La Famiglia A Capella

There’s a chaotic scene in the Mather Junior Common Room on Thursday nights. As rehearsal for co-ed a cappella group The Opportunes winds down, the group’s members are so engrossed in talking to one another that they barely notice onlookers. They plan their weekend retreat—scary movies get a thumbs-up, but movie-musicals are promptly vetoed. The group breaks into a rendition of M.I.A.’s “Paper Planes,” prompting someone to jokingly announce next week’s auditions for the gunshot parts in the chorus. They discuss their upcoming gig at the Head of the Charles. Later, they run through the last of their arrangements for the night, and applaud their five newest members—affectionately called “babies”—for mastering their parts so quickly.

The world of collegiate a cappella contains many paradoxes: it is part business and part hobby, part musical expression and part family, the source of college glory and post-graduation stigma. For an activity so routinely ridiculed in pop culture—see Ed Helms’s character on “The Office,” for instance—a cappella attracts hundreds of new students each year. Despite a burgeoning scene that taxes resources, space, and perhaps the patience of Harvard’s audiences, the sense of community found in rehearsals like this one is what has kept a capella enduring for decades.

HELL WEEK

Harvard a cappella originated in 1946 with the founding of the Harvard Krokodiloes. Initially conceived as an all-male quartet singing jazz standards, the Kroks were born out of the Hasty Pudding Social Club and modeled on the Yale Whiffenpoofs. Though the Kroks are now a separate entity from Hasty Pudding, their members still occasionally use the Pudding’s offices to practice and are permitted to join the social club without the usual punch process.

After the 1975 founding of the Radcliffe Pitches, an all-female counterpart to the Kroks, Harvard’s a cappella scene grew steadily. The current level of interest in joining an a cappella group has led to an audition season that at times amazes current members.

“We actually feel bad for the kids that are trying out,” says Frank A. DeSimone ’09, the Krokodiloes general manager. DeSimone adds that competition between groups reaches its peak during the first week of school. “You have to coordinate the schedules of all the callbacks and there are kids that try out for five or six a cappella groups and are trying to audition for eight or ten hours a day.”

Opportune Sasha A. Rohret ’12 describes a cappella audition week—which conveniently coincides with the first official week of classes—as “the most hectic week of my life.”

“It certainly forces you to study at odd hours and choose your dinner times wisely,” agrees newly minted Lowkey Laura B. Harshbarger ’12.

The week is comparable to an entire punch process crammed into five short days. “It’s like hell week,” says Ebele M. Anidi ’12. Many groups hold their auditions until one or two in the morning.

“And outside the tryouts, you have people waiting to take you out,” Anidi adds. “Trying to tell you how great their group was, and why you should stay.”

To reinforce this message, groups aren’t shy about bestowing material tokens of appreciation on potential members. “It’s subtle bribery,” Anidi laughs, referring to the not-so-subtle stream of handwritten notes, CDs, candy, chocolate, and roses that mysteriously appeared outside his door each night of callbacks.

On the Final Night of audition week, groups dress in their finest cocktail wear and make one last attempt to convince the auditioning singers of their organization’s superiority. “Long black dresses, gourmet cheese, everyone bragging about their tours, champagne…” Amanda B. Wyatt ’12 trails off. “So much champagne.” This is also the night when auditioners fill out the preference forms that will determine which group they join should they receive multiple invitations, a common occurrence in years like this one.

This semester saw a particularly strong pool of applicants, especially among male singers. Morgan L. Mallory ’10, former music director of the co-ed Veritones, says that because male singers are usually scarcer, “It’s like a fierce battle for the male talent. But this year we were overflowing with male talent,” she continues. “On Final Night, I’d say we had eight boys that we would have happily taken.”

Choosing new members isn’t easy. Because the groups are so small—typically capped at 15 or 16—the turnover can be extremely high. If a given graduating class has a lot of singers, half the group can disappear at the end of a school year. Members also need to consider not just the quality of the auditioner, but the group’s need to fill specific voice parts based on those who’ve graduated.

Even though tensions are caused by inevitable disputes for the same talented freshmen, most agree that this only reflects the high quality of the pool and actually improves the entire a cappella scene. “If you make it to Final Night, you’re pretty good and they just want to see you somewhere,” Wyatt says.

THE MORE THE MERRIER?

Even with such abundant available talent, the preponderance of a cappella groups can lead to problems. Less than ten years ago, only six groups played [were allowed?] at Sanders Theater, the largest venue on campus. Currently, eight groups hold this honor, and while double-bill events typically sell well, they rarely sell out.

Selling tickets, says Pitches president Annie E. P. Stone ’10, is difficult, especially in the spring when the novelty has started to wear off even for new freshmen. “Everyone on campus knows someone in an a cappella group and they’re always being pestered to buy a ticket,” she explains.

Though most groups only perform two or three big shows a year at Harvard, most feel that this is sufficient in light of the profusion of cappella groups.

“I honestly wouldn’t say that we should perform more on campus,” Stone says. “I feel like people get a capella’d out.”

Groups are also forced to compete for practice space, off-campus gigs, and even songs to perform. The co-ed groups use an online a cappella database to prevent problems that may arise from two groups learning or arranging the same song. Mallory says the database was created about five years ago to help resolve the common dilemma that arises when groups start to overlap in genre and style.

