A Cappella is A CaAwesome

Yes, that's the title of this post.

Anyway: Here at Dartmouth I am a member of the Dartmouth Dodecaphonics, Dartmouth's oldest co-ed a cappella group. Founded in 1984, this group of 12 (dodeca-) people has grown into a group of 20 that still love to make sounds/music (-phonics). Every term we have many performances ranging from shows at greek houses (fraternities and sororities) to shows on Spaulding (a big auditorium in the Hopkins Art Center - the hop- that you will know well by the end of orientation) and even shows for our president, Jim Kim. We sing a variety of music mostly in the pop/rock/r&b spectrum and perform a bunch of different songs every show.

As a co-ed group the Dodecs (commonly used nickname) has a wider range of song choices than our single-sex counterparts (all-male or all-female groups on campus). It's really cool to be able to have both guys and girls singing solos and their own background parts, and the result are songs with many different layers and sounds.

Being in an a cappella group at Dartmouth is a pretty big commitment, with rehearsals usually 3 times a week for about 2 hours each, not including extra rehearsals for shows and the shows themselves. It's a lot of hard work and requires a lot of concentration (something we sometimes struggle to achieve) in order to make sure our parts blend, we're all together, dynamics are present, etc. But the experience is well worth the work. For me, the Dodecs is like a family away from home providing support and help in any way that I, or another member, needs it. My a cappella group is very tight-knit, and I'm thankful that I've been able to take part in such an amazing group with such talented people!

If you're interested in auditioning for one of the nine a cappella groups on campus (3 all-male, 3 all-female, 3 co-ed) auditions take place at the end of orientation, right before classes start. So you have a while. But feel free to look around the website I posted at the top of this blog (see the hyperlink), listen to some of our work, and get excited about this, among many other, musical opportunities at Dartmouth!