A Case for the ICCA
Michael Marcus is an award-winning arranger and an alumnus/co-founder of Columbia University Nonsequitur. He is also featured in an upcoming documentary film about collegiate a cappella, Sounds Good to Me. Michael lives in New Haven with his wife Inna and dog Zoe.
Raise your hand if this has happened to you:
Your group auditions for the ICCA and gets in. It's your first time competing, so you're all incredibly excited. You pick your three best songs and rehearse them until you can sing them in your sleep. You arrive at the host school and sing your hearts out. You stand on stage with the other quarterfinalists as the winners are announced - but you haven't placed, let alone advanced to the semi-finals. In your disappointment, you decide as a group that you won't even bother auditioning next year.
This happened to me six years ago, when I competed with Columbia Nonsequitur in the quarterfinal at the University of Delaware. We didn't leave completely empty-handed; our rendition of India.Arie's "Ready for Love" garnered us a Best Soloist award. But we didn't place. The group was devastated.
It was without question a highlight of my college a cappella career, and I would have done it again without hesitation.
Wanting to win is certainly a good reason to enter the ICCA, but it should not be the only reason. By placing such a huge emphasis on how your group places (or doesn't), it is easy to lose sight of the fact that the ICCA is about so much more than crowning a champion. The truth is that the ICCA can make your group better - if you let it.
Here are my top five reasons to give the ICCA a second look.
5. Working toward a tangible goal
Rehearsing for a campus concert is one thing; rehearsing for the ICCA is quite another. You are working toward something real that looms large in front of you, and you will only succeed if you can pull together as a team. All of a sudden your group is more focused. You pick apart your set and fix the little things that you never had time to work on before. You spend your rehearsal time more effectively. And, if you're lucky, you discover what it is that separates you from your competition and learn to exploit the heck out of it - not just for the ICCA, but for all your shows.
4. Elevating your performance to a whole new level
Too much of collegiate a cappella is boring to watch. Your group may sound great just standing and singing, but that will only get you so much entertainment value. The ICCA forces you to perform your songs, not just sing them. Specifically, the Visual Performance score considers things like cohesiveness, stage presence, creativity of movement, transitions, blocking, and even professionalism. How many of these does your group practice on a regular basis?
3. Discovering the a cappella community
The ICCA is, if nothing else, an excuse to venture outside the bubble of your home campus and see what other groups are doing. It is your chance to see how other arrangers have interpreted songs you sing and songs you thought would never work a cappella; to see the trends and get on board, or start your own; and even to find inspiration for new songs. (One of the other groups from our 2003 quarterfinal added "Ready for Love" to their repertoire after they saw our award-winning performance. We took it as a compliment.)
2. Getting your group out there
The travel gig is one of the best parts of the collegiate a cappella experience, and the ICCA is the mother of all travel gigs. Your group makes a name for itself in the a cappella community simply by appearing in an ICCA show, whether you win or not. Better yet, bring the ICCA to your school and play host group. Take the opportunity to network for future travel gigs with other groups in your region. And by selling your CD at intermission, you can reach an even wider audience and make some extra money in the process.
To have your friends scream for you at your campus shows is satisfying, but to have complete strangers do it is transcendent. That's when you know you're really good.
1. Learning, Learning, Learning
The ICCA is a rare chance to get constructive insights into your performance style from the pros. Your score sheet comes with written comments from the judges on your individual songs and your performance as a whole. You are of course free to ignore these suggestions, but do not get defensive and dismiss them out of hand; they are a valuable tool to help you improve as a group and should be taken as such.
Your group also learns from watching others and from its own mistakes. Nonsequitur did not enter again until 2007 - after all the members who competed in 2003 had graduated - and they made the exact same mistakes as we did, with the same result. This time around, however, they kept at it, coming back in 2008 and again in 2009. They placed first at their quarterfinal this year. They competed in the semi-final show at MIT and left empty-handed - and they are psyched to be coming back again next year.
Competing in the ICCA is not an event. It's a process, and it can reap rich rewards for your group if you are disciplined enough to work for them. Start by getting to Lincoln Center this year for the finals if you can, and let yourself be inspired by the best in the world. No matter who wins, it promises to be a fantastic show.