A Cappella Arranging Finding New Meaning in Familiar Songs Kevin Vondrak Washington University in St. Louis Fall 2014 Contemporary cappella singing has received much attention in the past two decades from audiences and singers alike. It appears on TV through shows like NBC’s “The Sing-Off”, and in Hollywood through the movie “Pitch Perfect”. Albums by the a cappella quintet Pentatonix have cracked the Billboard 200 charts and top recording artists like Sara Barielles and John Legend still hold true to their a cappella roots as they forge successful popular music careers. Walk onto any campus in the United States and a cappella groups are easy to find, singing at university events, rehearsing well into the night, and producing well-attended concerts. A cappella audiences are aware that the genre is based in performing previously recorded music, but an a cappella cover song goes beyond mere imitation. Contemporary a cappella attempts to recreate a musical work originally played by instruments, and the resulting “vocal band” provides the framework for vocal arranging. Embracing an instrumental aesthetic provides a new way to experience vocal music that is grounded in a rock and popular music tradition. How these sounds are made and translated into voices, as well as extensions of the original musical material through varying means of vocal style, formal expansion and embellishment, all display the wealth of creativity and inventiveness that can be found in contemporary a cappella arranging. Covers and Versions In collegiate contemporary a cappella, original compositions are largely the exception. Most groups arrange songs from the radio, movies, Broadway or folk traditions. The practice of a cappella arranging and performing can then be considered an extension of the established tradition of cover songs found in popular music. A cover song is a new performance of a previously recorded, commercially released song by someone other than the original artist. Essentially an adaptation, much of the value lies in the covering artists’ interpretation. Measuring the interpreter’s skill, in part, lies in how well the artist uncovers and conveys the spirit of the original, enhances melody, rhythm, phrasing, or structure, and adds a bit of their own personality or interpretation. The covers of a cappella, like all covers, are stereophonic. This means that the audience is aware of the original and hears the cover in terms of it. However, it is important to note that the original is usually a recorded source. Recordings, particularly in the context of popular music, have become the primary musical “works” of our time. The use of recording technology captures just one performance of a song, and that one fixed source is regarded as the ideal version. This is contrasted with live performance or traditions that emphasize the score, where aspects of the musical performance change in subtle and nuanced ways between performers and performances. In an arrangement, the interplay between the cover and the original determines many of the musical considerations. There are different ways to adapt the original recording to make a cover. Covering in the context of arranging attempts to recreate specific aspects of the one recording. All of the musical decisions can be traced back to an attempt to emulate the sounds of the original recording as accurately as possible. This can be extended to all aspects of performance. 1964 The Tribute is a cover band that draws their repertoire from the discography of The Beatles. From the way they dress and act on stage, to their instruments and the music they play, 1964 The Tribute tries to emulate the sounds and appearances of The Beatles. In a cappella, all the sounds must be performed by the human voice, so some examples of covering may be altering vowels to emulate the timbre of different instruments, or replicating note-for-note the elaborations made by a particular soloist in the original recording. Another form of adaptation in cover songs is the practice of versioning, which occurs “when the song itself (as opposed to the performance) is taken as the reference for iteration.” (Weinstein 1998: 138). In this practice, a covering artist will keep the main building blocks of the song, but take creativity liberties with others. “A cappella shows that categories such as 'cover’ and 'version’ sometimes blur. A cappella groups emulate particular performances of songs (created or captured on particular recordings) while simultaneously denying the very instruments used in those performances. And when an a cappella group strives to re-create aspects of a recording, it would seem the group is aspiring to cover. At the same time, some techniques or originality, such as interplay between background parts or reinterpretations of the lead melody, suggest an effort to version.” (Duchan 2012: 86) A cappella groups are not simply ‘covering’ these recordings, but instead creating distinct performances that use the original recording as a base for an independent artistic statement. In performance, this powerful musical statement is mixed with elements of interaction (both between group members and between the group and audience), technology and movement to display a musical and artistic identity. 2 A blend of covering and versioning keeps a cappella arrangements fresh and relevant, while also grounding them authentically in the source material. As the resource material from the spectrum of music expands, we find that the reasons to cover are as varied as the music they are emulating: the commercial advantage of familiarity, gaining credibility, clever artistic interpretation, demonstrating roots, or simply singing what one hears in the world around them. A cappella arranging allows for the expression of musical creativity while covering pre-existing songs. A Cappella Arranging The performance of a cappella music relies on the idea of “recontextualizing musical material from one source to another” (Duchan 85). Much of the source material for contemporary a cappella comes from pop music, and the process of ‘translating’ from an instrumental idiom into a vocal one provides an opportunity for artistic expression. Deke Sharon and Dylan Bell note that in its most basic sense, arranging is “the positioning of preexisting elements for maximum effect, resulting in an order that’s pleasing and suits our needs” (Bell, 15). When applied to a cappella music, arranging can take on different meanings, largely depending on the creativity of the arranger, and the distance between the original song’s musical character and the a cappella group’s musical identity. There are several points on an “arranging spectrum” that can be ordered based on the number of decisions required by the arranger (Bell, 19). The first point on the spectrum is transcription, which the Harvard Dictionary of Music defines as “the reduction of music from live or recorded sound to written notation” (Randel, 902). From this definition it appears that transcription is more of a technical exercise than an act of creative expression—the transcriber is making few choices beyond the notational considerations. Yet transcription is an important tool for any arranger, especially someone new to the craft. As a genre based largely in emulation, from choosing songs to replicating vocal harmonies and guitar solos, the skill of ‘lifting’ a melody or texture from the original into the arrangement is crucial. Still, transcription is only a tool in the larger process of arranging. The next point in the arranging spectrum comes from Anna Callahan, author of the only arranging manual specifically for collegiate a cappella, Anna’s Amazing A Cappella Arranging Advice: The Collegiate A Cappella Arranging Manuel. She proposes the term transanging to describe the conversion of a song originally played with instrumentation into an a cappella song without substantially changing the melody, harmonic structure, or style. This generally means assigning parts based on vocal ranges and determining appropriate vocables. Transanging involves more creative input on the part of the arranger as an intermediary between the group and the original. The arranger, typically a member of 3 the group, knows what works well and which particular vocal strengths should be highlighted, and will make decisions in assigning components of the original song to individuals in the group. Most of the creativity is then focused on recognizing the strengths and limitations of the particular performers, and tailoring the vocal arranging to accurately render the original song within a vocal medium as opposed to an instrumental one. However, an important distinction is highlighted in transanging. The source material for nearly all a cappella is a studio-recorded track featuring many different instruments and effects. The distillation of a heterogeneous sound mass into an all-vocal blend, and the more specific imitation of individual instruments and timbres are essential in a cappella arranging. Regardless of which genre the source material falls into, there are unique musical elements that are “signature” in identifying the song or broader musical style. Dylan Bell emphasizes that certain parts of a song are particularly enjoyable for the audience (especially if the group focuses on a certain musical time period – like 80’s rock) and that they should be “reproduced vocally, note for note” in order to maximize the intended effect and keep distinct features recognizable (Bell, 23). Taking into consideration the earlier discussion of covering and versioning, we see that keeping some elements of the song recognizable “note for note” is an example of a covering practice. True Arranging or Transformation to use terms proposed by Duchan and Sharon/Bell respectively allows the arranger the most creative freedom. The result will allow the arranger “the freedom to really express” themselves and can create a unique interpretation that may not sound like the original at all (Duchan 483). This may come in the form of compositional adjustments in style, meter, form, mood, relative major/minor modes or other general considerations.