No instruments, no synthesizers or tangle of wires from musical equipment clutter the room. For the all-male a cappella group Note to Self, it’s just 18 voices coming together to create a harmony that is fueled with the chemistry they have offstage.
A cappella pieces are musical arrangements of popular songs that are performed by voices only. The biggest spotlight on this style of music came from the 2012 blockbuster “Pitch Perfect” and the return of NBC’s “Sing Off,” which surged in popularity because of competitors Pentatonix.
Alumnus David Bloomberg started the first student-run a cappella group in 2011, but the group was unable to take hold and fell apart. Then Note to Self tried again with the current coordinator John Steele and the organization began to grow.
The group almost doubled, going from 10 members to 18 members, and its last concert in Pruis Hall sold out.
“Note to Self is special to us, that fills a role that no other ensemble fills right now,” Steele said. “It’s become a really big sensation.”
The group sings a variety of Top 40, contemporary and older music from popular groups like Styx and Boyz II Men.
“[At first], no one really knew what the group’s real purpose was,” Steele said. “We just wanted to sing together; we didn’t even have a name to begin with.”
Lacking direction, the original members kept pushing to reform the loose group of singers into a more formal group. Soon enough, they had a few members selected for leadership roles from executive board members to choreographers to music directors.
Currently, only a handful of members are music majors and the rest are enthusiasts.
Evening rehearsals in the Hargreaves Music Building, which can last until 1 a.m., can be heard up and down the halls with members chatting, laughing and singing prior to the start of practice.
And many members gather before practices to sing for fun.
“I’d say for 80 percent of the group, their life is integrated with Note to Self,” Steele said. “They are the people that we want to go out with, it’s like a family.”
Jared Rich, a freshman Spanish major, auditioned for the group after seeing the fall concert.
“The passion for music I had no longer had an outlet for me at college, and it was an amazing opportunity that came my way,” he said.
After a quick audition and being placed on a waiting list, Rich joined the group before the end of December.
“The first couple rehearsals I went to, I fit in perfectly,” Rich said. “Regardless of who I am or my personality.”
Edric Mitchell, music director for the group, joined because of his love for singing. He had been in a previous a cappella group that had broken up and Note to Self became an outlet.
Mitchell said the group bonds because of an understanding that groups outside of music sometimes don’t understand.
“In rehearsal every once and a while, someone will start singing something,” he said. “And we’ll move away from what we had planned [to] take a detour, sing through it and go back to what we had planned.”
As the veteran members of the group begin to graduate, they are trying to preserve what they started.
Steele, with other members, is trying to create an organization on campus in order to maintain the student-run ensembles on campus like Note to Self or Ladies Choice, an all-female a cappella group.
GALLERY: See full Note to Self gallery
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