A Cappella Slowly Overcoming Dorky Stigma

The NY Times has this amusing feature about collegiate a cappella singers who graduate and feel a little ambivalent about their participation in the activity, especially with group names like the Tufts Beelzebubs, Harvard Krokodiloes (pictured above), and Yale Whiffenpoofs (complete with their own album, “Take a Whiff”).

On the NBC sitcom “The Office,” the grating Andy Bernard, a character played by Ed Helms, often reminds co-workers that he once performed with a Cornell group called Here Comes Treble.

Mr. Helms said the show’s satire of a cappella was all in good fun, though he still bears the scars of his own brief encounter with the art form: in 1993, he said, he quit the Oberlin Obertones after one semester because of a personality clash with the group’s music director. “I decided smoking pot was more important than extracurricular activities,” he said.

Well hey, our a cappella singers somehow seem to manage! At least the groups here don’t have names as relentlessly awkward as the “Whiffenpoofs”.

Full article here: Perfect Tone, in a Key That’s Mostly Minor