I know today’s show hasn’t aired yet, but we talk about that single in our Around the Horn. Great song- very, very catchy.

-C

Love the show! I ruminated over production effects and studio tricks as relates to a cappella. Now before I answer, let me say that I love the music created in studio. Naturally 7 floored me when I first heard them perform and claiming that their sound was all created with the human body/voice. Then I listed to your Soup to Nuts special and learned how I was tricked, in a good way.

However, I have to take minor issue with that work being called a cappella. As I understand it, a cappella (Italian for “to chapel”) was defined as unaccompanied choir music. Later it came to refer to any music without accompaniment. I’ve always taken that to mean that no instruments other than the human voice were used. Beatboxing added human percussion which I don’t feel deviates from this idea. However, as soon as you add a computer or device to augment the voice, I feel that you have added an instrument. It isn’t purely the skill of the person singing, using the human musical instrument to perform the extraordinary but the use of a computer to achieve that affect.

Again, I say that I do enjoy the studio tricks and I’m sure there is a lot of that happening on my Pandora A Cappella/Beatbox station. However, as a purist, I think we are losing something human while trading in on the electronic magicks.

Cheers & keep on singing!
Jack

Rai — Certainly we can do that. We try to rotate through all our segments, and that one gets hit on a little less frequently. We’ve got one planned in the next couple of weeks. And if you’ve got any HS groups you want to recommend, we always appreciate that as well.

Thanks for listening! –DB

Thanks!
Rai

-n.