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Collegiate a cappella

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Collegiate a cappella (or college a cappella) ensembles are formal, student-run and -directed singing groups that perform entirely without instruments. Such groups can be found at many colleges and universities in the United States, and increasingly worldwide.

The world's first college a cappella group was the Yale Whiffenpoofs, founded in 1909. The first all women's ensemble, the Smiffenpoofs, was founded in 1936 at Smith College.

College a cappella singing has grown immensely since 1980, quadrupling from roughly 300 groups primarily in New England, to over 1,200 groups around the US, with a few in other countries. This growth can be partly traced back from a shift away from a sound more fitting of jazz or classical ensembles and glee clubs to a contemporary a cappella style, with groups singing current pop music, complete with complex textures and a driving beat (see vocal percussion). The University of Pennsylvania Pennsylvania Six-5000 pioneered this sound in 1988, and many other groups quickly followed suit. Today, even some glee club a cappella subsets such as the Cornell University Hangovers have a largely pop-music repertoire, supplemented only in small part by the older style of a cappella.

Today, collegiate a cappella spans multiple genres and styles: alternative and hard rock; comedy; Jewish, including mostly Yiddish or Hebrew songs; Christian, including Christian pop and rearranged hymns; jazz-influenced pop; fusion groups; Rhythm & Blues; madrigals; and jazz. Music style and individual group preference mandate a great variety in both in how groups arrange and perform the music. 

Whether a group is all-male, all-female, or mixed/coed, most share similar traits. Collegiate groups usually consist of 10-15 members, unlike professional groups that usually consist of four to seven members. Their larger relative size is driven by necessity, as college groups tend to see high turnover year after year, due to graduation and other student commitments. The relatively large number of members allows groups to maintain continuity year after year.  The larger size of these groups has an obvious effect on the aural aesthetic created: depending on levels of talent and cross-section blend, collegiate groups are able to perform arrangements with sometimes more than a dozen separate parts.


Collegiate groups are generally self-sustaining, often entirely run by students.  Groups may or may not receive financial support from their institution.  Many groups record albums of their music, usually every two or three years.  The quality of such albums has recently improved markedly, due to an increased focus on elaborate multi-track recording and the emergence of professional a cappella production specialists, such as Gabe Mann in Los Angeles, Bill Hare in San Francisco, Freddie Feldman in Chicago, Dave Sperandio in the southeast, and John Clark in the northeast.


Many college groups compete in the International Championship of Collegiate A Cappella (ICCA), an annual nationwide competition in which groups compete to advance through several stages of competition.  Those with recordings may also submit their albums to be included on the Best of College A Cappella (BOCA) compilation, compiled each year by Don Gooding and Deke Sharon.



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