About A Cappella Music

What is A cappella?

A cappella (Italian or Latin "From the chapel/choir") music is vocal music or singing without instrumental accompaniment, or a piece intended to be performed in this way.

A cappella was originally intended to differentiate between Renaissance polyphony and Baroque concertato style. In the 19th century a renewed interest in Renaissance polyphony coupled with an ignorance of the fact that vocal parts were often doubled by instrumentalists led to the term coming to mean unaccompanied vocal music.

In modern usage, a cappella often refers to an all-vocal performance of any style, including barbershop, doo wop, and modern pop/rock.

Religious Traditions

A cappella music originally was, and still often is, used in religious music, especially church music as well as anasheed and zemirot.

Gregorian chant is an example of a cappella singing, as is the majority of sacred vocal music from the Renaissance. The madrigal, up until its development in the early Baroque into an instrumentally-accompanied form, is also usually in a cappella form.

The original music in Judaism and then in early Christianity was a cappella and has continuously existed in both of these related religious communities as well as in Islam.

A cappella in the United States

A strong and prominent a cappella tradition was begun in the midwest part of the United States in 1911 by F. Melius Christiansen, a music faculty member at St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota. The St. Olaf College Choir was established as an outgrowth of the local St. John's Lutheran Church, where Christiansen was organist and the choir was composed at least partially of students from the nearby St. Olaf campus. The success of the ensemble was emulated by other regional conductors, and a rich tradition of a cappella choral music was born in the region at colleges like Concordia College (Moorhead, MN), Augustana College (Rock Island, IL), Wartburg College (Waverly, IA), Luther College (Decorah, IA), Gustavus Adolphus College (St. Peter, MN), Augustana College (Sioux Falls, South Dakota), and Augsburg College (Minneapolis, MN). The choirs typically range from 40 singers to 80 and are recognized for their efforts to perfect blend, intonation, phrasing, and pitch in a large choral setting.

Major movements in modern a cappella over the past century include Barbershop and doo wop. The Barbershop Harmony Society, Sweet Adelines International, and Harmony Inc. host educational events including Harmony University, Directors University, and the International Educational Symposium, and international contests and conventions, recognizing international champion choruses and quartets.

In the 1950s several recording groups - notably The Hi-Los and the Four Freshmen - introduced complex jazz harmonies to a cappella performances.

The King's Singers are credited with promoting interest in small-group a cappella performances in the 1960s. In 1983 an a cappella group known as The Flying Pickets had a Christmas 'number one' in the UK with a cover of Yazoo's (known in the US as Yaz) Only You. A cappella music attained renewed prominence from the late 1980s onward, spurred by the success of Top 40 recordings by artists such as The Manhattan Transfer, but it was The Persuasions who saved the dying art and opened the door for such artists as Bobby McFerrin, Huey Lewis and the News, All 4 One, The Nylons and Boyz II Men.[citation needed]

In 2005, Bo Bice performed an a cappella version of "In A Dream" by Badlands when he was one of three contestants remaining on season 4 of American Idol. The show's producers warned him that it was a risky move, but his performance got great reviews from the judges and Bice advanced to the finals.

Definition courtesy of wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.