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A cappella

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Musical genres, styles,
eras and events

   A cappella music is vocal music or singing without instrumental
   accompaniment, or a piece intended to be performed in this way. A
   cappella is Italian for "in the style of the chapel", and 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.

Religious traditions

   A cappella music originally was, and still often is, used in church
   music. 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 an a cappella form.

Christian

   Present-day Christian religious bodies known for conducting their
   worship services without musical accompaniment include the Amish, Old
   Regular Baptists, Primitive Baptists, Plymouth Brethren, most
   congregations among the churches of Christ, the Old German Baptist
   Brethren, some Presbyterian churches devoted to the regulative
   principle of worship, and the Eastern Orthodox Christian Church. Many
   Mennonites also conduct some or all of their services without
   instruments. Sacred Harp, a type of religious "folk" music, is an a
   cappella style of religious singing, but is more often sung at singing
   conventions than at church services.

   Christian a cappella polyphony began to be developed in Europe around
   the late 1400s; early works are often identified with Josquin des Prez.
   The early a cappellas seem to have had an accompanying instrument,
   although this instrument doubled the singers and were not independent.
   By the 1500s, a cappella polyphony had been fully developed; Giovanni
   Pierluigi da Palestrina's works are considered excellent examples.
   After Palestrina, the cantata began to take the a cappella's place.

Jewish

   Traditional Jewish religious services do not include musical
   instruments. The use of instruments is traditionally forbidden on the
   Sabbath out of concern that players would be tempted to repair their
   instruments, which is forbidden on those days. (This prohibition has
   been relaxed in many Reform and some Conservative congregations.)
   Similarly, when Jewish families and larger groups sing traditional
   Sabbath songs known as zemirot outside the context of formal religious
   services, they usually do so a cappella, and Bar and Bat Mitzvah
   celebrations on the Sabbath sometimes feature entertainment by a
   cappella ensembles. Moreover, many Jews consider the 49-day period of
   the counting of the omer between Passover and Shavuot to be a time of
   semi-mourning when instrumental music is not allowed. This has led to a
   tradition of a cappella singing sometimes known as sefirah music.

Muslim

   Some Muslims have also adopted the idiom of a cappella music since
   traditional Islam prohibits the use of instruments except for some
   basic percussion. Muslim a cappella songs are called anasheed.

Contemporary a cappella

   In the modern parlance, the term applies to vocal performers who
   refrain from performing with any instrumental accompaniment, though
   some emulate the sonority of instruments with their voices,
   microphones, and signal processing effects.

   A strong and prominent a cappella tradition was begun in the Midwest 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
   comprised 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), 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.

   The King's Singers are credited with promoting interest in small-group
   a cappella performance in the 1960s. In 1983 an a Cappella group known
   as The Flying Pickets had a Christmas number 1 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, Bobby
   McFerrin, Huey Lewis and the News, All 4 One, The Nylons and Boyz II
   Men.

   This prominence, as well as a change in the style (voices used as
   modern rock instruments, including vocal percussion/" beatboxing")
   helped fuel an explosion in collegiate a cappella—some larger
   universities now have a dozen groups or more, and the total number of
   college groups grew from 250 circa 1990 to over 1,000 now. The oldest
   collegiate a cappella group is The Whiffenpoofs of Yale University,
   formed in 1909, whose members have included Cole Porter, Nicolas Rojas
   and relatives of George Bush. Other noted collegiate a cappella groups
   include Tufts University Beelzebubs, Smith College Smiffenpoofs, the
   Harvard Din & Tonics, Redhot and Blue of Yale University, University of
   California at Berkeley's Men's Octet, Straight No Chaser of Indiana
   University, Off the Beat of University of Pennsylvania, and The Other
   Guys from University of Illinois.

   Major movements in modern a cappella over the past century include
   Barbershop and doo wop. Contemporary a cappella includes many vocal
   bands who add vocal percussion or beatboxing to create a pop/rock
   sound, in some cases very similar to bands with instruments. One such
   group is Rockapella, a preeminent example of contemporary A Cappella.
   There also remains a strong a cappella presence within Christian music,
   as some denominations do not allow instruments to be used during
   services.

   Arrangements of popular music for small a cappella ensembles typically
   include one voice singing the lead melody, one singing a rhythmic bass
   line, and the remaining voices contributing chordal or polyphonic
   accompaniment.

   A cappella can also describe the practice of using just the vocal
   track(s) from a multitrack, instrumental recording to be remixed or put
   onto vinyl records for DJs. Artists sometimes release the vocal tracks
   of their popular songs so that fans can remix them. One such example is
   the a cappella release of Jay-Z's Black Album, which Danger Mouse mixed
   with the Beatles' White Album to create The Grey Album.

   Increased interest in modern a cappella (particularly collegiate a
   cappella) can be seen in the growth of awards such as the Contemporary
   A Cappella Recording Awards (overseen by the Contemporary A Cappella
   Society) and competitions such as the International Championship of
   Collegiate A Cappella for college groups and the Harmony Sweepstakes
   for all groups.

   A Cappella's growth is not limited to live performance, with hundreds
   of recorded a cappella albums produced over the past decade. As of
   December 2006, the Recorded A Cappella Review Board (RARB) had reviewed
   over 660 a cappella albums since 1994, and its popular discussion forum
   had over 900 users and 19,000 articles.

   A cappella is gaining popularity among South Asian youth with the
   emergence of primarily Hindi-English College groups. Examples of
   all-male groups include Penn Masala in the University of Pennsylvania
   and Raagapella in Stanford. The first all-female group is New York
   Masti, most of whose members have been from New York University.
   Several similar groups exist in other colleges. These groups have
   attained significant critical acclaim with their distinct style of
   mixing songs and applying a cappella to styles of different cultures.
   Penn Masala has songs in Hindi, Arabic, English, Punjabi and Gujarati,
   with lyrics from different languages in the same song.

Emulating instruments

   People do not just always sing the words when singing a cappella; some
   also emulate instrumentation by reproducing the melody with their vocal
   chords. For instance, " Twilight Zone" by 2 Unlimited was sung a
   cappella to the instrumentation on the comedy television series
   Tompkins Square. Another famous example of emulating instrumentation
   instead of singing the words is the theme song for The New Addams
   Family series on Fox Family Channel (now ABC Family). Groups such as
   Vocal Sampling and Undivided emulate Latin rhythms a cappella. Vocal
   artist Bobby McFerrin is famous for his instrumental emulation, and
   Deke Sharon has taught seminars on how to sing a variety of
   instrumental sounds.

   Beatboxing is a form of a cappella music popular in the hip-hop
   community, where rap is often performed a cappella also.
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