Guest Post: Ten Things I’m Sick Of Seeing In Collegiate A Cappella
By Mike Chin on May 6, 2009 in Featured, Misc
Dave Grossman is a member of Ithaca College’s Ithacappella. Please note that the writing below is in no way representative of the views of Ithaca College or Ithacappella.
If you’re reading this article, the following three points are likely true:
-You sing a cappella
-You’ve seen and heard other a cappella besides your own group
-You care enough about your group to do some research for them.
Those things assumed, you’ve probably seen a lot of these a cappella pet peeves of mine, and you may have even been perpetrators of some of them. Regardless, the following is a list of songs and procedures that are done either all too often, or, when done occasionally, still don’t make any sense.
1. Coldplay’s Fix You – Honestly, I don’t understand what has drawn so many groups to performing this song. The really perplexing part is that groups still perform this song after it’s been done a thousand times.
2. Conducting for an entire song – This is completely unnecessary and very distracting for an audience member. As a music director, one of your goals needs to be to make the group independent for themselves to the point where they can feel an internal pulse individually and still work as a group. Also, showing every beat of a piece of music is going to constrict the singers more than help them. Remember, as a conductor or music director, your job is not for you to look like a great musician, it’s for your group to sound like great musicians. It usually seems that music directors conducting throughout entire songs are using unclear conducting gestures, anyways. This is hurting the group more than it’s helping. Flailing your hands around and flicking your wrists doesn’t really help anyone, and you’re likely to end up with some timing problems from it.
3. Conducting for an entire song when you’re the person doing vocal percussion on a song – Just think about this for a second. You’re already keeping the beat with your perc. Take all of the reasons for not conducting an entire song, and then realize that you’re already keeping the tempo.
4. Awkwardness – You sing a cappella. Do you have any idea how geeky this is? Collegiate a cappella is quite possibly the dorkiest thing in the world, next to reading Gizmodo.com up to ten times a day and counting the hours to the next Apple Keynote speech, both of which I do. Embrace the fact that you are a loser! I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen the tall guy in back with his hands in pockets looking up in space, trying to act a lot cooler than he really is. Sorry buddy, you’re singing ‘Doh dih wah dih no’ while your friend is belting out a Billy Joel song. You’ve already sunk, why don’t you make the best of a bad situation and have fun with it?
5. Hide and Seek by Imogen Heap – I’ve seen and/or heard this done well by two groups, Divisi and Transit. If you’re not going to do it as well as them or better, don’t do it. It’s a beautiful song, but with a song like this, you need to own it in the arrangement, the singing and the emotion. All three of these parameters should be up to par with the original at least, and preferably should have some innovations beyond what Imogen did so well already.
6. The ‘aca-bop.’ If I see one more group with accidentally synchronized alternating knee popping, I’m going to explode. This wouldn’t be so painful if it weren’t for the groups that put all of their energy into their knees. I recently saw a group where every member, including the soloists, had their hands falling lifelessly at their sides for the entire set, expressionless faces, but the bounciest knees the world has ever seen. They sounded great but seemed unbelievably bored to be there. I present a challenge to female groups out there, because this seems to plague your groups the most. Go nuts! As an audience member, if it looks like you’re having fun, we’ll have fun too. If you look bored, then we’ll be bored too.
7. Blowing multiple pitches from the pitch pipe to start a song – Music directors, you need to work to make your singers better musicians. If your singers can’t pick out their starting note from a tonic pitch, then something is wrong. You need to train them to do this. Teach them solfege, give them intervals that popular song melodies start with (Happy birthday, here comes the bride, NBC), but please stop blowing multiple pitches. It SCREAMS ‘We aren’t talented musicians’ and sets you guys up to sound bad.
8. The ‘Kih’ sound for snares where it shouldn’t be – This is another problem that seems to be seen a lot with female a cappella (guys do it too, I just see it more often in female) that doesn’t need to happen. There’s this ridiculous stigma that girls can’t do percussion as well as men do. Go tell that to the girls from Marblehead High School’s Luminescence or Wilmington High School’s Soundscape (co-ed group with a great female percussionist). I recently witnessed two high school girls do some of the best percussion I’ve ever heard. The ‘standard’ for a snare sound lately is a ‘Pff’ sound. It’s not pitched, so it doesn’t matter what your range is, so I don’t understand why I see so many people satisfied with this lame ‘Kih’ sound for a snare drum. It doesn’t carry, it sounds like a rim shot (which in some cases is very appropriate, but don’t give your audience a hard rock song with such a soft snare) and is unnecessary. Anyone can do the ‘pff’ sound, just practice it.
9. Using a slow song to start or end a set (or BOTH) – Take a moment and remove yourself from your group. Put yourself into the seats of your audience. You’re coming to an a cappella concert and you don’t know what to expect. What’s the first thing you want to see? A slow ballad? I highly doubt that. It’s a pretty safe assumption that as an audience is waiting for you to come on stage, they want to get their socks rocked off with energy, not necessarily that beautiful blended ‘oo’ for four minutes that moves your group to tears every time (or better yet, if you can achieve both of these factors… do it). What may be worse is ending a set with a downer. This is the last thing your audience will have to remember you by. Make them remember fun, not that they almost fell asleep half way through the second verse.
10. Skits/Videos/Jokes that aren’t funny and take up a big chunk of the concert and time that could be used for rehearsal – Go to a Cornell Last Call concert. If you’re not that funny, then stop spending more than 10 minutes right before a concert putting together a video with a silly plot or pointless skits and go practice. If you ARE that funny, make sure you can still sound as good as those guys do when they’re doing it.
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Agreed on most counts. The conducting actually ticks me off; I have a physical negative reaction to it while I’m in the audience.
