Collegiate a Cappella, Joshua Duchan

Collegiate a Cappella: Emulation and OriginalityAuthor(s): Joshua S. DuchanSource: American Music, Vol. 25, No. 4 (Winter, 2007), pp. 477-506Published by: University of Illinois PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40071679Accessed: 29/04/2010 19:05

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Collegiate A Cappella: Emulation and Originality

JOSHUA S.DUCHAN

A cappella groups thrive on college and university campuses throughout the nation (and beyond). The genre of amateur vocal music these groups represent has grown prodigiously in numbers and prominence over the past twenty-five years or so. There are now about a thousand collegiate a cappella groups in the United States, many of whom in recent years have seen flattering press coverage in major media outlets.1 Typically consisting of up to sixteen singers who come in all-male, all-female, and mixed varieties, these groups draw most of their repertory from popular music recordings of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.

Collegiate a cappella balances emulation - a desire to sound like its recorded models - with an aspiration for originality. The Oxford English Dictionary defines "emulation" as "the endeavour to equal or surpass others in any achievement or quality."2 This nicely captures how the term applies to a musical practice that uses certain techniques in order for the vocal-only presentation of a song to "equal" the commercial recording (which usually includes instruments). These techniques might be described as "imitation" or "mimicry," especially if the instrumental function of the vocal parts is clear. Other techniques, however, aim to "surpass" the commercial recording. By offering new musical ideas, those techniques add originality to the song and/or its presentation. Although emulation and originality have an inherent tension and sometimes contradict each other, both pervade the practice of a cappella.

Joshua S. Duchan received his Ph.D. in musicology from the University of Michi- gan in 2007. The present article is adapted from a portion of his dissertation, "Powerful Voices: Performance and Interaction in Contemporary Collegiate A Cappella." He is currently a postdoctoral fellow in the Music Department at Kalamazoo College, Kalamazoo, Mich., where he teaches courses in American music, world music and cultures, and popular music.

American Music Winter 2007 © 2008 by the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

478 Duchan

Certain musical characteristics distinguish collegiate a cappella from other American popular and secular vocal ensembles, such as barbershop quartets, doo-wop groups, and glee clubs. First, a cappella takes recordings of rock songs as its raw material and maintains rock's musical distinction between the lead solo and its accompaniment, whereas barbershop draws its repertory from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and features primarily equal-voice settings.3 Second, the vocal percussion and degree of instrumental imitation found in a cappella (both described below) separate it from doo-wop, which relied on pitched voices and, in some cases, actual instruments for its rhythmic drive.4 Third, the limited size and student leadership of a cappella groups sets them apart from most modern glee clubs.5

Because collegiate a cappella takes popular recordings as its raw material, it provides an excellent case study of intertextuality and recontextualization in popular music. At its core lies the practice of "covering." Although terminological agreement seems elusive, scholars tend to distinguish between at least two types of covering. David Horn draws a distinction between covering, which "generally requires some kind of close approximation to an original," and "interpreting," which "may possibly involve that, but does not have to."6 Deena Weinstein pairs the idea of a cover with that of a "version," and differentiates the two by their reference to preexisting material:

A cover song iterates (with more or fewer differences) a prior recorded performance of a song by a particular artist, rather than simply the song itself as an entity separate from any performer or performance. When the song itself (as opposed to the performance) is taken as the reference for iteration, each performer does a version or a rendition of the song, and none of these versions is a necessary reference.7

On the other hand, Serge Lacasse associates "the idea of interpretation or reading" directly with the process of covering, which he defines as "a rendering of a previously recorded song that displays the usual stylistic configuration of the covering artist."8 Note Lacasse's and Weinstein's specific references to previously recorded material, which is not found in Horn's distinction but which is particularly relevant to collegiate a cappella.

I take Weinstein's definitions as a point of departure because they offer the most useful and specific distinction within the realm of mimetic, in- tertextual practices. Despite the theoretical distinctions in the discourse of popular music scholarship, however, genres also exist in which such distinctions as "covers" and "versions" necessarily blur. The techniques discussed here, and the social motivations for them, illustrate how a cappella draws on both ideas simultaneously.9

Collegiate A Cappella 479

The claims in this article do not necessarily apply to all collegiate a cappella groups. They are based primarily on ethnographic research with a handful of groups and my own experience with a cappella in various capacities.10 The historical background with which I begin merely sketches a cappella's history in order to provide context. Thereafter I hope to lay a foundation on which future a cappella research can build.11

Historical Background

Collegiate a cappella emerged from earlier vocal genres on college and university campuses, including colonial and early nineteenth-century choral groups at universities such as Dartmouth, Harvard, and Yale. Surviving tunebooks and songsters, containing both sacred and secular songs, offer evidence of organized college singing in colonial America.12 In 1807, the Handel Society was founded at Dartmouth College.13 The following year saw the start of the Pierian Sodality, an instrumental club at Harvard whose meetings also included singing.14 The Yale Musical Society, founded in 1812, was an ensemble of twelve chapel singers, and in 1826, the school's Beethoven Society added secular songs to its repertory.15 Groups like these performed at commencement ceremonies and proms, and sometimes traveled to instructional "conventions" and academic festivals across New England.

Collegiate glee clubs appeared in the middle of the nineteenth century, with the first founded in 1858 at Harvard by Benjamin William Crownin- shield after earlier attempts in 1833, 1834, and 1841 failed to take root.16 Throughout the 1840s and 1850s, Yale students formed vocal ensembles with other members of their class; the Yale Glee Club coalesced in 1861 out of this tradition. Glee clubs were (and largely continue to be) single-sex ensembles, which for several decades operated without the direct leadership of university personnel. For example, the University of Michigan Men's Glee Club, founded in 1859, first came under faculty leadership in 1908, and the Harvard Glee Club was led by Archibald T. Davison, professor of choral music at Harvard, beginning in 1912.17

Small vocal ensembles formed within and alongside college glee clubs and were popular as early as the 1840s.18 Collegiate a cappella is often said to start with the Whiffenpoofs, a seven-man group that emerged from the Varsity Quartet, an elite subset of the Yale Glee Club. The Whiffen- poofs began in January 1909, with regular weekly performances at Mory's Temple Bar, a popular student pub in New Haven. They are generally regarded as the first collegiate a cappella group because they are the old- est continuously existing group (still active today) and have remained administratively distinct from the university's official choral ensembles, including the Glee Club.19

Collegiate a cappella has also been influenced in the twentieth century

480 Duchan

by other amateur and commercial vocal genres, which provided college- age singers with inspiration, models to follow, and vocal innovations to adopt. Barbershop quartet singing, for example, was a prominent and popular genre of close-harmony singing beginning around the turn of the twentieth century. Many of barbershop's social effects, which scholars such as Gage Averill and Liz Garnett have investigated, can be found in a cappella practice.20 Musically, much of the Whiffenpoofs' early repertory draws heavily on the barbershop style.21

Instrumental imitation, one of collegiate a cappella's key features, origi- nated not in barbershop practice, however, but in other, more commercially oriented, vocal genres. For example, the Mills Brothers, one of the most popular vocal groups of the swing era, made remarkably convincing vocal imitations of instruments.22 In the 1950s urban street-corner doo- wop, recorded and made popular by many vocal quartets and quintets, followed suit. Commercial vocal harmony continued into the 1980s and 1990s, as a cappella hits such as Billy Joel's "The Longest Time" (1983), Bobby McFerrin's "Don't Worry, Be Happy" (1988), and Boyz II Men's "It's So Hard to Say Goodbye to Yesterday" (1991) topped the charts and earned critical recognition.23 These songs appeared during the very period when collegiate a cappella proliferated rapidly on American college campuses and likely contributed to this expansion (see figure I).24

Most early collegiate a cappella took place at elite institutions in the northeastern United States. TTiese included the Ivy League schools, which claimed twenty-six groups (with Yale's eleven more than double any other of the elite eight), as well as numerous other esteemed institutions in that part of the country, including Amherst College (DQ, 1926), Wil- liams College (Williams Octet, 1940), Vassar College (Night Owls, 1942), and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Logarhythms, 1949).25 But the number grew dramatically in the late 1980s through the 1990s. In 1980 there were approximately 110 active groups. These included the Whiffenpoofs, Spizzwinks(?)26 (1914), and Alley Cats (1943) at Yale as well as groups like the Smiffenpoofs (Smith College, 1936), the Kingsmen (Columbia University, 1949), the Friars (University of Michigan, 1955), the Beelzebubs (Tufts University, 1962), and the Clef Hangers (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1977). By the end of the 1980s, at least 226 groups existed. The geographic scope began to widen, with groups established at institutions such as the University of Vermont (Top Cats, 1980), Washington University, St. Louis (Pikers, 1985), York University, Toronto (Wibijazz'n, 1988), and the University of Georgia (Noteworthy, 1989). Within the next decade, 313 new groups had begun - more in the period 1990-99 than in the prior eighty-one years. The most new groups were established in 1996, when forty-six were founded in a single year. The first five years of the new century show approximately the same growth rate as the previous decade.


Figure 1. Growth of Collegiate A Cappella, 1909-2005.

