When Everyone’s Got Something Interesting To Do
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 #194: When Everyone’s Got Something Interesting To Do
We’ve all heard and seen those a cappella performances in which not everyone on stage is particularly engaged. We can hear the basses repeat the same syllables, same notes over and over for four minutes straight, only to do it again with one small variation the next song. Worse yet, we can see the boredom on singers’ faces—disengaged with music that does not challenge or interest them.
Some of this dynamic is the responsibility of the group members in the “boring” roles. As I wrote about The Highlands Voices multiple times in early to mid 2010s, champions care, and groups that consistently win competitions often stake their claims by having every single group member sing with precision, and physically emote for every step of a competition set.
Some of this dynamic does fall back to groups offering something interesting or compelling for everyone to do. Look, I get it, singing in an a cappella group is like working a job, playing on a sports team, performing in a play—not everyone gets to be the star, or at least not every time out. But when people are motivated, they tend to perform better, not to mention that if there’s something so boring or off-putting about a song that a group member struggles to stay engaged, that will probably translate to the audience being less than thrilled as well.
Great performances offer something interesting for everyone, creating a performance the group is excited to share with the world, and that the world is thus all the more excited to indulge in.
I love it!