Start-Up Groups
For the uninitiated, it can be difficult to understand why people love a cappella. Heck, even for those of us who do actively enjoy it, it can be difficult to put into words why we enjoy this art form so. While we’ll never have a truly comprehensive list of everything cool about a cappella, 200 Reasons to Love A Cappella is our best attempt at assembling a list of what makes it great.
Reason #168: Start-Up Groups
We hear a lot about groups with long traditions, the likes of The Whiffenpoofs, Smiffenpoofs, and The Nassoons. Groups that have been around longer than some retired people have been alive. I have a lot of respect for these longstanding institutions in the a cappella world, but I also love it when we get to see new groups arise.
New groups can come and go, but it’s in those initial years when the energy can catch fire—before there are rules to break and when a group is just figuring out its identity on stage, not to mention how it operates behind the scenes.
Start-up groups have the potential to change the game, whether it’s Rutgers Casual Harmony that was bringing System of a Down and Muse to the stage in its first year of competition long before such acts were en vogue in a cappella, or CSUN Acasola innovative structure and goal-setting model. Plenty of new groups start more quietly, with less defined objectives, too, and that’s also great because that dynamic shares the same core factor of starting something new. As such, new groups have all manner of potential. They might do anything, and their potential has no limits, bounds, or pre-existing structures to fit into.
I love it!