Although I am also tired of bad renditions of “Fix You,” I’m surprised you don’t see what draws people to it. It’s a brilliant piece, at least in the original. But I agree it’s overdone, and usually poorly — I’ve seen maybe 15 covers of it, and probably 14 of those were not moving.
Dave Brown | May 7, 2009 | Reply
I agree with a majority of this. The conducing irritates me. Pitch blowing drives me insane. Pick the one note and go with it. Don’t play all 3, or 4.. or anything over 1. The ending on a slow song I am 50/50 on. It can be pulled off, but very rarely.
Great information!
Nick | May 7, 2009 | Reply
I absolutely see how it can be moving. To clarify, my reasons for not doing Fix You are the same as the reasons to not do Hide & Seek, and for the exact example you gave, 14 out of 15 times it’s not done with any real emotion. I think it’s a great song, and with a killer arrangement, authentic soloist and emotionally powerful singing in the backs, it can be a great piece. Almost all of these items are things that *can* be pulled off effectively, i.e. Hide and Seek, videos, the ‘kih’ sound. I just find myself cringing every time I hear the opening two chords of Fix You and so rarely does that feeling fade, as the arrangements never go anywhere, the soloists never seem to ‘get it,’ and the rest of the group is singing, i kid you not, ‘tomato tomato tomato tupee’. I wish those syllables were a joke, but I’ve actually heard them in fix you.
I’d like to see someone in college sing it with an understanding like this guy, but I don’t think it’s possible: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZ4SIe5rVUM
Dave Grossman | May 11, 2009 | Reply
I agree with some of these but disagree on many of the reasons why. Basically the author is saying don’t sing if you suck. That’s not the mind set we should be having. Sing if it makes you have fun, sing if you love it.
1. Coldplay’s Fix You is a nice soothing song, easy to cover, easy to arrange. Don’t cover it because many groups have? there are other songs that have been covered just as much. It’s always interesting to see another group cover it to see how creative they can get. if they don’t do it well, hey, at least they tried. if you don’t like it, don’t watch/listen.
2&3. This is something more experienced groups should not be doing period. But for beginning groups, many members are focused on their own notes that they have a hard time following. especially with a performance, there can be stage fright and panic modes. It is annoying but it can help for more beginning groups. There are other reasons too, just think about being on stage for the first time. its nervewrecking.
4. I don’t understand why you put this down period. It’s one of the most supid and childish points. We’re in college, we’ve moved on from the high school mindset of seperation of cool kids and losers. I don’t know about you, but when i tell people I started my own acappella group, most people are like wow you can sing! that usually gets the ladies too. Same with VP. most people are very curious towards people who can beatbox.
5. Now this is also a very immature stand point. What if we said, if your group is not as good as BYU’s Vocal point the 2 years they won BOCA you should disband and stop singing acappella, most people would agree on how stupid that sounds. Different people have different tastes. you definition of good is different from mine. PErsonally as a singer, i love just spreading music. It’s not always about how perfect you sound, but its also about your stage presence and being able to connect with the audience even if you go off tune a little from dancing around. Go sing in a nursing home or something, people appreciate the music, and they love the interaction. Just because people can’t sing as well as other groups, doesn’t mean they shouldn’t. PS last year divisi was pretty crappy. a lot of their members graduated or swapped out. They probably couldn’t even cover their own song as well as their recording.
gunna skip 6.
7. Blowing multiple notes is okay. Most people DON’T think, hey these singers suck cuz that member blew an extra note. You’re just being picky now. This is also a stupid bullet.
9. Slow songs can work, especially powerful ones that may end up leading up to an encore. its also what you want from your set. if anything i remember watching the house jacks live and the only song I really remember is their slow song tribute to 9/11. Same with UCB men’s octet’s spring concert 2 years ago, i only remember their slow song “hurt” because it was the most powerful and moving. If they ended with that, i would have felt extremely moved, partially at unease. Sometimes it works though. Its like if you were at a fundraiser for lets say aids. They’re not going to play happy videos about people with aids. They’re going to play sad songs behind the people talking about their experiences and their struggles. All-in-all, it could work.
Finally, based on your logic, you should never write an article again because you don’t write as well as other writers. I personally think this was just an article from a very inexperienced musician trying to justify a cause. It was poorly written. You’re trying to justify absolutes and biased-ness.
<3Kaje.
Kaje | May 15, 2009 | Reply
2) Sometimes it’s kind’ve cool to watch a member conduct a song, I don’t think it should be necessary but if it’s only done for a song or two I don’t mind it.
6) Yeah, nothing shows how awkward a group is more than awkward choreography on top of awkward singing. I’d rather watch a group in the arc formation the entire time if they’re having a good time with it than forced movements no one really seems to want to do.
7) I completely disagree with this one, I think it’s just a pet peeve people develop to be pretentious. “Oh no, they’re taking an extra 15 seconds to ensure their song sounds good.”
8) Beat boxing is something where, if you’re talented enough you can really personalize it and make it interesting. I find you can get a range of different snare sounds if you vary the “kih” sound, and while I’m not against the “pft” sound EVERYONE does it and while it doesn’t bother me it doesn’t excite me at all either.
10) I think people often forget that they are in their own singing group and instead try to be every other a cappella group. This also goes for groups doing songs that everyone else does such as Fix You or Hide and Seek.
Another issue that bothers me is whether or not a soloist should try to sound like themselves or like the original soloist of a song.
Craig Shay | May 19, 2009 | Reply
Stop knocking a cappella! Especially if you sing in it or is a fan of it. I have a hard enough time defending it at my high school. Also, though I agree that the concept sounds lame, I have never met anyone who went to an a cappella concert and didn’t come out impressed.
Tiffany | Jun 26, 2009 | Reply