Changes in high school music education in the United States had nur- tured the growth of collegiate a cappella. The contest movement that

began in Kansas in 1914, for example, enabled school choral ensembles to participate in organized competitions, stimulating the forming of glee clubs and granting them respectability. The 1928 meeting of the Music

Supervisors National Conference (MSNC) was dubbed a "singing conference" and featured numerous high school a cappella choir performances and a quartet contest. Between 1928 and 1934 the MSNC hosted the National High School Chorus. Finally, music publishers realized the

potential of the high school choir market and began advertising in music education journals.27

By the end of the "a cappella craze" of the 1930s and '40s, unaccom-

panied choral singing was firmly established in the curriculum. This continued into the second half of the century, when music educators

increasingly embraced popular music.28 Following the Tanglewood Sym- posium of 1967, the Music Educators National Conference endorsed

popular music in music education.29 Two years later, in the summer of 1969, the Youth Music Institute was convened at the University of Wis- consin so that high school students could teach popular music styles to teachers.30 Such events helped lay the foundations for the collegiate a

cappella boom in the '80s and '90s. But that boom also depended on the integration of male and female

students in American colleges and universities. Early single-sex a cappella groups, such as the Yale Whiffenpoofs and the Smith Smiffenpoofs,

482 Duchan

were founded at single-sex schools. Although some schools with strong a cappella scenes, such as Stanford University (founded in 1891), were coeducational from the start, many more became so during the twentieth century. For example, in the Ivy League, Princeton and Yale began to admit women in 1969, Brown in 1971, Dartmouth and Harvard in 1972, and Columbia in 1983.31 By early 2007, the College Board listed fifty- one women's, sixty-five men's, and 3,724 coed colleges in its database.32 Not surprisingly then, as figure 1 shows (above), mixed groups lagged significantly in popularity until the early 1980s; by the mid-1990s they actually surpassed in number the single-sex groups.

While collegiate a cappella began to grow more rapidly, a new genera- tion of professional a cappella groups emerged, including the Manhattan Transfer (founded 1972), the Nylons (1979), the Bobs (1982), Rockapella (1986), Take 6 (1988), the House Jacks (1991), and Five O'Clock Shadow (1991). These groups provided sounds that served as models for the grow- ing collegiate scene. A popular PBS television documentary directed by Spike Lee, Spike & Co.: Do It A Cappella (1990), featured Rockapella, Take 6, and others. It was influential enough to garner praise in the Contem- porary A Cappella Newsletter, a publication of the nascent Contemporary A Cappella Society (CASA), which was founded in 1991 by former Tufts University Beelzebubs member Deke Sharon.33

Coinciding with the a cappella boom of the 1990s was the rise of the Internet. E-mail, Usenet discussion boards, and the World Wide Web became increasingly accessible, especially on college and university campuses where connections were usually fast and efficient. In the early '90s, a cappella enthusiasts shared messages containing questions, tips, and discussions of recordings and performances on the Usenet board rec.music.a-cappella. In 1994 the Recorded A Cappella Review Board (RARB) began as an on-line archive of a cappella recording reviews, a critical apparatus for the a cappella community. The website continues to host a discussion forum to which professional and collegiate singers, engineers, and other enthusiasts regularly contribute.34

In 1995 Deke Sharon and Adam Farb, a 1994 Brown University graduate, started the annual Best of College A Cappella (BOCA) compilation albums. Continuing to this day, the BOCA series highlights the "best" collegiate a cappella recordings each year.35 In 1996 Sharon and Farb established a live competition, now called the International Champion- ship of Collegiate A Cappella (ICC A), which draws college groups from all regions of the United States and, since 2006, Western Europe. Thus, between these two competitions, CASA, and RARB, several institutions emerged over the course of the 1990s that organized and institutional- ized collegiate a cappella practice and provided spaces, both physical and virtual, where music and musical ideas could be shared.


Emulation in A Cappella In collegiate a cappella, emulation is necessary, though rarely sufficient. A successful arrangement must preserve important harmonic, rhythmic, and melodic aspects of a song's commercial recording. An audience's ability to recognize a song, despite the shift from a vocal and instrumental pop record to the voices-only medium, does much to determine an arrangement's success and, by extension, a group's as well. Two members of Company B, a mixed group at Brandeis University in Waltham, Mas- sachusetts, agreed that arrangements closely mimicking the commercial recordings help determine a song's success in performance:

jb: The reason that we try to stay so true to the song is so that when we sing it, it sounds like the song. We want our arrangement to be the song, just a cappella. You know, we don't want to change it [from] the way the artist intended it to be. So -

ll: And then the audience really catches onto it -

jb: Yeah. ll: - and they really like the way it's just how they heard it on the ra-

dio.36

Their language reveals that they are talking about the sound of an artist's commercial recording. To them, it is obvious that the "song" is the recording, and it needs to be reproduced accurately to satisfy audiences.37

A starting point is transcription, simply notating for voices what is played by instruments. Anna Callahan, author of the only arranging manual specifically for collegiate a cappella, proposes a continuum on which she locates three types of arranging: (1) "transcribing," (2) what she calls "transanging," and (3) "true arranging." Her language seems to place the greatest value on the latter:

[Transcribing:] the act of listening to something and writing down exactly what you hear.

[Transanging:] to convert a song originally played with instru- mentation into an a cappella song without substantially changing the melody, harmonic structure, or style. Transanging often involves restructuring, simplification, range adjustments, syllable assigning, and other modifications of the original, but is always replicating the original version.

[True arranging:] This is the type of arranging that I call "true" arranging, not because transcribing and transanging aren't useful, difficult, or creative, but because this type of arranging allows you the freedom to really express yourself. [Includes dramatic changes of style, mood, meter, form, and dynamic growth.]38

484 Duchan

Callahan's terminology suggests that emulation alone fails to produce "true" a cappella, or to allow arrangers and singers "to really express" themselves. Other practicing a cappella musicians agree. For example, in 2004, one arranger criticized "strictly imitative charts." He wrote, "I

agree with those . . . who are tired of literal transcriptions of pop tunes. That's not art, it's math. I don't want to go to math concerts."39

Still, at its core, a cappella is about originality achieved through some form of emulation. An adequate a cappella arrangement (and performance) sounds like the song's commercial recording. Weinstein would consider that a cover, albeit with voices only - a significant caveat. But an excellent arrangement will present the song in a new way that pays homage to the original while adding something unexpected.

Collegiate a cappella arrangers typically begin the process of arranging by listening to the song's commercial recording. Only rarely did I hear of

arrangers using commercially published piano and vocal arrangements as starting points. Occasionally, arrangers download MIDI arrangements of songs from the Internet to use as models.40 Mostly, however, they lis- ten closely and repeatedly to a song's original recording and determine the necessary instrumental parts, chord structures, and other important distinctive aspects to incorporate into their arrangement.

While some a cappella groups sing commercially available arrangements, most also create their own. Some singers bring considerable musical experience to their group, rendering them fluent in music notation and/or composition. But a cappella arrangements are different from other choral arrangements (see below), so some additional instruction is necessary before these individuals can effectively arrange for their group. Most arrangers learn by observation; they see, sing, and experience the arrangements already in their group's repertory and discern their basic components and effective aspects. However, some groups take a more active role in training arrangers. In Company B, all first-time arrangers must partner with an experienced arranger in order to learn the process. Thus, whether through observation or more explicit pedagogy, arrangers learn how to be both emulative and original.

One emulative technique involves expanding the number and function of vocal parts. While many collegiate a cappella arrangements reflect the standard SATB, SSAA, or TTBB configurations of the traditional West- ern choral repertory, many others go beyond this, calling for more vocal lines and a more complex texture. An arrangement of Michael Jackson's "Human Nature" by VoiceMale, a male group at Brandeis University, features six background singers, one vocal percussionist, and the lead soloist. Members of VoiceMale take pride in the fact that each sings his own part. "It doesn't take sixteen people to sing a four-note chord," the group's music director told me, echoing a motto taught to him by a predecessor.41


That is, once singers are assigned to each necessary chord tone, the others are better used to serve other functions, such as imitating instrumental riffs from the commercial recording. In VoiceMale's arrangement of "Human Nature" (see ex. 1), which itself is based on a 2004 Boyz II Men

recording, four voices provide the basic chordal backing and rhythmic texture (the "acoustic guitar" staves, abbreviated "Ac Gtr"), while another

sings the muted guitar's melodic interjections ("Muted Gtr"). By using more than four parts, the VoiceMale arrangement more ef-

fectively mimics the commercial recordings of "Human Nature." (Other a cappella groups use this technique as well, even if more than one voice

sings each part.) Thus, rather than reducing or adapting a piece to the standard choral medium as many traditional choral arrangements do, the

goal here is to create a vocal original by expanding the medium itself.

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Example 1. Michael Jackson's "Human Nature," verse. Arranged by Drew Cohen for Brandeis Univeristy VoiceMale, 2004. Author's transcription based on field recordings from November 9, 2004.

486 Duchan

Syllables

One of the most distinctive aspects of collegiate a cappella arrangements is their vocables (called "syllables" by the singers). Before the 1990s, a cappella groups drew on the familiar palette of syllables from the glee club, barbershop, and doo-wop. "Doo," "bum," "bop," "wah," and open vowels such as "ooo," "oh," or "ah" were common. If the song's lyrics suggested such opportunities, one might occasionally hear a walking bass, a mimetic "beep-beep" of automobile horns, or a momentary im- personation of brass. Much of the time, however, the ensemble would sing together as a homophonic unit, harmonizing the song's melody. For example, most of the twenty-two tracks on the Whiffenpoofs' LP, The Whiffenpoofs of 1958, feature homophonic ensemble singing, even on arrangements that include a soloist. At times when soloists do stand out from the ensemble, the background singers most often sing the syllables "doo," "bum," or open vowels. (Brass band mimicry can be heard in the Whiffenpoofs' recording of Rodgers and Hart's "Johnny One Note.")

