in a number of different ways. There’s flat out copying songs, moves or arrangements. Doing this indicates that a group lacks creativity, but thinks it can compensate by executing someone else’s material better. Otherwise, there’s planning out a set for the purpose of being different from a competitor’s set. Your competition does one of the songs from your repertoire better? Steer clear of it. Your competition is putting the crowd to sleep with back to back ballads? Bring on the energy with your own group.
In end, this strategy is unethical, and, quite frankly, mean-spirited. There’s no place for it in the ICCAs. Competitive collegiate a cappella groups need to succeed on their own merits.
False: Is it wrong for a football coach to use game footage from a competing teams game to prepare? Of course not! Collegiate a cappella is no different. If you can spot your opponents’ strengths and counteract them, and spot their weaknesses and exploit them, why wouldn’t you? If you don’t, it doesn’t mean your competition won’t, and you’re just going to get left with the short end of the stick.
The fact of the matter is that, with technology today, it’s easier and easier to scout what other groups are doing. Failing to take advantage of this opportunity to prepare is like skipping an important rehearsal, or not bothering to plan the visual presentation of one your songs. It’s lazy, it’s a waste, and it will hurt your chances for success.
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I agree that it’s mean spirited to copy another group’s repertoire in order to beat that group at competition. However, I have to point out that many groups have been inspired by other groups’ choreography moves, song choices, and even outfits, whether they saw them at past competitions or at acappella festivals. There is a line between being inspired by a certain group’s creativity interpret certain cool aspects from that group and outright sabotage. If every group only paid attention to his or her own group and never looked at another group, what would be the point of ICCA? How else would ideas spread and morph into other cool choreography moves or arrangement pieces if every group only focused on just his or her own group instead of appreciating and absorbing other groups’ ideas? I don’t think any one group can honestly say that it has never ever been inspired by another group. That would not only be false but also arrogant. How many choreography moves can honestly be considered a true original? I give credit to jazz, ballet, hip-hop, step, and other dance movements for a vast majority of choreography in the acappella world. And acappella groups themselves are not exactly ‘original’ considering that they take already existing songs to arrange. Granted, some arrangements I’ve heard have blown me away and can even be considered better than the original, but the fact that acappella groups exist because they take already existing songs and put a new twist to it, shows that we all get our ideas and inspirations from another source. Otherwise, we’d all be writing our own material.
yli | Apr 1, 2009 | Reply
I say soak up everything you can from as many places as you can find it! If something inspires you, dandy. Copying is kinda lame IMO, but otherwise, I say look, listen, and improve!
Dave Brown | Apr 1, 2009 | Reply