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Introduction to Rock

Justin Cheung Yuk Wing

Contemporary A CAPPELLA

A Cappella is an Italian term which means ‘in the style of the church’ or ‘at church’. The

term was originally used to differentiate musical works composed in the older polyphonic

style of the Renaissance from those written in the newer concertato style of the early

Baroque.1 It usually means choral music which is sung with no instrumental

accompaniment in the modern classical music community. When it comes to popular

culture, however, audiences usually expect performance with contemporary music (i.e.

pop, R&B, jazz, and so on) in the arrangement of vocal band sound. This means there are

bass lines, back up vocal lines and even percussion line for a group consists of solely

human voice.

A little bit of History

Barbershop music was the earliest form of contemporary A Cappella, and it is greatly

influenced by the African Americans. Many early vocal groups began by singing

barbershop music. However, with the rise of Vocal Percussion (VP) technique, AKA

Beatboxing, from the hip-hop community (as well as microphones and mixing technique),

A Cappella music gained the ability to access more kinds of music, such as pop, jazz,

R&B, or even heavy metal. Although human voices are the only instrument, the

instrumentation is more and more band-alike.

1
William C. Holmes. "A cappella." Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. Oxford University Press,
accessed December 13, 2016, http://0-
www.oxfordmusiconline.com.lib.hkapa.edu/subscriber/article/grove/music/00091.
Musical Style Comparison

Three groups are selected for this section; they are the The King’s Singers, The Real

Group and Pentatonix. This section is to illustrate the musical characteristic of each

group. Most of the contemporary a cappella songs are generally cover songs, and most of

the selected excerpts in this section are covers, only one song is original. All songs are

from each group’s recent album. The comparison section is divided into two parts. The

first part is to analyze one song from each group, which can strongly represent their

musical style of each group. In order to do a more detailed comparison on the difference

among various groups and style, the second part is to analyze a particular song that all

three groups have their own cover version.

Different Songs Comparison (Please right click and copy hyperlink, and paste the URL
into the browser)

The King’s Singers (1968 – present) – Blackbird


Blackbird is a song by the Beatles, written by McCartney. The instrumentation of the

original music is a lead singer, a guitar, foot tapping and birdsong overdub. The reason of

choosing this song is because; this is the pop song with highest views in King’s Singers

YouTube channel. The King’s Singers are a group of 6 male singers. All members are

classically trained, and their style is generally a clean, proper and classic vocal ensemble.

In The King’s Singers’ version, a light hi-hat by the vocal percussion (VP) is used to

replace the foot tap sound of the original version. The music starts with hi-hits, and back-

up vocal lines come in, singing ‘ding, ding, ding, ding-ah-ding-ah-ding’ throughout the

song and imitate the accompany pattern of the guitar in the original version. (0:01-0:06)

Lead singer comes in right after, but instead of singing like Paul McCartney (folk style),

he sings in a softer and more-or-less classical manner. This is also why the group is
generally performing in a chamber-choir-like style. All six members are male, so even

the highest part is sung by man with falsetto. A true male blackbird voice was recorded

and overdub in the original music. The King’s Singers adds a whistled melody (1:23-1:41)

and a flutter tongue technique (2:05) to emulate songbird and birds flying noise. The

mixing and effects (e.g. reverb and echo) of this piece give us an impression of singing in

a chapel, and was recorded from few meters away from the group. This is the general

style of The King’s Singers. They arranged many classical pieces into a cappella style.

The Real Group (1984-present) – Pass Me the Jazz


Pass Me the Jazz is the only original song among all song selected in this comparison

section. The reason of choosing this song is clear; they write this song for themselves. It

suits and represents the group’s jazzy style. The whole song is consists of complicated

jazz chords (i.e. with lots of non-chord tones, 7th 9th, accidentals). The bass singer is

singing like a jazz rhythmic section by singing ‘dm tm dm tm’ syllable. The dm is to

imitate double bass, and tm is to imitate hi-hats, as well as to emphasize back beats (2nd

& 4th beats) like what jazz rhythm does. Instead of having one lead singer (as in the

previous example), the lead melody alternate from different parts. Back up lines contains

a massive amount of nonsensical syllables, which are used to either imitate instruments,

or to imitate scat singing effect. Back up lines shift from singing nonsensical syllables to

singing same lyrics with the melody (1:02-1:20), and then started to sing in mostly homo-

rhythmic and homophonic texture, until the sudden tempo change (2:53). The music ends

with a typical jazz band sound, imitating brass sections, with 9th and sharp 11th of the

ending tonic chord. We can know that singers recorded the song with close-miking

technique from the overall sound of this work, since every line is close and clear, and it

relies on mixing to create different panning effect (i.e. bass on the left, tenor on the left).
As they are singing jazz music, portamento (i.e. sliding from one note to another) is

largely used. Comparing with The King’s Singers, The Real Group singing technique is

more pop-like, which is singing with less space at the soft palate, and placing their voice

more forward.