Throughout the 1980s, a cappella recordings increasingly separated the background parts from the soloist, with fewer and shorter instances of background voices harmonizing the melody. Instead, background voices more often functioned as accompaniment. The purely homorhythmic texture of earlier records also gave way to more complex rhythms, including broken chords called "bell chords," "pyramids," or "cascades" in barbershop parlance.42 "Doo" and "ba" continued, however, as the mainstays of syllable choice. For example, with the exception of one track (a cover of Mack Gordon and Harry Warren's "Chattanooga Choo- Choo"), every song on the University of North Carolina Clef Hangers' album Safari (1992) features at least one soloist while backgrounds con- tinually use the syllables "doo" and "ba."

An important stylistic shift occurred in the mid-1990s, as groups began using syllables with a j sound, such as "jun," "jin," "sjun," in order to more effectively emulate the sound of a guitar strum. It is unclear who used such syllables first, but "jun" or one of its variants first appears on the Best of College A Cappella compilation album's second installment (1996) on tracks recorded in 1994 (the University of Michigan Amazin' Blue's recording of Mr. Mister's "Kyrie") and 1995 (the University of Vir- ginia Gentlemen's recording of Billy Pilgrim's "Insomniac"). VoiceMale's "Human Nature," arranged in 2004, makes extensive use of this; sound with its syllables "jig-ga jig-ga" and "jen" (see ex. 1 above). Of course, the spread of "jun" was not immediate - as some groups began using the new syllables, many others continued with the older syllables - and today's groups have not abandoned the more traditional syllable options.

When syllables are used to map an instrument's acoustical attack, timbre, and decay onto a vocally produced sound, the result is some-


thing I call direct emulation. Quick attacks, particularly those of pianos, are often accomplished with a d sound, such as "dun," "dum," or "den." Slower attacks, like those of some guitars or synthesizers, might call for a less percussive consonant, such as /, a "soft /" (fricative), or they might simply begin with a vowel. The timbre of the syllable is deter- mined by the vowel choice and its placement in the singers' mouths. With its "hard /'" (affricative) syllables, VoiceMale's arrangement of "Human Nature" maintains the sparse, percussive quality of the Boyz II Men version, which relies heavily on plucked and strummed acoustic guitars with short decays. An arrangement of the same song by the all-male Cornell University Hangovers creates a smoother texture through the use of sustained chords in the background parts, which directly emulate the synthesizer sounds of the Michael Jackson recording. However, syllables are sometimes selected to capture or evoke a "mood" or "feeling" rather than to emulate particular instruments. This is what I call indirect emulation. By using unusual syllables, indirect emulation maintains an instrumental function without mimicking a specific instrumental sound.43

On one hand, the increasing use of /-based syllables, which directly emulate a guitar, suggests a move away from versioning and closer to covering. On the other, indirect emulation implies a greater emphasis on versioning than on covering. Thus, the use of syllables in collegiate a cappella practice shows aspects of both types of musical recontextualization.

Vocal Style

Collegiate a cappella singers make distinct choices regarding vocal style, choices that can reveal how groups conceive and construct their identities. The singers I worked with generally avoid vibrato, preferring to sing with a "straight tone" (sometimes called a "flat tone") while on background parts. "Vibrato locates the singer within a particular socio-musical field," John Potter suggests. Rock singers use it as a "cultivated effect because of its association with classical singing," and "singers of more middle- of-the-road pop music will use a greater or lesser amount of vibrato according to which end of the socio-musical spectrum they wish to identify with."44 Many singers I encountered use a lack of vibrato to distinguish themselves and their groups from choirs and glee clubs they perceive as more "classical." They may also eschew vibrato because of its association, in popular music, with pre-rock singers (like Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra) whose cultivated crooning style now sounds old-fashioned to many younger audiences. And while Potter allows for some use of vibrato by pop singers, Averill notes its complete banishment from barbershop: "One requirement for ringing chords was the avoidance of vibrato (which

488 Duchan

would of course vary the pitch and derail any effort to lock the chord). An article on barbershop style once called vibrato 'poison.'"45

For a cappella singers, the most important vocal concept is blend. Blended voices are indistinguishable from one another. Like barber- shoppers, the singers I consulted avoid vibrato because it inhibits a group's ability to match tone quality and pitch. I was often told of the value of a singer's ability to blend, and the use of vibrato was heavily criticized in deliberations about new members.46 Historical prec- edents for a cappella's emphasis on blend can be found in the glee club tradition (vis-a-vis the straight-tone technique of the early St. Olaf 's Lutheran Choir), barbershop, the African American quartet tradition, and doo-wop.47

VoiceMale seeks a particular vocal style that hinges on a strong, loud, intense timbre. In songs like "Human Nature," the singers avoid not only vibrato but also falsetto. In my field recordings of VoiceMale's "Human Nature," the singers "belt" (in chest voice) during the brief introduction and the chorus but not during the verse, when the listener's attention focuses on the soloist. This structural use of belting (and volume) em- phasizes passages during which the group, not the soloist, should be the center of attention.

One VoiceMale member explained the group's stylistic preference: "As part of the power of the sound that we try to put out, we very rarely put anything in falsetto. If you can hit it, unless it's supposed to be quiet, we want it powerful, we want it out there."48 Another member of VoiceMale explained that they want to sound as loud, or louder, with their seven members as other groups do with seventeen.49 Given VoiceMale's ideal of one singer per part, it becomes clear that in order to achieve the desired loud and intense sound while maintaining a balance between the parts, each individual must sing confidently and loudly enough by himself. No one else is covering his note; there is no safety in numbers. An un- trained falsetto is typically quieter than a male voice in the belt range, so avoiding falsetto makes sense. It also fits into the ethos of VoiceMale's identity as projected by their manner of vocal delivery. "Power" is the key word, applying both to the singer's physical effort and to the identity he projects. As Simon Frith writes, "Even when treating the voice as an instrument ... it stands for the person more directly than any other musical device."50 Through its performances, VoiceMale wants to project masculinity, strength, even domination.

Not all groups share VoiceMale's vocal style or intent. The Treblemak- ers, a mixed group at Boston University, prefer a more muted, more choral sound. It is unusual for the group's tenors to belt. Instead, they habitually switch out of their chest voices and into falsetto whenever they have to sing in their upper range. In October 2004 1 taught them my arrangement of Maroon 5's 2002 pop ballad, "She Will Be Loved." During the song's


climactic final chorus, the tenor part splits into two lines. The first tenor part is high, with sustained notes on G4 and a momentary A-flat 4, and is intended to indirectly emulate a distorted electric guitar wailing far in the background. It could have been sung by an alto, yet I wanted to hear the strain in a tenor's voice, a sort of soaring gesture that would expand the emotional scope of the song as it entered the final chorus. But the tenors in the Treblemakers preferred - and ultimately chose - to sing the passage in falsetto. They placed the sound forward in their vocal cavities, producing a focused, pointed timbre that came close to, but did not quite achieve, the effect I wanted. One might surmise that the pitches were simply out of the singers' range, yet in other songs these same singers could hit those pitches with the timbre I sought - but only as soloists. This suggests that it was their preference, not a necessity, to use the falsetto's lighter vocal quality. In order to blend properly, the Treblemakers avoided singing too loudly or in a manner that would vary significantly in timbre from that of the rest of the group. What was essentially a musical choice - how to produce vocal sounds within a particular pitch range - ended up following a habitual pattern that helped define the group's sound.

Vocal Percussion

"Vocal percussion" refers to singers emulating the sounds of a drum set.51 The most basic vocal percussion mimics kick and snare drums. Sing- ers usually emulate the kick drum with the syllables "doo" or "doom," placed low in the vocal range. They commonly make a snare drum sound with a "kh" or a "pf." These sounds, along with "ts" for hi-hats and ride cymbals, and "ksh" or "psh" for crash cymbals, can be combined with rhythmic breathing into patterns that approximate those played on a rock kit. Even if the sounds of vocal percussion, when isolated, do not convinc- ingly imitate those of actual drums, professional vocal percussionist Wes Carroll explained, they can still assume the function of the drums when they are performed in the right rhythmic patterns.52

"Vocal percussion" (sometimes abbreviated as "VP"), "beatboxing," and other terms are often used interchangeably. There is some question within the a cappella community about the relationship of vocal percussion to beatboxing and other vocal techniques that aim to provide a nonpitched rhythm, such as "mouth drumming" and "multivocalism." In hip-hop, beatboxing may be an integral part of a cipher, a "street performative" in which a group of MCs, usually standing in a circle, take turns improvising rhymes while accompanied by beatboxing or a prerecorded beat.53 When the question was posed on the RARB's discussion forum, one respondent contrasted a cappella singing with rap, a practice within which vocalized percussive sounds have been a feature since at least the early 1970s.54 He called a cappella's vocal percussion the "imitation of

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existing drum sounds" and rap's beatboxing the "art of creating beats with one's voice," regardless of whether the sounds mimic extant drums (acoustic or synthesized).55 Another contributor drew the distinction in terms of timbre, with vocal percussion "brighter" because, when ampli- fied, the microphone is usually a short distance from the mouth (allowing some sonic reflections to be picked up in addition to the primary source sound), and beatboxing "darker" because practitioners hold a microphone against their lips and cover the capsule with their hands.56 A third contributor noted that beatboxing, while initially accompanying rap, has evolved into a solo or group art form.57 This stands in contrast to vocal percussion, which always accompanies a group of singers. Thus, the differences between these related terms depend both on the differing sounds of the two practices and their function in the musical texture.

