My housemate just got blindfolded and kidnapped. Should I frantically flag down a Spectaguard or break in the new PennAlert system? Nope - she's just been accepted into an a capella group.
A capella at Penn has come a long way from the days when it was all-male and consigned to singing school anthems. Today, the 14 official groups on campus span multiple genres and styles, from "rock a pella" and jazz to comedy and barbershop. The groups also vary demographically, whether by gender, ethnicity or religion. Last week, nearly 100 Penn students put the rest of their lives on hold in order to audition for at least one of these groups. The competition was fierce - Off the Beat, for example, saw 93 people try out but accepted only six of them. Aspiring members rehearsed their audition song relentlessly and didn't eat dairy for a week. As one sophomore described it, "auditions are pretty much all you're doing or thinking about doing." Outside the audition room, the tension was palpable. Students could be seen chugging water and drinking tea, huddled in a corner listening to their song over and over on iPods (Christina Aguilera is most common for girls, the Fray for guys), belting nine-note scales from the bathroom, or pressed against the door timing the other auditions.
The motivation for suffering this grueling process goes beyond singing. Some a capella concerts garner so much campus buzz that members liken it to achieving "rock star status," and really, who wouldn't want to perform in front of screaming fans?
In auditions, groups look not only for musical ability but also for personal chemistry. Students who get offers from more than one group have a week-long "trial period" to see which group they are most compatible with before making their decision.
Chemistry aside, a capella ultimately comes down to the singing. But at a large and potentially anonymous school like Penn, the attraction of a capella groups also stems from their social quality. Some students want to belong so much that they forget talent is necessary; while the majority of people who audition have previous vocal training, the chair of the a capella council, Sam Cohn, said, "There are some people that will come in every year and have absolutely no sense of themselves. They will start singing and you look around and everyone has their hands clapped over their face to keep from laughing"
