How to Start An A Cappella Singing Group

A cappella music—songs performed by a voice ensemble without any other instruments—is incredibly popular on college campuses and in communities throughout the world. The songs span every genre and are sung by everyone from professionals like the Swingle Singers to amateur middle-school groups. If you have musical ability and want to start your own ensemble, read on to learn how.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderate

Things You’ll Need:

• musical ability
• time to rehearse
• a pitchpipe and/or a keyboard
• sight-reading skills or a talent for picking up music by ear
• musical arrangements to follow or recordings to mimic.

1. Determine your voice part. Practice scales and see how high or low you can sing. For women, the highest voices are sopranos and the middle-to-lower voices are altos. For men, the highest voices are tenors and the lower voices are baritones and basses.
   
   In an a cappella group you need at least one person on each voice part. Ideally, it's best to double- or triple-up in order to produce a rich and full sound.
2. Set up auditions. You are looking for like-minded musicians with a similar skill level who have experience singing a cappella. It's different than choral singing, in that the vibrato—that voice wobble so common in opera—is typically taken out in order to create a clean, clear vocal quality. Place a notice in your local arts-weekly newspaper, on the classifieds site Craigslist.com and on discussion boards and appropriate web sites.
   
   In the notice, specify:
   
   —whether you're looking for just females, just males, or both. Groups can be single-sex or co-ed.
   —the minimum age for members (you don't want to end up with high-schoolers if you're looking for 30-somethings, and vice versa).
   —whether you want the person to prepare a solo for the audition.
   —when and where weekly rehearsals are likely to take place.
   —a contact email where you can be reached.
3. Host auditions. Ask auditionees to sing scales, in order to determine vocal range.
   
   Other audition components may include:
   
   —pitch-matching: play a series of notes and ask the person to sing them back. A good way to see if the singer has a good ear for music.
   —sight-reading: if you can read music and would prefer other members did too, then provide a piece of music for the auditionee to read and sing from.
   —solo: Ask the auditionee to perform a solo of his or her choice. This should give you good sense of the singer's range, ability and tonal quality.
4. Select the members for your group, keeping in mind the necessary balance and variety of voice parts. Set up a rehearsal time. Spend the first meeting getting acquainted and working on vocal exercises, to see how all these new voices blend together. Decide on a group name—it's often a play on something musical, or related in some way to the city in which you live.