During performances, bodily gestures make clear the instruments being imitated vocally, from "air-drums" to "air-guitars." It is especially common to see vocal percussionists make drumming gestures. (See figures 2 and 3 for examples of instrumental gestures in a cappella performances.) Some performers believe that such bodily gestures actually improve the sound and make for more convincing performances and recordings.58

Figure 2. Vocal percussion gestures (L). New York University APC Rhythm at Yale University, March 26, 2005. Photo by the author.

Figure 3. Miming guitars, SUNY-Bing- hamton Crosbys performing at Yale University, March 26, 2005. Photo by the author.


Texture

When a cappella arrangers adapt a pop record in an arrangement, they usually maintain a lead-and-accompaniment texture. This helps to distinguish collegiate a cappella from barbershop and glee clubs while aligning it with doo-wop.59 In a cappella practice, however, background parts use textural and gestural devices to ensure that they remain simply "background." Certain arranging techniques draw attention to the background parts or to important structural or harmonic moments. They also provide variety for the singers themselves, who welcome such moments of change. After all, most songs have only one soloist, so most singers spend much of their time singing (often repetitive) background parts.

One critical background technique is what VoiceMale calls a "bell," a term derived from barbershop that describes the effect of voices entering in succession to form a chord. In "Human Nature," the background ostinato comprises rhythmically identical, but offset and overlapping, duets (see ex. 1, "Ac Gtr" staves, above). Bells occur in the first and second endings of the verse (ex. 1, mm. 7-8, 9-10) and mimic the guitar figures in the Boyz II Men recording. These nearly identical two-measure passages function as transitions between the harmonic patterns of the verse (IV-V-I6) and the chorus (IV-V-I-V6-vi-V, beginning at "Why," m. 11). They also provide a textural change from overlapping homorhythms to arpeg- giated chords, signaling a formal transition and hinting at the upcoming repeat of the verse (or the downbeat of the chorus). The rhythmic and melodic shift from an ostinato to a transitional figure creates a moment of interest as well as a challenge: interest because there is something new to sing, and challenge because these passages require precise rhythmic coordination and close listening. (Rehearsing these bells often took the better part of a two- or three-hour rehearsal.)

Originality in A Cappella While emulation is an important stylistic goal in collegiate a cappella, many groups also strive to inject originality into their music, taking the a cappella song beyond just "equal" to the commercial recording and instead "surpassing" it. VoiceMale's use of bells in the background parts of "Human Nature" is one example. That technique kept singers (and listeners) interested, challenged, and happily engaged with the music. But there are other techniques that achieve the same objective: musical quotation, formal expansion, textural variation, the sharing of melodic material across voice parts, and a soloist's reinterpretation of a song's lead, to name only the most common. The first two techniques explicitly change the song through the introduction of new musical material. The

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other three can be used in the pursuit of a cappella's overall emulative goal or as ways to bring a new interpretation to a song. In addition, all of these techniques can have social implications.

Musical quotation is a technique for referencing other songs within an arrangement.60 Sometimes other material by the same recording artist is borrowed; an arranger might use lyrics from one song as background syllables to another song. At other times he or she may quote an entirely different musical source, with arrangement and source having only a common harmonic framework. In their recording of "Let Me Entertain You," recorded by British rocker Robbie Williams in 1997, VoiceMale quotes Steppenwolf 's 1968 classic, "Magic Carpet Ride." A second soloist sings the Steppenwolf lyrics ("close your eyes girl, look inside girl, let the sound take you away") while impersonating the raspy quality of that song's lead. At the quotation's introduction, all background rhythmic activity ceases, allowing the listener to focus entirely on the Step- penwolf interpolation with a backing of block chords. Then the Williams song's refrain ("let me entertain you") returns in the primary soloist's voice while the Steppenwolf lyrics continue more quietly as a featured harmony line. The result is not a Williams-Steppenwolf medley, but a brief reference to the second song that folds into the fabric of the first.

The prevalence of musical allusions in collegiate a cappella suggests not only the playfulness of the genre but also an appreciation of intertextuality's complexity. Whether or not the audience recognizes the quotation and appreciates its significance depends partly on how apparent it is, on whether it is executed by a soloist (making a direct and apparent association with the secondary song) or only within the background parts (remaining "insider knowledge," a feat of musical fusion of which the singers, themselves, are proud but that remains mostly hidden to listeners).

A related technique is the changing of a song's form by adding new, rather than borrowed, musical material. For example, an arranger from Amazin' Blue added a new, quasi-scat section to the Sting song "If I Ever Lose My Faith in You" that features the group without a soloist. Each background part enters separately, as if announcing not only its presence but also its independence from the other parts. So doing, this technique features the background singers for a musical moment before returning to the song's original form and focus on the soloist. Also, by basing this new section on the cyclic iii-i progression of the song's coda and by avoiding the introduction of new lyrics, this technique allows the formal expansion to emerge from the song organically rather than seem imposed from the outside.

Unexpected textural variations reveal flashes of originality because they disrupt the relationship between the lead and its accompaniment.


Since the 1990s, the a cappella style has drawn a fundamental distinction between the role of lead soloist and background singer through the articulation of words: the former may do so, while the latter usually does not. One potent technique used to create textural variation is the sparing but striking use of the whole group as a homophonic choir. After spending most of a song singing instrumentally function- ing background syllables, having the entire group explode, fortissimo, with dense harmonies along with the soloist, singing the same lyrics at the same time, creates a dramatic statement.61 The effect weakens the lead /accompaniment dichotomy and affects the song's narrative force. No longer does the lead singer carry the lyrical content alone. Instead, his or her voice is now, in effect, as powerful as the group's combined voices. This "momentary choir" technique is prevalent in the a cappella repertory, though related variation techniques also abound: passages during which the basses drop out (leading to a distinct change in texture and the opportunity to make a musical event out of the bass section's return) and other moments of marked contrast between polyphonic and homophonic passages, to name two examples.

Singers value passages in which two or more parts sing parallel melodic lines or when they coordinate, often antiphonally, to create a single melodic line. Consider such a melodic exchange during the "instrumental" section of the Treblemakers' arrangement of Rufus Wainwright's "Instant Pleasure" (see ex. 2). The altos begin with the guitar-emulating melody ("bair ner ner . . .") which is answered a measure later with an arpeggio articulated by the tenors, altos, and sopranos. After this figure repeats, the harmony changes (from I-V-IV to the double-plagal I-flat VH-IV-flat Ill-flat VII6-I) and the tenors seize the melody before the sopranos finish the phrase. Creating a single melodic line fosters visual and aural communication and, of course, enhances the performance's social dimension.

Finally, the personal prerogative of the soloist offers a prime vehicle for originality. He or she need not simply imitate the recording artist's performance (although, as I have said, some fidelity to the commercial recording is fundamental to a cappella's emulative goal). Small melodic or timbral - or even visual - variations allow soloists to give their performance "its own personality," as one singer from Company B put it.62 This idea aligns with George Plaskete's writing on the process of covering, which he describes as an "adaptation, in which much of the value lies in the artists' interpretation." In this recontextualization, "Measuring the interpreter's skill, in part, lies in how well the artist uncovers and conveys the spirit of the original, enhances the nuances of its melody, rhythm, phrasing, or structure, maybe adding a new arrangement, sense of occasion or thread of irony."63

494 Duchan

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Example 2. Rufus Wainwright's "Instant Pleasure," instrumental section. Ar- ranged for the Boston University Treblemakers by Dave Ransom. Note: the top staff contains additional harmonies.

Beyond Emulation and Originality: Social Motivations for Stylistic Goals

What motivates collegiate a cappella's stylistic goals? Part of the answer lies in the social implications of the musical choices arrangers and singers make. While emulation and originality, and covering and versioning, en- tail particular techniques, much of the music's meaning also derives from the ways in which singers and audiences experience those techniques.

Emulating popular recordings and quoting one song within another give audiences something familiar. But how each a cappella group de-


ploys familiar material helps to determine its success in performance. In the crowded arena of student activities, a cappella groups must com- pete with each other (and with other student clubs) for resources, both financial and human. A repertory of covers also constrains and con- ventionalizes expression: the audience already knows how the song goes, so the thrill comes from how the group will do it in a new, vocal- only medium. Moreover, a song performed by an a cappella group is often not immediately recognizable based on the first few measures of its introduction (as, admittedly, may also be the case with the original commercial recording). Typically audience members may have to wait a few seconds until a recognizable melodic, harmonic, or rhythmic snippet - the song's hook, perhaps - is sung before recognizing which song is actually being performed. (In my research, concert programs only rarely listed the titles of the songs to be performed. Recognition is therefore based entirely on aural perception.) In performance, then, a cappella groups enable a pleasurable sense of discovery as audiences identify familiar songs.64

Although some groups collect dues from their members, ticket and album sales make up the bulk of most groups' revenues (in my research, most groups rarely found their school administrations to be sufficient sources of funding). Sales thus become the main enablers of the group's music duplication, travel expenses, future concerts, and recording projects. Especially on campuses where a cappella thrives, the perception of a diluted talent pool as well as a heightened intergroup competition intensifies the search for new singers. A group must ensure its continued survival and success by attracting and training show-stopping soloists, skilled arrangers, and future leaders through its performances. Every time it performs a popular or familiar song, or quotes another song in an arrangement, it not only shows off the skills of its arrangers, but also creates an opportunity for connection with potential members.

