Flyer

Issue date: 10/27/08 Section: Tempo

Media Credit: Monika Jaiswal

Following in the musical steps of collegiate a cappella groups like University of Southern California's "SoCal Vocals" and Brigham Young's "Noteworthy," comes Lewis's first a capella group, Harmonic Uprising.

Brian Schmidt, music major and creator of Harmonic Uprising, explains that the overall style of a cappella music greatly differs from many other musical styles.

Schmidt explained that the term "a cappella" is Latin for "of the chapel," where original ways of performing in Catholic chapels involved no instruments.

"What it comes to mean today…it has the same connotation of singing without instruments, but the style of this group is college a cappella, which is more of covering more popular songs without instruments," said Schmidt.

Schmidt explained that he's always been in music programs, from either his involvement with "contemporary worship" for his church, to being in band and choir during high school, to even being a music major now in college. He also explained that a cappella singing groups have always been a staple to many colleges across the nation.

"It's always something that I myself have been interested in, and I know a lot of other people are interested in, and that it's been a part of universities across the country for a long time now," said Schmidt.

"It's been a long standing tradition in many Ivy League schools, and many Big Ten schools all have groups of this nature."

In fact, in addition to USC's
"Socal Vocals" and Brigham Young's "Noteworthy," many other collegiate a cappella groups across the nation have become a fixture on their campuses, bearing names that have a play on words with musical terms like Cornell University's all female a cappella group, "Nothing But Treble," Harvard Law School's "Scales of Justice" and even University of Illinois's "No Strings Attached."

So where does Lewis's "Harmonic Uprising" draw its own name from?

"I was trying to go along the lines of other groups that I was familiar with in trying to find a name that was similar to that style," said Schmidt. "I talked to a bunch of my friends, I was like 'I really need to come up with a good name,' and in thinking about it, we were trying to use all the different musical phrases and
'Harmonic Uprising' really just stuck out on our minds as being a good one."

But, Schmidt adds, the name went on to define something much bigger than he wanted the group to accomplish on campus.

Continued...

Page 1 of 2 next >

Article Tools