A Good A Cappella Repertoire?


A cappella in Singapore has come a long way. I remember my first encounter with the a cappella scene in Singapore was when I heard In-A-Chord perform Christmas songs at some shopping centre. I was fascinated with the fact that there were no instruments used at all(except, some may argue, the voice, of course). I was amazed by the fact the voices could blend into a single chord and sometimes it was quite difficult to distinguish the individual parts from one another(some say that is a trademark of a good a cappella group).

I guess anyone who is listening to vocal harmony for the first time will, like me, be enthralled by its novelty first and foremost. No instruments! No synthetic drum pads! Just a mouth with plenty of rhythmic spitting(trust me on the spitting part)! And I'm guessing that for most of the groups that have sprung up recently, it was this novelty factor that they wanted to portray.

It is of course heartening to see the scene flourishing with many groups(some of solid standard, mind you. Just because it's local doesn't mean it sux yeah?). The competition amongst the groups in the annual A Cappella Championships gets tougher every year, so i'm a little relieved that Equivox won it early. I don't want to end up stripping for *ahem* bonus points.

So I guess with so many groups around having a decent ability to sing a cappella, it only makes sense to start thinking about where a cappella should go. And by that, I am really talking about the repertoire that groups should possess.

First and foremost, a group's repertoire should be sufficiently challenging for most, if not all, of its singers. for example, it could be written so that it can stretch a member's range, or it could be rhythmically demanding, or it could simply have "complicated" chord changes so that members can brush up on their intonation for various intervals. By writing more of such stuff, practice sessions can become more effective. How so? I know from experience, that difficult songs tend to be memorised more easily. Furthermore, a group that is singing a song that is too easy for most of its members will be inclined to make more mistakes during performances simply because singers tend to become complacent. Thirdly, when every singer knows that he/she will be challenged at practice sessions, the sessions themselves become more focussed, and things get done/learnt more quickly. Besides, it just feels good to have tamed those difficult notes. Ideally, a group should 'level' up after learning a song.

Secondly, the songs should be interesting, either by themselves, or the arranger has arranged it in an interesting way. I think this is quite obvious. If the song is boring, but difficult, what reasons are there for learning it? No one wants to perform such a song, and the group will be unmotivated even to learn it, let alone memorising it. Some will ask me why shouldn't this point be of utmost priority? Basically, it is my belief that the challenges in a song itself will make the song an interesting one. But this really brings us to our next point...


If an arranger tries to be difficult just for difficulty's sake. the members will not be motivated to learn the song. How would it feel if I wrote a 3 octave jump for my sop just to make sure she can do it? Songs must be challenging, but they shouldn't be written just for difficulty's sake. There are etudes which are fun, and there are etudes. Some etudes, you want to do them again and again until you've reached an insane level of execution. But some, you just want to leave if for the day that never comes. Let the sophisticated elements in the music challenge your singers. No point forcing them to tackle tritone intervals because you have deliberately littered them all over the place without due consideration for voice-leading and the fact that some other part may find the note easier to hit. So point no. 3: Songs must be meaningful to the group in levelling the group up.

I could go on forever about repertoire, but I think most of beginning arrangers out that will know what i'm getting at. Mere transcriptions of the favourite songs on radio are fine as long as the group is not solely focussed on doing a song a cappella just because the group CAN do it. Exercise some creativity. Make the song sound BETTER when your group sings it. Make everyone(including other groups) want to sing the song. But make sure that there is no way other groups to sound better than your group doing the same song. And then you will know that you have a good repertoire.

Yours truly,
Simon
Resident Baritone