Pentatonix (2011 - present) – Daft Punk


Daft Punk is a song mashup of 7 songs from the French electronic music duo, Daft Punk.

Unlike the two examples above, Pentatonix is a young American a cappella group. They

rely heavily on Vocal Percussion and special mixing effects, such as the chorus effect

(bass doubling in the excerpt), compressor, reverb, EQ for frequency enhancement and so

on. The music starts with a compressed and reverbed tenor sound. Bass and VP come in

at 0:15, with very strong bass frequency enhancement and chorus effect (bass octave

doubling). The bass singer actually hummed his note most of the time, instead of singing

any open vowel. This is to create an even stronger muffled bass sound. However, he sings

‘orah’ vowel (0:22) in every two beat, and change to ‘dm’ and sing it in every beat (0:25).

This is to imitate the bassline rhythm of electronic music. Vocal percussion line is very

intense, and very much stronger than the other two groups. Back up lines sings ‘du, ah,

oh’, and alternate from nonsensible syllables to lyrics. Patterns of back up lines are more

sequential, and usually repeat a pattern for few times before moving on to another. (e.g.

1:39-1:52 and 2:08-2:19) Back up lines are basically easier than that of The Real Group,

in terms of harmony.

Same Song Comparison

Nat King Cole - The Christmas Song


The music is written by Bob Wells and Mel Tormé, but it was popularized by Nat King

Cole, the American jazz singer. His version is arranged in jazz big band instrumentation.

In this section, we will compare three different a cappella versions of this song that sung

by the three groups mentioned above.

The King’s Singers


This version is sung without any percussion line, and is arranged in a traditional carol

style. The music alternates between two texture; 1) when all singers sing exactly the same

lyrics and rhythm, and the melody is carried by upper part (e.g. 0:00-0:17, 0:43-1:00),

and 2) when singers are divided into backing parts and lead singer, which is when the

melody is bring out by the baritone, while the others sing long notes to hold chords. (e.g.

0:18-0:43, 1:00-1:11). Harmony of this arrangement is complex, as the original music is

already a jazz music, but the group didn’t emphasize the swing rhythm in this

arrangement, which cause it sound more classical, less jazzy. This recording is not bass

enhanced, and the acoustic is natural and is like listening concert in a chapel.

The Real Group


The music starts with a prelude, which is very similar to that played by strings in the

original version. This version can be divided into three sections, 1) the slow section that

without vocal percussion (0:00-2:31), 2) the faster section with vocal percussion playing

jazz drum set in jazz swing rhythm, and 3) the third section when the lead singer sings

again. In the slow section, back-up singers mostly sing long notes, and it is more or less

like the first version. However, the bassline of this version is stronger than the first

version. The entry of the jazz drum set brings the music to its fast section, and modulates

to another key. The bass line change into a double bass pattern. The fast section starts

with an improvisation section, which is alike with many jazz bands’ arrangements, and
no verbal lyric is sung in this part. (2:31-3:39) The last section variates in tempo, and the

drum fades out at 4:04 to bring the music back to a slow tempo.

Pentatonix
It is interesting that Pentatonix decided not to add beatboxing in this arrangement. Instead

drum sounds, they use finger snaps to create the groove, as well as the percussive

bassline. The bass sings in a double bass style. Pentatonix keeps their easy but effective

style in their backing line. The rhythmic pattern of the backing line is basically, sing in

every down beat. They follow this pattern and alternate from singing nonsensible

syllables and fragments from the lyrics of main melody. A human voice emulated

trumpet solo is performed in the middle and the ending of the song (1:55-2:20, 3:24-3:40).

Conclusion
The three versions are all in jazz harmonies. The harmony is similar, but what make them

different are the singing technique, groove, musical arrangement and recording technique.

The song was originally distinctive and popular, but these three groups managed to

arrange it into a style that fits themselves.

Reference
Grove Music Online - http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/public/

The King’s Singers official website - http://www.kingssingers.com/

The Real Group official website - http://www.therealgroup.se/

Pentatonix official website - http://ptxofficial.com/home

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