A cappella hits the road over break

Seven of Dartmouth's nine a cappella groups went on tour over interim, and several encountered unforeseen events, if not quite as drastic as the Cords' experience.

"When we were coming back to the mainland, we had an impromptu performance at our gate after being asked to perform by the flight crew," said Meera Krishna '11, a member of the all-female Rockapellas, which toured the big island of Hawaii.

The Decibelles, another all-female a cappella group, also boarded a plane for its winter tour, performing for Dartmouth alumni clubs in Los Angeles and San Diego, Calif.

While the Decis and the Rocks traveled far from campus and X.ado went down to Baltimore, Md., most groups -- including the Cords, Aires, Subtleties and Dodecaphonics -- stayed within the New England area.

The majority of the groups' tours lasted a little over a week, and each group's schedule was packed with performances.

The Cords performed at least one show a day, as did the Rocks,.The Aires, for their part, fit 14 performances into their 10-day tour.

"The primary purpose of the winter tour is to raise money for CD production and to cover the costs of our annual spring tour," the Aires' winter tour manager, Fernando Rodriguez-Villa '11, explained. "Over the past four years, money raised on our winter tours has taken us to France and Italy, California, the Pacific Northwest and Costa Rica."

Pen Vineyard '11, the off-campus business manager for the Cords, also spoke of the importance of raising money while on tour.

"Ideally, we make some money and reach as many people with our music as possible," he said. "At our last show of the tour for the Hartford Club of Dartmouth, an alum watched us perform and then handed us a large check. He had decided to buy CDs for everyone at the party."

The purpose of these tours may be to raise money, but it seems the groups made more than monetary gains.

"Tour is a time for the group to get really close," Vineyard said. "During the term it can be hard, as everyone is so busy. It's just really, really fun. We had a lot of really cool shows, made a lot of money and partied relentlessly. This year's tour was definitely ragier than usual."

Rodriguez-Villa shared the same sentiment about the Aires' tour.

"Ten days in close quarters, including around 20 hours in a bus the poor VOX people are still trying to wash the stink out of, gave the members of the group a chance to become even more intimately familiar with each other's eccentricities; and the freshmen became official members of the group by receiving their Aires pins," he said.

The Rocks supplemented their winter tour with a variety of first-time life experiences for some of its members, including sailing alongside a pod of dolphins and skydiving out of a plane 1,400 feet in the air, Krishna said.

Now back on campus, the a cappella groups don't have much time to rest. You'll be seeing them in fraternities, sororities and at the Top of the Hop.

On Feb. 20, you can even tune in to ESPN and watch the Cords perform a rendition of the national anthem live as the kick-off to an inter-divisional basketball game between the New Jersey Nets and the Washington Wizards.