A Cappella
Last night, my a cappella group, The Oxford Gargoyles, participated in the International Championship of Collegiate A Cappella. It was held in the student union. We had about 4 groups come all the way from Cambridge and St. Andrews to compete. Oxford has the greatest a capella awareness though, as we have 4 groups in Oxford alone. It was a lot of fun. I like watching and listening to a capella anyway, not to mention singing it or competing. The Cambridge groups were pretty good, but the St. Andrews ones were not (even though the guys did all wore kilts to represent their Scottish school).
In the end, we came in 4th. In some ways it was deserved, in other ways we deverved better. The problem was that 1/3 of the point system was based on stage movements and things of that sort. The three top groups had choreographies and all sorts of stuff, whereas we had very little. Of course, it was near impossible for us to have more than we did because of the nature of our songs. For example, the group that won (called, Out of the Blue, an all male group) had songs like Queen's "Fat Bottomed Girls" and "the Lion Sleeps Tonight"... in other words, songs that are already "fun" and quirky that you can easily add funny movements too (in the Lion song they had people prowling like animals, hunters, swinging from imaginary vines.... etc). The problem was that we are a Jazz a cappella group, and while we could have pretended we were rocketships for "Fly Me to the Moon" it would have taken away the charm of the old Jazz standard and made it ridiculous. So, oh well. We still had fun and were happy with the way our sound turned out. Many people came up and told us we deserved better than we did because our sound was better than some of the top 3.
In the end, we came in 4th. In some ways it was deserved, in other ways we deverved better. The problem was that 1/3 of the point system was based on stage movements and things of that sort. The three top groups had choreographies and all sorts of stuff, whereas we had very little. Of course, it was near impossible for us to have more than we did because of the nature of our songs. For example, the group that won (called, Out of the Blue, an all male group) had songs like Queen's "Fat Bottomed Girls" and "the Lion Sleeps Tonight"... in other words, songs that are already "fun" and quirky that you can easily add funny movements too (in the Lion song they had people prowling like animals, hunters, swinging from imaginary vines.... etc). The problem was that we are a Jazz a cappella group, and while we could have pretended we were rocketships for "Fly Me to the Moon" it would have taken away the charm of the old Jazz standard and made it ridiculous. So, oh well. We still had fun and were happy with the way our sound turned out. Many people came up and told us we deserved better than we did because our sound was better than some of the top 3.
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