Many of the techniques a cappella groups use to add originality to their music also function "democratically" to share the spotlight among multiple singers. A cappella is a voluntary activity, and members have to feel valued in order to participate. As one singer told me, "you can sing doo's and da's only so long before it stops feeling fulfilling."65 When a group "gives" a member the spotlight (e.g., a solo), the other singers believe that that member has the best voice for that song or part and have confidence in his or her ability to execute it successfully on their behalf. Most groups determine each song's lead soloist by holding internal au- ditions, judged by those members not auditioning. In some groups, an important factor in this audition process is whether any of the candidates sing solos on other songs in the group's repertory (or if any do not sing other solos). Simon Frith's metonymic treatment of the voice/instrument as the person is instructive here. With a share of the spotlight comes the

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social implication that the individual's voice is important - not only as a singing voice but as a person.

The value that a cappella singers place on the individual voice, and the identity implied by that voice, also speaks to the sociability of the musical practice. By presenting several individuals as soloists, an a cappella group can access a larger social network in its audience. As Voice- Male's music director explained: "If everybody has a solo, the audience gets to feel like they've met everybody, and that's a better performance. That makes them feel closer to you than if two people are singing all the solos and the rest of the guys are just faceless, nameless guys in the back singing 'doo-wop, doo-wop.'"66 And while featuring each member in a group's performance accesses each individual's social network and thus betters sales of tickets and albums, it also enables the accumulation and display of social capital by singers.

The economics of time also play an important role. Like earlier student vocal ensembles, a cappella groups are active components of campus musical life. They sing at many of the same official functions as did their predecessors, fostering a broader sense of school spirit. But each singer has many other obligations - academic and social commitments, family needs, religious practice, and so forth. These activities may conflict with those related to a cappella, such as arranging, rehearsing, performing, business correspondence, and the maintenance of proper relationships with other campus groups, funding sources, and the college adminis- tration. When I asked singers what they gained from their experience in an a cappella group, the most common answer, after the creation of community, was better time-management skills.

One might think of a cappella participation as a cost-and-rewards phe- nomenon, implying a sort of psychological ledger by which individuals determine whether they are sufficiently satisfied with their experience. Robert A. Stebbins takes this approach to barbershop singing and finds the prominent rewards to be personal enrichment, the enjoyment of singing, and self-actualization; the most common costs are disappointments in competitions, dislike of group leadership, and frustration with varying levels of commitment among other singers.67 These conclusions apply to a cappella, but as an explanatory tool this calculation must be more nu- anced. For each individual - whether he or she stays with the group or leaves it - the weights of the various costs and rewards differ. Perhaps more than other factors, the sharing of the spotlight (and the implied value of individual voices) strongly affects a cappella singers' decisions to remain with a group.

But sharing the spotlight also allows singers to tap into the powerful cultural archetype of the "rock star" - a figure with considerable social capital (especially in youth culture). For many, a cappella is simply fun; there is a certain pleasure in the creation of a virtuosic or spectacular


vocal-only rendition of a familiar musical icon. But beneath the pleasure of performance may lie the process Simon Frith and R. J. Warren Zanes call "identification." This occurs when a fan (or fanatic) either desires the popular artist or desires to be the popular artist and then enacts that desire through mimicry.68 As one a cappella singer told me:

Every girl secretly wants to be like Britney Spears. You see someone dance - and I'm not saying risque - but you see someone be so con- fident and dance like that and sing and really belt it out, and have so much energy, and you're just like, "I want to be like that." And, "if I join that group, I will be."69

The vocal techniques and bodily gestures that singers perform facilitate identification. They enable the singer to assume a rock star's persona or to act like the rock star playing his or her instrument. Moreover, through direct emulation, syllables and gestures enable the singer to be the rock star's instrument.

Collegiate a cappella is founded on the act of recontextualizing commercial recordings in a vocal medium. Many of a cappella's stylistic goals build on this foundation. Both emulation and originality (combined with social needs and opportunities) shape collegiate a cappella's distinctive sound. A cappella thus steers a narrow path between two forms of musical mimicry that Weinstein describes: "covers" (iterations of particular performances) and "versions" (iterations of the underlying composition).

At the same time, a cappella challenges that dichotomy because it emulates particular performances of songs (recordings) while simultane-

ously denying the very instruments used in those performances. On one hand, it may be simple to say that a cappella consists more of versions than of covers. Yet when an a cappella group strives to recreate aspects of a particular recording - such as VoiceMale's arrangement of "Human Nature," whose guitar lines appear in the Boyz II Men version of the Michael Jackson song but not in Jackson's recording - a Weinsteinian view would describe the group as aspiring to a cover. On the other hand, some techniques of originality, such as interplay between background parts or ^interpretations of the lead melody, seem to distinguish an a

cappella song from a cover. Yet because they alter basic building blocks of the piece, other common techniques of originality, such as musical

quotation and formal expansion, undermine the case for a cappella as version. Clearly the categories break down in this relatively recent and so far little-discussed genre.

While popular recordings certainly underlie the a cappella repertory, the cover/version dichotomy, or other schemes that separate the act of musical recontextualization by reference or intention, cannot adequately describe the a cappella approach to making music. More important, such

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theoretical distinctions fail to account for the social aspects of musical practice. I have highlighted several of these, each with musical ramifica- tions: featuring familiar repertory and multiple soloists, fostering a sense of musical community and self-worth, and presenting opportunities to accumulate and display social capital. The case of collegiate a cappella - a genre to which more critical attention will need to be paid as time goes on - demonstrates some of the ways social considerations affect musical choices and, ultimately, determine the music's meaning.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Earlier drafts of this article were presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Ameri- can Music in March 2005, at the Midwest chapter meeting of the American Musicological Society in October 2005, and in my dissertation. I am grateful to Judith Becker, Richard Crawford, Mark Clague, James Wierzbicki, and Albin Zak, along with the anonymous reviewers, for their guidance, critique, and suggestions during the writing process. I must also thank the musicians with whom I worked, including the members of Brandeis Uni-

versity Company B and VoiceMale, the Boston University Treblemakers, the Harvard

University Fallen Angels, the University of Michigan Amazin' Blue, and the University of Pennsylvania Counterparts for sharing their lives, thoughts, and music with me. Of course, I retain full responsibility for any inaccuracy of representation.

NOTES

1. For example: Kurt Eichewald, "'Doo-Wop-a-Doo' Will No Longer Do," New York Times, June 22, 1997, sec. 2, p. 32; Karen W. Arenson, "Songsters Off on a Spree: Campuses Echo with the Sound of Enthusiastic A Cappella Groups," New York Times, April 25, 2002, El, 4; "Profile: Yale's A Cappella Groups Rush Current Crop of Freshmen," NPR Radio Morning Edition, Sept. 9, 2002; "A Cappella Frenzy," CBS News Sunday Morning, Jan. 11, 2004; Rachel Baker, "These Are the Biggest Studs On Campus?," Boston Magazine, February 2007. The estimate of a thousand groups comes from the CBS News story.

2. Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), s.v. "emulation."

3. On barbershop, see Lynn Abbott, "Tlay That Barber Shop Chord': A Case for the African- American Origin of Barbershop Harmony," American Music 10, no. 3 (1992): 289-325; Gage Averill, Four Parts, No Waiting: A Social History of American Barbershop Harmony (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003); Liz Garnett, "Ethics and Aesthetics: The Social Theory of Barbershop Harmony," Popular Music 18, no. 1 (1999): 41-61, and The British Barbershopper: A Study in Socio-Musical Values (Burlington, Vt: Ashgate, 2005); Max Kaplan, ed., Barbershop- ping: Musical and Social Harmony (Rutherford, N.J.: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1993); Richard Mook, "The Sounds of Liberty: Nostalgia, Masculinity, and Whiteness in

Philadelphia Barbershop, 1900-2003," Ph.D. diss., University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, 2004; and Robert A. Stebbins, The Barbershop Singer: Inside the Social World of a Musical Hobby (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1996). Barbershop quartet singing does have a presence on college campuses, and is supported by the Barbershop Harmony Society (formerly SPEBSQSA) through its national competition, the MBNA America Collegiate Barbershop Quartet Contest, founded in 1990. In my field research, however, I found barbershop quartets largely absent from the music scenes of the colleges at which I worked.


4. On doo-wop, see Stuart L. Goosman, "The Black Atlantic: Structure, Style, and Values in Group Harmony/' Black Music Research Journal 17, no. 1 (1997): 81-99; Anthony J. Gribin and Matthew M. Schiff, Doo-Wop: The Forgotten Third of Rock 'n Roll (Iola, Wis.: Krause, 1992); Philip Groia, They All Sang on the Corner: New York City's Rhythm and Blues Vocal Groups of the 1950s (Setauket, N.Y.: Edmond Publishing Co., 1974); and Robert Pruter, Doowop: The

Chicago Scene (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1996). 5. Little scholarly work has been done on the history of college glee clubs or their con-

temporary manifestations, although the topic receives some attention in Christopher Bruhn, "Taking the Private Public: Amateur Music-Making and the Musical Audience in 1860s New York/' American Music 21, no. 3 (2003): 260-90; Ellistine Perkins Holly, "Black Concert Music in Chicago, 1890 to the 1930s," Black Music Research Journal 10, no. 1 (1990): 141^19; and Walter Raymond Spalding, Music at Harvard: A Historical Review of Men and Events (New York: Coward-McCann, 1935). For a recent first-person account of the college glee club, see Bruce Montgomery, Brothers, Sing On!: My Half-Century Around the World with the Venn Glee Club (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2005).

