Pitch Perfect: The Quest for Collegiate A Cappella Glory | Mickey Rapkin

Pitch Perfect: The Quest for Collegiate A Cappella Glory | Mickey Rapkin | A great, great trip with A Capella college groups

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Pitch Perfect: The...

	Pitch Perfect: The Quest for Collegiate A Cappella Glory Mickey Rapkin Gotham, 2008 - 275 pages average customer review:based on 13 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Pitch Perfect is a behind-the-scenes look at the bizarre, often inspiring world of collegiate a cappella groups.

The first collegiate a cappella group, the Yale Whiffenpoofs, was founded by Cole Porter back in 1909. But what had been largely an Ivy League phenomenon has, in the past fifteen years, exploded. And it?s not what you think. There are now more than 1,200 a cappella groups at colleges across the country. The very best of these collegiate groups square off in the annual International Championship of Collegiate A Cappella?a showdown marked by wrenching close calls and exhilarating triumphs. And, really, where else can you hear Michael Jackson?s ?Bad? in four-part harmony?

In Pitch Perfect, GQ editor Mickey Rapkin follows a season in a cappella through all its twists and turns, covering the breathtaking displays of vocal talent, the groupies (yes, a cappella singers have groupies), the rockstar partying (and run-ins with the law), and all the bitter rivalries. Along the way are encounters with boldfaced names such as President George W. Bush, Prince, David Letterman, Barack Obama, Barbra Streisand, Hillary Clinton, Marisa Tomei, Amanda Bynes, Nick Lachey, Merv Griffin, Jim Carrey, Microsoft?s Paul Allen, John Legend, and Jessica Biel.

At the heart of the narrative are three a cappella groups whose interactions are anything but harmonious: the historic Tufts Beelzebubs, founded more than forty years ago with 40,000 albums sold since?and struggling to record a new album that lives up to the hype; Divisi of the University of Oregon, a relatively new, all-female group attempting to overcome a loss in the 2005 championship; and the University of Virginia Hullabahoos, the so-called bad boys of collegiate a cappella, who will attempt to compete on a higher level this year while retaining their casual soul.

Bringing a lively new twist to America?s fascination with talent showdowns and peerless performers, Pitch Perfect is sure to strike a chord with readers.

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Beelzebubs, Divisi & Hullabahoos -- behind the scenes

I often wondered what became of some of the guys in my college's a cappella group -- they seemed to be so consumed by the activity, allowing it to dominate & define their entire college experience, oblivious to classes and grades and similar trivialities. How I underestimated the commitment -- for the members of the three groups featured in this book -- the Tufts Beelzebubs, the UVA Hullabahoos, and the University of Oregon Divisi, coursework and academic activities are an afterthought to their core collegiate experience -- a cappella. The groups travel extensively, train, communicate internally with special language, perform, recruit -- it's pretty all- consuming. The other thing that is particularly striking is how the a cappella experience endures -- seems like many of the alum don't want their experience to end and find some way of continuing to keep their finger in the pot -- through arranging music, participating in alumni singing activities, donations -- rather than finding a grown-up job.

This is non-fiction that reads like fiction -- the characters are well developed and the conflict is ongoing. What I liked best about this book: you really get to know the members of the three featured groups -- their goofy antics, their personality conflicts, the stars & the not-so-stellar performers, all the dirty laundry -- and (assuming you're reading this in 2008), you can go to the groups' websites and see bios of many of the individual singers featured in the book. It's like the epilogue to a movie that features "where they are now". Kind of fun. The book also reveals the quirkiness and cleverness of the a cappella crowd -- the group names are priceless.

One of the other reviewers noted that when you get right down to it, the characters really aren't all that interesting -- they're self-absorbed, self-aggrandizing college students. Perhaps that is precisely why it is so interesting. These are just quirky college kids, completely dedicated to this craft (spending hours on end rehearsing, recording, coming up with clever choreography), occasionnally professional and responsible, and, at the same time, incredibly irresponsible and immature (not showing up on time for critical engagements, getting into literal pissing contests) and lacking any business sense (not invoicing for performances). Reading this took me right back to college -- and reminded me of a number of classmates who were consumed by one activity or another.

I would have liked to know a little bit more about more groups, instead of focusing exclusively on these three -- but perhaps that will have to wait for another book. By the way, I googled the one guy I remembered from my college's a cappella group, and sure enough -- his "job" involves staging college musical productions.

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A great, great trip with A Capella college groups

A great read about a topic not widely known. The struggles of these college singing groups, the fun, the laughter and the hard work is depicted with an easy to read, and interesting to follow, account. Another picture of college life is shared with the reader in a style that reads like a novel. Well worth reading.

Fun and fascinating

This book perfectly combines two of my great loves - a cappella music and gossip. It is a fun, fast read. Not being a teacher or a musician, I did not note any of the inaccuracies in the text, and knowing about them does not diminish my enjoyment or my appreciation one bit. I highly recommend it as a fascinating, if quite subjective, portrait of a subculture.

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Fun, accurate, but pretty one-sided

As a former a cappella guy, I totally related to this book and the stories brought back a lot of fun memories. The thing that bothers me is that a cappella has begun to take itself so incredibly seriously, and the author seems content to go along for the ride without ever getting into the reasons that so many people on campus roll their eyes at these guys. For starters, that most of these groups are started by rejects from other groups is a classic Generation Y characteristic - everyone gets a medal. Second, that dedicating this much energy to something that is funded by affluent benefactors (similar to D1 sports, I suppose) and ultimately has no real world value represents the height of privilege that so many students resent. And finally, he never addresses why every a cappella group in the country seems to have a long-haired Indian dude who supplies most of the weed on campus.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3

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