Tag Archives: singing

X.ado acapella conference

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Title: X.ado acapella conference

General Information about Item:

  • Folklore: rituals, traditions
  • Language: English
  • Country where Item is from: United States of America

Informant Data:

  • Trevor Davis is an ’18 that joined X.ado his freshman year and sang in his high school choir for three years. He is 21 years old. He was born in Wheaton, Illinois. He grew up and still lives in Raleigh, North Carolina. He is majoring in computer science, and minoring in math and anthropology.

Contextual Data:

  • Social Context

This conference provides a way for X.ado to socialize and connect with more people, and serves as an event for the people within X.ado to connect and socialize amongst themselves. It is probably a fun activity for them to do together that strengthens the group dynamic.

The people in

  • Cultural Context

People that engage in similar activities or are like minded, or have some major factors that connect them like to connect with each other, network with each other, and socialize with each other. X.ado is no exception to this, there are many Christian acapella groups all over the United States that want to find people engaging in the same activity that share their same beliefs and lifestyles, and they all meet together.

Item:

  • Members of X.ado attend the “Break it Down in Boston” conference, which is a conference for Christian acapella groups to meet up.

Associated file (a video, audio, or image file):

https://youtu.be/o15wfAOuSWk

Transcript of Associated File:

A couple of things that got introduced in the group that changed since we got founded one is that we do more activities as a group. We have prayer partners where you match with someone individual in the group, that helps us bond more and know people on an individual basis since rehearsal’s everyone all together, and also as we become more established and groups like ours spread, we have more interactions with those groups. For example, there’s this conference we do every year called “Break it down Boston” which is a gathering of all the different Christian acapella groups so it’s a very different dynamic than you have with other musical conferences and that’s a cool way to see how our group along with other groups has evolved over time as we become more of a national thing.

Informant’s Comments:

  • Check transcript

Collector’s Comments:

  • It’s not at all uncommon for college students to attend meetups and conferences. There are conferences for many different interest groups, such as for demographic factors (race and gender), intellectual interests, and for sports as well. These conferences serve as a way for people to meet people to network with that share some factor with them.

Collector’s Name: Marcus Reid

Tags/Keywords:

  • Acapella
  • Singing
  • Conference
  • Tradition

 

Auditions

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Title: Auditions

General Information about Item:

  • Customary folklore: rituals, traditions
  • Language: English
  • Country where Item is from: USA

Informant Data:

  • Trevor Davis is an ’18 that joined X.ado his freshman year and sang in his high school choir for three years. He is 21 years old. He was born in Wheaton, Illinois. He grew up and still lives in Raleigh, North Carolina. He is majoring in computer science, and minoring in math and anthropology.

Contextual Data:

  • Social Context

All returning members of X.ado are present for auditions as well as members of other acapella groups and all potential members who are trying out. Auditions take place during the fall term. X.ado used to conduct auditions separately from other acapella groups but for the past few years X.ado has worked with other acapella groups to create joint auditions.

  • Cultural Context

All groups that require some sort of skill hold auditions so they can evaluate the candidate for their ability and to see if the candidate will be a culture fit for the group. X.ado does this to ensure that the person can sing, as X.ado is an acapella group, and also wants to see if the person is a cultural fit for the group, and so the person can see if they are a cultural fit for the group. An important part of acapella is being comfortable singing in front of large groups of people. This need for confidence is seen in the fact that potential members must audition in front of members of various acapella groups.

Item:

X.ado’s auditions have changed over time. They used to host their own auditions, but now, their auditions are part of the larger Dartmouth auditions circuit.

Associated file (a video, audio, or image file):

https://youtu.be/B7aQJ6L_Tg0

Transcript of Associated File:

“So I’ve been in the group for three years now and thing I’ve really like seen every year is how we do auditions. Um that processed has changed for us over time, we used to do our own but now we are part of the larger acapella auditions at Dartmouth. And it’s just kind of a whole day thing, we get excited, we dress up in flair, we get them to sing different songs, they match scales and pitches, um, and it’s a really great opportunity not just for us to get to hear how they sound, but for them to get to know us and decide, you know, that acapella is something they want to do, and if our group is something they want to be a part of.”

Informant’s Comments:

  • See transcript

Collector’s Comments:

  • All groups tend to have some evaluation process to induct new members. Companies conduct interviews to see if candidates are a cultural fit, and if they’re confident. Fraternities and sororities have rush to see if they want to take a certain person into their group, etc. This seems like a pretty standard tradition that most groups engage in, in some form or another. Performance groups in general engage in a slightly more formal audition process.

Collector’s Name: Marcus Reid

Compiled/Analyzed by: Afnan Enayet/Sruthi Pasupuleti

Tags/Keywords:

  • Initiation
  • Auditions
  • Singing
  • Acapella
  • Ritual
  • Tradition

Slack Communication

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Title: Slack Communication

General Information about Item:

  • Genre and Sub Genre: Customary Folklore: rituals, traditions
  • Language: English
  • Country where Item is from: United States

Informant Data:

  • Trevor Davis is an ’18 that joined X.ado his freshman year and sang in his high school choir for three years. He is 21 years old. He was born in Wheaton, Illinois. He grew up and still lives in Raleigh, North Carolina. He is majoring in computer science, and minoring in math and anthropology.

Contextual Data:

  • Social Context:

All members of X.ado participate in this tradition and use Slack to communicate with each other. This tradition has existed for at least 3 years according to the informant.

  • Cultural Context:

X.ado tries to create a very inclusive culture and members think of the group as a second family. The members are constantly communicating and as a result, they use a special application that is devoted entirely to communication amongst the group members. The fact that members use a separate application just to communicate with each other as opposed to using GroupMe or other applications that students use to communicate with most other students reflects the extremely strong relationships that have formed on X.ado and the importance group members give each other.

Item:

The group X.ado maintains a Slack team with different channels (such as 17F, random, and rehearsals) to communicate with each other rather than use GroupMe. On Slack the group has many different channels as members discuss many different topics with each other. GroupMe is the application that most college students use in order to communicate and socialize with each other.

Associated file (a video, audio, or image file):

https://youtu.be/nX9XfnT0MJQ

Transcript of Associated File:

One thing about being in a group like ours on campus that’s involved not just with something we do during a lot of hours in our week but also with something that’s such an important part of our identities is that we spend a lot of time with those people. One cool thing we do is we communicate through Slack instead of GroupMe or something because we have so many different things going on. We have like a 17F channel, we have like a rehearsal channel, a social channel, a random channel, a song of the day channel, and we have all these different things going on all the time and it really just demonstrates how X.ado’s involved in so many different aspects of our lives.

Informant’s Comments:

  • See transcript

Collector’s Comments:

  • Slack is an interesting choice for communication because GroupMe is such an ubiquitous form of communication for various collegiate student across the United States. For example: many social groups, fraternities and sororities, and sports teams maintain GroupMe groups. Slack is typically used for businesses (more specifically, it’s popular amongst tech startups), which suggests that X.ado has a different dynamic compared to other student groups on campus, perhaps a more serious tone.

Collector’s Name: Marcus Reid

Compiled/Analyzed by: Afnan Enayet/Sruthi Pasupuleti

Tags/Keywords:

  • acapella
  • team
  • communication
  • tradition