6. David Horn, "Some Thoughts on the Work in Popular Music," in The Musical Work:

Reality or Invention?, ed. Michael Talbot (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2000), 30. 7. Deena Weinstein, "The History of Rock's Pasts through Rock Covers," in Mapping the

Beat: Popular Music and Contemporary Theory, ed. Thomas Swiss, John Sloop, and Andrew Herman (Maiden, Mass.: Blackwell, 1988), 138.

8. Serge Lacasse, "Intertextuality and Hypertextuality in Recorded Popular Music," in The Musical Work, ed. Talbot, 46. Some forms of covering would fall into Lacasse's category of "hypertextuality," which is defined as "practices which aim at producing a new text out of a previous one" (37).

9. This article deals with arranging and performance practice from the perspective of

collegiate a cappella practitioners. It does not address recording, a process in which both emulation and originality play a key role. For more on a cappella recording practice, see Joshua S. Duchan, "Powerful Voices: Performance and Interaction in Contemporary Collegiate A Cappella," (Ph.D. diss., University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, 2007), 119-22, 243-301. The subject of arranging has borne a sizable library of instructional texts, particularly from the perspectives of orchestration, choral arranging, and jazz, many of which draw heavily on the Western classical tradition for their principles and examples. See, for

example, Glenn Miller, Glenn Miller's Method for Orchestral Arranging (New York: Mutual Music Society, 1943); Hawley Ades, Choral Arranging (Delaware Gap, Pa.: Shawnee Press, Inc., 1966); and David Baker, Arranging and Composing for the Small Ensemble: Jazz, R&B, Jazz-Rock (Chicago: Maher, 1970). Scholarly perspectives on arranging can be found, for

example, in Evelyn Howard-Jones, "Arrangements and Transcriptions," Music & Letters 16 (1935): 305-11; Norman Carrell, Bach the Borrower (London: Allen and Unwin, 1967); Hans Keller, "Arrangement For or Against?," Musical Times 110, no. 1511 (1969): 22-25; and Millan Sachania, "'Improving the Classics': Some Thoughts on the 'Ethics' and Aesthetics of Musical Arrangement," The Music Review 55, no. 1 (1994): 58-75.

10. Those capacities include arranger, performer, director, producer, and competition adjudicator. My introduction to collegiate a cappella came in high school, when a group visiting from Northwestern University conducted a clinic with the school choir and gave a brief after-school concert. I joined a mixed group as a sophomore in college and another

during my graduate studies. I then conducted ethnographic fieldwork during the 2004-5 academic year with groups in the Boston area (primarily with Brandeis University Voice- Male, the Boston University Treblemakers, and the Harvard University Fallen Angels), consisting of observations and interviews, as well as some participation and coaching.

11. Although the topic of collegiate a cappella remains off the musicological map, it has been well covered by undergraduate and graduate students in term papers and theses. Those that I have been able to locate include: Judah Cohen, "'Beautiful Stories,

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Told in Some Very Melodic Ways': An Ethnography of Under Construction, Harvard- Radcliffe's Christian A Cappella Singing Group/' (graduate ethnomusicology paper, Harvard University, Cambridge, 1997); Jason Chua, "Wolverine Vocals: Detailing the

History, Function, and Racial Homogeneity of A Cappella Groups in the University of

Michigan," (undergraduate musicology paper, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, 2005); Ben Jackson, "Vocal Percussion: A Phonetic Description," (bachelor's thesis, Harvard

University, Cambridge, 2001); Mark Manley, "ROOM ZERO: The Dialectical Worlds of Live Performance and the Recording Studio in Collegiate A Cappella," (bachelor's thesis, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, 2002); Jane Alexander Mclntosh, "In Harmony: A Look at the Growth of Collegiate A Cappella Groups and the Future of the Movement," (master's thesis, Teachers College, Columbia University, New York, 1999); Rebecca Rei- man, (untitled undergraduate anthropology paper, Brandeis University, Waltham, Mass., 2005); Veronica L. S. Robinson, "University of Michigan A Cappella Group Pre-Concert Traditions," (undergraduate folklore paper, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, 2005); Stacey Street, "Voices of Womanhood: Gender Ideology and Musical Practice in American Women's Vocal Groups," (bachelor's thesis, Harvard University, Cambridge, 1990); and Jack Wilkinson, (untitled music thesis, bachelor's thesis, Bowdoin College, 2005).

12. Alan Clark Buechner, Yankee Singing Schools and the Golden Age of Choral Music in New

England, 1760-1800 (Boston: Boston University Scholarly Publications, 2003), 108-9. 13. Richard Kegerreis, "The Handel Society of Dartmouth," American Music 4, no. 2

(1986): 177-93. The Handel Society was formed after visit to the college by psalmody re- former Andrew Law. Its petition for recognition states that the Society sought "to improve and cultivate the taste and promote true and genuine music" through a European repertory (quoted in ibid., 178).

14. Spalding, Music at Harvard, 39-109; Michael Broyles, "Music of the Highest Class": Elitism and Populism in Antebellum Boston (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992), 130.

15. Marshall Bartholomew, "The First 100 Years, 1861-1961: A Short History of the Yale Glee Club," unpublished manuscript, Marshall Bartholomew Papers, MSS 24, Box 3, Folder 1, Irving S. Gilmore Music Library, Yale University.

16. Spalding, Music at Harvard, 54, 120. Boston critic John Sullivan Dwight praised its first performance, on June 9, 1858, for its "admirable blending, light and shade, etc." ("Col- lege Music," Dwight's Journal of Music, June 19, 1858, quoted in Spalding, Music at Harvard, 76-77).

17. The History of the University of Michigan Men's Glee Club, available on the UMMGC website (http://www.umich.edu/~ummgc) (n.p., 2003), accessed Nov. 11, 2005, 1; Spald- ing, Music at Harvard, 131. Spalding, along with Jon Newsom's article on Davison in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (s.v. "Davison, A. T"), credits Davison with

introducing "serious music" to the Harvard Glee Club, and to American college choral societies more generally.

18. Marshall Bartholomew, "Singing for the Fun of It," unpublished manuscript, Marshall Bartholomew Papers, MSS 24, Box 4, Folder 1, 163A, Irving S. Gilmore Music Library, Yale

University. Groups at Yale from the 1840s and later in the nineteenth century included the Cecilias, the Beethoven Bummers (a play on the more serious Beethoven Society), the Owls, the Four Sharps, the Midnight Caterwaulers, and the Theologians.

19. The Black Sheep (also known as the Six Little Lambs) sang briefly at Yale around the turn the twentieth century, followed by the Growlers, a group whose membership included

singers who would later found the Whiffenpoofs. The group's name refers to comedian

Joseph Cawthorne's performance in the Broadway production of Victor Herbert's Little Nemo (1908), during which he mused about catching a "whiffenpoof fish." For more on the

Whiffenpoofs, see Richard Nash Gould, Yale 1900-2001, vol. 2, The Whiffenpoofs: Twentieth

Century (New York: The Twentieth Century Project, LLC, 2004), and James M. Howard, "An Authentic Account of the Founding of the Whiffenpoofs," printed in the booklet, "A


History of the Whiffenpoofs of Yale University and a Roster of Membership: Prepared for the 85th Anniversary Celebration, April 29-May 1, 1994, New Haven, Connecticut," in RU 156, Ascension 2000-A-044, Box 1, Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University.

20. For example, in Four Parts, No Waiting, Averill discusses barbershop's practice of "collective audition/' in which bodily and social relationships intersect (p. 178). In "Ethics and Aesthetics: The Social Theory of Barbershop Harmony," Garnett examines barbershop- pers' concept of harmony as a metaphor for social cohesion, an egalitarian ideal, and the

performance of "maximum inclusiveness," and in The British Barbershopper she explores the social effects of barbershop competitions and behavioral codes (pages 43, 50, 59-62, 75-78). Both scholars also consider the social implications of the concept of blend.

21. Gould calls the Whiffenpoofs' style from 1909-49 the "barbershop style." It was marked by four-part arrangements, relatively few solos, and musical sources such as vaude- ville, burlesque, college songs, and spirituals. As with barbershop practice, the melody line was most often in the second tenor part, and harmonies and rhythms were of rather

simple and straightforward construction. Gould, The Whiffenpoofs: Twentieth Century, 65. 22. The Mills Brothers, from Piqua, Ohio, consisted of brothers Herbert (1912-89), Harry

(1913-1982), Donald (b. 1915), and John Mills, Jr. (1911-35). Although secularized, their

style drew on a longstanding tradition of black religious vocal music stretching at least as far back as the jubilee choruses of the mid-nineteenth century and later popular gospel quartets (such as the Golden Gate Quartet). They began singing together about 1922 and in 1929 became the first black ensemble to receive official commercial sponsorship by a

major network, CBS. Among their early successes was a version of the Original Dixieland

Jazz Band's "Tiger Rag," which they recorded multiple times in October 1931 and again in 1932 for the soundtrack to the film The Big Broadcast (1932); the recordings appear on The Mills Brothers: Chronological, Vol. 1 (London: JSP Records, JSPCD 301, 1988). "Tiger Rag" features a tuba-like bass tone and a remarkably convincing vocalized muted trumpet. As

proof of just how convincing their instrumental imitations were, the label of their early recordings read: "no musical instruments or mechanical devices used on this recording other than one guitar" (Geoff Milne, liner notes to The Mills Brothers: Chronological, vol.

