A cappella: a growing trend that connects the world

« Cappella » literally means « chapel » in Italian. When the term first originated, a cappella implied that performers sing “in the manner of the chapel”. Nowadays, it simply means to sing without accompaniment. The only instrument used is the mouth.

The origin of a cappella music is impossible to determine. After all, when cavemen were humming to themselves, they were singing a cappella. But the first a cappella music sheets ever discovered date back to 2000 B.C. It was originally used in religious music, Jewish, Christian as well as Islam; and this practice has continued in all these religions.

As the years went by, a cappella music started spreading. It came out of the religious area and into the rest of the world. For example, in the 1930s, emerged the barbershop music as a form of a cappella. But thanks to the hugely successful American television show, Glee, that aired all around the world from 2009 until 2015, interest in a cappella music increased.

From then, a cappella was not bound to hymns and classical pieces anymore. More a cappella groups gained popularity over the years, such as the Canadian group Pentatonix, the Filipino-American Filharmonics, the Penn Masala as the first Hindi a cappella group and many more. And when the movie Pitch Perfect came out in 2012, the popularity of a cappella is further seen.

In this video that was extracted from the movie Pitch Perfect 2, a cappella groups from all around the world compete against each other to win the first prize. It illustrates how a cappella has spread all over the world in the past years. There is a Canadian group, African, Korean, Indian, German, American and many others. The concept is the same, no accompaniment, but every country adds their own spin to the music to show their cultural difference while sharing a common style.

There is no greater example of global culture like music. It is a common language that everyone understands and that is used to communicate with the rest of the world.