“In our library, I found an arrangement of [traditional gospel song] ‘Change in My Life’ arranged by a Veritone,” she recalls. “It’s a full arrangement written by hand—this was before the computer program—and on the top it said ‘Opps got it’ with a frown.”

The database is meant to address this age-old a cappella quandary. It’s unclear how exactly such disputes were solved before the database existed, but in this particular case, the Opportunes won—“Change in My Life” has been one of their signature songs for over a decade.

The fact that there even exists a database seems proof to some that the number of a cappella groups has swelled in excess. DeSimone predicts that the current growth of the a cappella scene will soon subside by the law of supply and demand. He observes that the number of groups changes the way the campus perceives and acts toward a cappella.

“People don’t want to go to four a cappella shows a semester,” he explains. “If there were one group, it’s a different story—it becomes a highlight of the semester. Whereas now, it’s, ‘Oh if I can’t make this week’s a cappella show, I’ll go to next week’s a cappella show.’”

But Umang J. Shukla ’11, a member of Glee Club Lite, thinks the amount of groups gives each person a chance to find their fit, even if it runs the risk of dampening general interest in a cappella.

“I agree that it does dilute it, especially when an a cappella jam lasts for three and a half hours,” he says. “But by the same token, the people in the groups don’t mind waiting two hours before going on stage.”

Indeed, a common thread among a cappella singers is that they participate more for themselves than any audience. “Making the music is more important to me than having the music received,” Shukla explains. “Everyone wants to be able to express themselves—more so than they want to feel the self-actualization of showing up on stage and having people clap for them.”

Harvard’s lesser-known a cappella groups exemplify this sentiment best. In 2006, several members of the Callbacks formed KeyChange—a group specializing in music from the black diaspora—alongside current president Dara M. Wilson ’09.

Breaking into the Harvard a cappella scene with its years of established history was no simple feat. Wilson explains that the process of becoming an official campus organization entails proving the proposed group is not identical to an existing group. “Because we were singing black music, they said, ‘Well, there’s already Kuumba,’” Wilson recalls. “We had to show them that a hundred people singing gospel music is very different from twelve people singing ‘Love in This Club.’”

This exchange may hint at how wary the campus is of supporting any more a cappella groups. But Stone contends that the current scene forces groups to be “more purposeful” about ensuring they are unique. This attempt within a group to make itself distinct contributes to the tight-knit community that characterizes all a cappella groups.

A CULTURE, NOT A CULT

DeSimone admits he had a skewed perception of what his Kroks status would accomplish before coming to Harvard. “I sort of came in and thought, you do a cappella in college and you’re gonna be a celebrity!” he says. “Obviously it’s not really like that.”

Indeed, many are perplexed and even annoyed by how seriously a cappella members seem to take their craft.

Stone is familiar with the complaints levied at Harvard a cappella singers. “It’s always, ‘Why are you talking about a cappella all the time, it takes over your whole life, I never see you, you only hang out with your a cappella group,’” she says. Stone mentions that these are the same objections one hears to varsity sports, except “it somehow seems less legitimate because you just bop your knees and sing ooh-wah-ooh’s.”

The rehearsal schedule is demanding—the Kroks practice a minimum of fifteen hours a week. But while they spend a lot of time together, it’s partially because they enjoy each other’s company.

“I like it,” says Shukla. “But I don’t think it’s an end-all. I don’t think that a cappella is like, the pinnacle of musicality at Harvard. But I do think it’s fun.”

“People like to call a cappella groups cults,” Mallory says. “I call it more of a culture. We do have a culture and there are traditions that are passed on.”

And groups work hard to develop that culture, not just through the music. All a cappella groups once started as KeyChange did, with a small group of students who created a niche for themselves and perpetuated this student-run ethic by organizing their own shows, booking gigs, making ads, and raising money for their own tours. All of this is in the interest of creating and improving a community that will last for generations of Harvard students.

“In ten years, if I come back here and KeyChange is still around, staying true to our mission and as tight-knit as we all are now,” Wilson says, “I’ll be satisfied.”

THE HEART OF THE MATTER

Rohret says she was convinced to try out for the Opportunes after watching Molly D. Swenson ’10 belt the solo on “Heart of the Matter” at the Freshman A Cappella Jam.

“I was like, if I could sing a third as good as she can, that would make me so incredibly happy,” she recalls.

Ultimately, the enigmatic draw of a cappella comes less from a love for early-90s Don Henley covers, but rather from the camaraderie of each group that can’t help but manifest itself onstage. And it is this transparent enjoyment of the members that sustains Harvard’s a cappella community and ensures renewed investment with each incoming class. People may like the songs, but they cherish the experience.

Eliah Z. Seton ’04, the grad board president of the Krokodiloes, credits the group with persuading him to go to business school. But what attracted him to the Kroks initially was not the prospect of leadership opportunities or organizing a six-continent tour. “I guess what it really comes down to is the fact that the twelve guys onstage looked like they were having so much fun that I wanted to be a part of that fun,” he says.

Watching the group perform, he adds, “was like an inside-joke being passed around.” Maybe after all the mockery, a cappella gets the last laugh.

—Crimson staff writer Jessica R. Henderson can be reached at jhenders@fas.harvard.edu.