1). For more on the Mills Brothers, see Mitch Rosalsky, Encyclopedia of Rhythm and Blues and Doo-Wop Vocal Groups (Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press, 2000), 397; and Eileen South-

ern, The Music of Black Americans: A History, 3rd ed. (New York: W. W. Norton, 1997), 51. Another early example of vocal imitations of instrumental sounds is the German sextet the Comedian Harmonists. Active in the late 1920s and early 1930s, the group inspired a feature film, Comedian Harmonists (1997). For more information on the ensemble, see Peter Czada and Giinter Grosse, Comedian Harmonists: Ein Vokalensemble erobert die Welt (Berlin: Edition Hentrich, 1993); for analyses of the film, see Lutz Koepnick, "Refraining the Past:

Heritage Cinema and the Holocaust in the 1990s," New German Critique 87 (2002): 47-82, and "'Honor Your German Masters': History, Memory, and National Identity in Joseph Vilsmaier's Comedian Harmonists (1997)," in Light Motives: New Directions in German Film

Studies, ed. Margaret McCarthy and Randall Halle (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2003), 349-75.

23. Also notable is Todd Rundgren's 1985 album, A Capella (Warner Bros. 9251281), which, like McFerrin's work, was recorded entirely a cappella using extensive multitracking. The album reached number 128 on the Billboard Top 200, far below the spots reached by Joel's, McFerrin's, and Boyz II Men's recordings.

24. The chart in figure 1 is based on survey data I collected between January 2006 and

January 2007 in an attempt to determine the number of collegiate a cappella groups in

existence, their schools and founding dates, and whether they were male, female, or mixed ensembles. The survey included groups mostly in the United States as well as a few in Canada and the United Kingdom. It was decidedly unscientific and I make no claim to its statistical validity. I began with an old directory supplied by Don Goodine (of the

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Mainely A Cappella company), which itself was based on contact lists compiled by Deke Sharon and the Tufts University Beelzebubs in the early 1990s. I then consulted one of the largest on-line directories (http://www.collegeacappella.com) and the "Acapedia" administered by the Contemporary A Cappella Society on its website (http://www.casa. org) to verify as much information as possible. When links were provided, I followed them to groups' websites, which often contained relevant data. In cases where I could not

verify a group's existence, I did not add it to Gooding's and Sharon's original lists. This

process of information-gathering, and my own recollections of names and anecdotes from

my field research, comprised the primary method of data collection; it would have been impractical to contact each group directly to verify the data.

25. As the Men's Octet (University of California at Berkeley, 1948), the Virginia Gentlemen

(University of Virginia, 1953), and the Mendicants (Stanford University, 1962) demonstrate, a cappella groups did exist elsewhere, but not with the same geographic concentration as in the northeast.

26. The parenthetical question mark in "Spizzwinks(?)" is in fact part of the group's name. According to the group's history, the parenthetical mistakenly accompanied the name the first time it appeared in print in the Yale Banner in 1914. Amused, the group decided to retain it. (Spizzwinks(?) website, history page, http://www.yale.edu/spiz- zwin/ history/, accessed Sept. 6, 2007.)

27. James A. Keene, A History of Music Education in the United States (Hanover, N.H.:

University Press of New England, 1982), 319-28. See also Leonard Van Camp, "The Rise of American Choral Music and the A Cappella 'Bandwagon,'" Music Educators Journal 67, no. 3 (1980): 36^0.

28. Keene, History of Music Education, 353-63. See also Michael L. Mark and Charles L.

Gary, A History of American Music Education (New York: Schirmer, 1992), 364-65. 29. "The Tanglewood Declaration," Music Educators Journal 54, no. 3 (1967): 51. 30. For a detailed report on the Institute, see Wiley L. Housewright, Emmett R. Sarig,

Thomas MacCluskey, and Allan Hughes, "Youth Music: A Special Report," Music Educators Journal 56, no. 3 (1969): 43-74.

31. The two remaining Ivy League schools were coeducational much earlier: Cornell

University was coed from its founding in 1865 (although female students did not enroll until 1872), while the University of Pennsylvania, which was founded in 1740, became coed in 1876.

32. The College Board website, http://www.collegeboard.com (accessed March 2, 2007). The College Board administers the SAT and other college entrance exams, and provides high school students with information regarding colleges and universities.

33. Contemporary A Cappella Newsletter 2, no. 4 (April 1992): 13. The documentary's soundtrack was inducted into the Contemporary A Cappella Society's Contemporary A Cappella Recording Awards "hall of fame" for its demonstration of "the richness of a cappella's past and the vitality of its future to a completely new audience If we had to pick one album to represent contemporary a cappella to someone who's never heard a note," the editor wrote, "this would be the one." When it was founded, CAS A served mostly college groups and adopted Sharon's College A Cappella Newsletter, first published in October 1990, as its organ. The Society quickly expanded its purview to include semiprofessional and

professional a cappella groups, and in 1990 the newsletter was renamed the Contemporary A Cappella Newsletter. Selected issues are available on the Contemporary A Cappella Society website: http://www.casa.org.

34. The Recorded A Cappella Review Board's website can be found at: http://www. rarb.org. Recording engineer Bill Hare emphasized the importance of the Internet in a cappella's growth: "While people like Deke [Sharon], Don [Gooding], and myself were doing pioneering things independently of each other, I cannot stress enough the role that the invention and use of the Internet had during this time, several years after our independent


groundwork. If it weren't for this new form of instant information gathering, most groups would have remained islands unto themselves - I know the Stanford groups for the most

part didn't know there were any other groups out there before this time. In a way, Deke invented the original intergroup net by trying to put together a database of the other groups out there, using telephone and written correspondence - I was really impressed when I got a letter from this kid Deke Sharon in Boston who had heard my work with the Mendicants from all the way over in California" (personal communication, Feb. 14, 2007).

35. The BOCA albums are available for purchase online through A-Cappella.com: http://www.a-cappella.com.

36. Julia Barnathan and Lianna Levine, Brandeis University Company B,, personal interview, Oct. 2, 2004 (hereafter Barnathan and Levine interview).

37. It is worth noting that, throughout my research, I never observed a cappella musicians discussing their music in terms of authenticity. However, the term's prevalence in the

scholarly literature on popular music testifies to its utility when examining the ideologies behind musical practices. See, for example, Simon Frith, /y/The Magic That Can Set You Free': The Ideology of Folk and the Myth of the Rock Community," Popular Music 1 (1981): 159-68; Steve Redhead and John Street, "Have I the Right?: Legitimacy, Authenticity and

Community in Folk's Politics," Popular Music 8, no. 2 (1989): 177-84; Motti Regev, "Israeli Rock, or a Study in the Politics of 'Local Authenticity'," Popular Music 11, no. 1 (1992): 1-14; Sara Cohen, "Identity, Place, and the 'Liverpool Sound,'" in Ethnicity, Identity, and Music: The Musical Construction of Place, ed. Martin Stokes (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), 117-34; David Brackett, Interpreting Popular Music (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995), 75-107; Allan F. Moore, Rock: The Primary Text: Developing a Musicology of Rock, 2nd ed. (Burlington, Vt: Ashgate, 2001); and Aaron Fox, Real Country: Music and Language in

Working Class Culture (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004). 38. Anna Callahan, Anna's Amazing A Cappella Arranging Advice: The Collegiate A Cappella

Arranging Manual (Southwest Harbor, Maine: Contemporary A Cappella Publishing, 1995), 1, 20, 39. "Transanging" is Callahan's term; only once in my field work did an a cappella participant use it.

39. James Harrington, posted in the discussion forum of the Recorded A Cappella Review Board (RARB) (http://www.rarb.org) (topic: "a theory about imitative arrangements"), Sept. 27, 2004.

40. MIDI stands for Musical Instrument Digital Interface, a standardized format in which computers and other digital instruments can share musical information. MIDI files contain instructions for computers to synthesize a song and can be imported into most music notation software.

41. Drew Cohen, Brandeis University VoiceMale, personal interview, Oct. 5, 2004 (hereafter Cohen interview).

42. A "bell chord" is an arranging technique whereby four voices enter in succession to create a chord, each voice ringing like a bell. Related terms include "cascade" (all voices

begin in unison and while the highest voice maintains its pitch, the others descend in succession to their chord tones) and "pyramid" (a bell chord that builds from the lowest

voice/pitch). Definitions for many barbershop terms (such as "bell chord") can be found in the glossary for Averill, Four Parts, No Waiting, 205-10.

43. A former VoiceMale member credits the group's uncommon and inventive syllables to the ethnic and linguistic diversity of its arrangers: one was from Israel, while another was from India. He offered the syllabic combination "kin-diddle-ray-doh, kin-doh-doh- diddle-rai" as an example. "Nobody thinks of that kind of stuff," he said, "if you're think-

ing in English." Such syllabic combinations are valuable and creative because they do not

directly mimic any particular instrument and because they are unfamiliar to listeners' ears. Here, syllable choice is motivated by a desire to distinguish the group's sound from that of other vocal and choral ensembles, including other campus groups. Eli Schneider,

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Brandeis University VoiceMale, personal interview, Sept. 28, 2004 (hereafter Schneider

interview). 44. John Potter, Vocal Authority: Singing Style and Ideology (New York: Cambridge Uni-

versity Press, 1998), 169. 45. Averill, Four Parts, No Waiting, 165. 46. One instance when singers actively sought vibrato was when trying to effect a gospel

style. Moreover, soloists do not necessarily need to avoid vibrato when singing a song's lead because it could function as a marker of emotional intensity.

47. Garnett, "Ethics and Aesthetics"; Goosman, "The Black Atlantic." The Lutheran Choir of St. Olaf 's College, Northfield, Minn., was founded in 1907 by F. Melius Christiansen. It was noted for its straight-tone singing, which, through its tours, inspired legions of high school choir directors to adopt a similar practice of avoiding vibrato while also drawing criticism (see Keene, A History of Music Education, 308-14).

