Collegiate a cappella

Collegiate a cappella
Amherst College's Route 9
Etymology	Italian alla cappella (“in the manner of the [Sistine] chapel”), referring to non-instrumental choirs; from Latin a-, ad, "to", + cappella, "chapel"
Stylistic origins	Glee clubs, A cappella
Cultural origins	Early 1900s Northeastern United States

Collegiate a cappella (or college a cappella) ensembles are college-affiliated singing groups, primarily in the United States, and, increasingly, the United Kingdom and Ireland, that perform entirely without musical instruments. The groups are typically composed of, operated by, and directed by students. In the context of collegiate a cappella, the term a cappella typically also refers to the music genre performed by pop-centric student singing groups. Consequently, an ensemble that sings unaccompanied classical music may not be considered an a cappella group, even though technically it is performing a cappella.

According to the nonfiction book Pitch Perfect, a cappella music is one of the oldest forms of music in existence, "the kind made without any accompaniment at all," and descended from the tradition of Gregorian chant.^[1] A cappella music as a form joined this early form with a later Puritan style, known as shape-note singing, which further extended into the American Gospel tradition. Further permutations leaked into the American pop landscape.^[1] Today, by some accounts, there exist as many as “twelve hundred collegiate a cappella groups in the United States alone.”^[1]