48. Schneider interview. 49. Jon Weinstein, Brandeis University VoiceMale, personal interview, Sept. 23, 2004. 50. Simon Frith, Performing Rites: On the Value of Popular Music (Cambridge: Harvard

University Press, 1996), 191. 51. Jane Mclntosh credits the Tufts University Beelzebubs with bringing vocal percus-

sion to collegiate a cappella on their 1991 album, Foster Street (Mclntosh, "In Harmony"). Although the Beelzebubs, led by Deke Sharon, were pioneers in collegiate a cappella in the early 1990s, they were not alone in recording vocal percussion: the University of North Carolina Clef Hangers' Safari (1992), for which some tracks were recorded in 1991, also includes vocal percussion. Recording engineer Bill Hare also recalls the Stanford University Mendicants recording vocal percussion around 1989 (personal communication). Most col-

legiate a cappella recordings are produced in limited quantities and not widely distributed, so a comprehensive survey of recordings is difficult. Moreover, a group's recordings may sound quite different from their live performances. Thus, we cannot assume that recorded vocal percussion indicates its frequent use in live performance, although anecdotal evidence suggest that it was new to the University of Pennsylvania Counterparts when they observed the Beelzebubs at a joint performance in Boston in 1991. Sangho Byun, personal communication, Jan. 13, 2005.

52. Personal observation, vocal percussion workshop held at the Michigan A Cappella Conference, Sept. 9, 2006. Wes Carroll was one of the founding members of Five O'Clock Shadow and later joined the House Jacks. He has produced an instructional video that some a cappella groups use: Mouthdrumming, vol. 1, Introduction to Vocal Percussion, video cassette and DVD (Southwest Harbor, Maine: Mainely A Cappella, 1988).

53. Deborah Wong, Speak It Louder: Asian Americans Making Music (New York: Routledge, 2004), 250. The definition of "cipher" is drawn from Wong's correspondence with Asian American hip-hop artist Peril-L of the Mountain Brothers. Wong's analysis stresses the role of technology in hip-hop compositional practice: "hip-hoppers refer constantly to the technologies employed in their compositional process, e.g., beatboxes and mics, but in this case 'beatbox' means rhyming out loud over a human beatbox, or mouth percussion accompaniment - a performative history that reabsorbs the acoustic percussion - » electronic beatbox process back into oral performance."

54. There is little scholarship on beatboxing; most discussions of rap emphasize creative uses of technologies such as turntables, mixers, and samplers rather than percussive or nonsensical sounds, e.g., Tricia Rose, Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contempo- rary America (Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press, 1994). A notable exception is David Toop, The Rap Attack: African Jive to New York Hip Hop (London: Pluto Press, 1984).

55. Michael Feldman, posted on the RARB forum (topic: "vocal percussion vs beatbox-

ing"), May 30, 2005.


56. "LilVPboy," posted on the Contemporary A Cappella Society forum (http://www. casa.org) (topic: "Vocal Percussion"-"Na'ive Question"), Sept. 26, 2005.

57. "eksingpuccusser," posted on the RARB forum (topic: "vocal percussion vs beatbox-

ing"), June 10, 2005. 58. Personal observation at Bill Hare's studio (Bill Hare Productions), Aug. 10, 2005. 59. Goosman calls the practice of creating vocal accompaniments "basing," and observes

that singers in postwar black harmony groups called the practice "'backgrounding' a lead." It was usually applied to songs in typical Tin Pan Alley, AABA form. The A sections would be sung using call-and-response techniques, with a lead singer calling and the background singers responding and supporting harmonically. In the B section, the texture would often shift to "concerted harmony" (Goosman, "The Black Atlantic," 86).

60. There is a considerable musicological literature on musical quotation and borrowing, too vast to be mentioned here, that ranges from medieval music to the present, including art music and popular music. J. Peter Burkholder writes in his article on the subject in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians: "Approaches to influence, borrowing, allusion and intertextuality in the parallel fields of art history and literary criticism are bringing fresh insights to the study of borrowing in music and to the relationships between the arts. The expansion of research is making it possible for the first time to see all the uses of

existing music, from contrafactum, organum and cantus firmus to collage, jazz contrafacts and digital sampling, as aspects of a single field that crosses historical periods and research

specializations" (s.v. "borrowing"). For an overview of borrowing from a perspective that seeks to include all historical periods, genres, and styles, see J. Peter Burkholder, "The Uses of Existing Music: Musical Borrowing as a Field," Notes 50, no. 3 (1994): 851-70.

61. A powerful example would be "Slumber," by Gabriel Mann, originally performed by the Gabriel Mann Situation, arranged by Stacey Burcham for the co-ed USC SoCal VoCals and recorded on The SoCal VoCals (2004) (also featured on the Best of College A Cap- pella 2004). At approximately 4:07 into the recording, the driving percussion stops (with a dramatic reverse cymbal effect) just as all the voices join the soloist in singing the song's refrain. This climactic moment, powerful because for the first and only time in the song all voices sing the most important lyrics together, leads directly into the final chorus, during which disparate motives from earlier in the song weave in and out of the texture while the overall dynamic relaxes in the approach to the final chord.

62. Barnathan and Levine interview. 63. George Plasketes, "Re-flections on the Cover Age: A Collage of Continuous Coverage

in Popular Music/' Popular Music and Society 28, no. 2 (2005): 150. 64. Although most a cappella groups perform a repertory based on preexisting record-

ings, in recent years original compositions have become more common (e.g., the Stanford

University Fleet Street Singers' 2004 album, Fleet Street, which consists entirely of original compositions).

65. Ariel Horn, University of Pennsylvania Counterparts, personal interview, April 19, 2001.

66. Cohen interview. 67. Stebbins, The Barbershop Singer, 62-72. 68. Simon Frith, "Towards an Aesthetic of Popular Music, in Music and Society: The

Politics of Composition, Performance, and Reception, ed. Richard Leppert and Susan McClary (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987) 140, 142; and R. J. Warren Zanes, "A Fan's Notes: Identification, Desire, and the Haunted Sound Barrier," in Rock Over the Edge: Trans-

formations in Popular Music Culture, ed. Roger Beebe, Denise Fulbrook, and Ben Saunders

(Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2002), 297. Zanes calls identification "grounded in

psychoanalytic thought, which, following Freud, involves a 'wanting to be/ an imitation

o/that with which one identifies." 69. Sara Samimi, Harvard University Fallen Angels, personal interview, Feb. 15, 2005.

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RECORDINGS CITED

Best of College A Cappella. Series of compact discs, annual. Varsity Vocals, 1995-. Boston University Treblemakers. "Instant Pleasure." Author's field recordings,

2004-5. Originally by Seth Swirsky, recorded by Rufus Wainwright on the Big Daddy film soundtrack (Sony 69946, 1999).

. "She Will Be Loved." Author's field recordings, 2004-5. Originally by A. Levine and J. Valentine, recorded by Maroon 5 on Songs about Jane (Octone 50001, 2002).

Boyz II Men. "It's So Hard to Say Goodbye to Yesterday." From Cooleyhighhar- mony (Motown 6320, 1991).

. "Human Nature." From Throwback. Koch/MSM Music Group 5735, 2004. Originally recorded by Michael Jackson.

Brandeis University VoiceMale. "Human Nature." Author's field recordings, 2004-5. Originally recorded by Michael Jackson.

. "Let Me Entertain You." Propeller. 2003. Also featured on the Best of College A Cappella 2004. Originally by Guy Chambers and Robbie Williams, recorded by Robbie Williams on Life Thru a Lens (Chrysalis 6127, 1997).

Cornell University Hangovers. "Human Nature." From Blackout. 2005. Originally recorded by Michael Jackson.

Jackson, Michael. "Human Nature." By Steven Porcaro and John Bettis. From Thriller (Epic QE-38112, 1982).

Joel, Billy. "The Longest Time." From An Innocent Man (Columbia CK 38837, 1983).

McFerrin, Bobby. "Don't Worry, Be Happy." From Simple Pleasures (EMI E2-48059, 1988).

Rundgren, Todd. A Capella (Warner Bros. 9251281, 1985). Stanford University Fleet Street Singers. Fleet Street. 2004. Steppenwolf. "Magic Carpet Ride." By John Kay and Rush ton Moreve. From

Steppenwolfthe Second (Dunhill DS-50037, 1968). University of Michigan Amazin' Blue. "Kyrie." From A Little Crazy. 1994. Also

featured on the Best of College A Cappella 1996. Originally by Steve George, John Lang, and Martin Paige, recorded by Mr. Mister on Welcome to the Real World (RCA 89647, 1985).

. "If I Ever Lose My Faith in You." From <SelfTitled>. 2004. Originally recorded by Sting on Ten Summoner's Tales (A&M 89567, 1993).

University of North Carolina Clef Hangers. Safari. 1992. University of Southern California SoCal VoCals. "Slumber." From The SoCal

VoCals. 2004. Also featured on the Best of College A Cappella 2004. Originally by Gabriel Mann, recorded by the Gabriel Mann Situation (not commercially released).

University of Virginia Gentlemen. "Insomniac." From Seven and Seven. 1995. Also featured on the Best of College A Cappella 1996. Originally by Kristian Bush, recorded by Billy Pilgrim on Billy Pilgrim (Atlantic 82515-2, 1994).

Yale University Whiffenpoofs. The Whiffenpoofs of 1958 (privately pressed, 1958).

Collegiate a Cappella, Joshua Duchan

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