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Contemporary A Cappella Resources on the Net  

These are some links to some fun and useful pages on the net, including sources of a cappella arrangements.

Education

http://www.casa.org
The Contemporary A Cappella Society website.

http://www.theaterseatstore.com/a-capella-theater
A fun educational site about the history of different forms of a cappella music, including its use in musical theater.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_cappella
The Wikipedia entry on a cappella.

Free Arrangements on the Web

http://www.casa.org
Check for free arrangements in the CASA arrangements library. 

http://www.akhphd.au.dk/~bertho/acappella/
About a dozen arrangements, most have a MIDI file you can listen to.

http://public.sreal.com:8000/~div/a-cappella-arrangements/
About 20 arrangements for mixed groups, originally written for Shere Khan of Princeton University.

http://www.pianofiles.com
Pianofiles is a sheet-music trading/sharing site that is designed to skirt copyright laws.  (USE CAUTION if trading copyrighted material.)  There are many a cappella arrangments available.  Search for the song you are interested in, and look through the file descriptions for things like "SATB", "SSAA", "TTBB", "a cappella", etc.  Then you need to contact the owner of the file to ask for it to be sent to you.  Many will request something in trade.


 Of course, the best source for "free" arrangements is to arrange the songs yourself!!!  It's actually a lot of fun, and you get complete creative control over the finished product.. Additionally, you can design your arrangement to suit the strengths and weaknesses of the singers in your group.

To get started, this book is really useful.  It helped me when I was just starting out, and now I've done over almost twenty arrangements that I'm quite proud of..

More books on choral arranging are listed at the bottom of this page.

Purchasing Songbooks and Arrangements

See the Purchasing CDs section below, plus these sites:

http://www.sheetmusicplus.com/ensembles/Choir-A-Cappella/45
SheetMusicPlus has a large selection of a cappella sheet music and songbooks, at good prices.  They also have a large selection of accompanied choral music.

http://www.arts.unco.edu/UNCJazz
The UNC Jazz Press has many a cappella and accompanied arrangements.  Almost all of the a cappella arrangements are also available at Mainely A Cappella and Primarily A Cappella, so you should only need to go to the UNC Jazz site if you are looking for arrangements with instrumental accompaniment.

http://www2.uiuc.edu/ro/xchords/main.html
The University of Illinois Xtension Chords (a men's group) make almost all their arrangements available for a low price.  Of course, you'll probably need to buy their CDs to know which arrangements you want.  :)

.http://www.casa.org/uaas.html
The Ultimate A Cappella Arranging Service has several professional arrangers on staff, and can arrange just about any song in just about any style.  Discounts available to members of the Contemporary A Cappella Society.

http://homepage.mac.com/gillylal/primrose/index.html
Primrose Music (in the UK) offers a list of ready-made arrangements and customized arrangements of any song submitted.



Communicate with other a cappella singers and fans

http://www.casa.org/
The main site for the Contemporary A Cappella Society has news from all over the world, and also has discussion forums.  Members also have access to the arrangement library.

http://www.rarb.org/
The Recorded A Cappella Review Board has lots of CD reviews and ratings, and also has a discussion forum.

news:rec.music.a-cappella
There is an international a cappella newsgroup at rec.music.a-cappella.  If you have a newsreader (e.g. Outlook Express), you should be able to use this link.  If that doesn't work, you can always use the free newsreader at Google.
 

Free Audio and Video
 

http://www.openharmony.org/showcase/
Listen to portions of Seattle's "A Cappella Showcase" concert from 2001, with the Heebee Jeebees, Canvas, and the Total Experience Gospel Choir.

http://www.live365.com/cgi-bin/directory.cgi?genre=search&searchdesc=Cappella
Live365.com carries dozens of a cappella "radio stations".  Follow the link above, or go to live365.com and search for "Cappella".  Each station carries several hours of music, played in rotation.

http://www.singers.com/radio
Primarily A Cappella has put together some fun streaming audio "radio shows".  You need RealPlayer to listen to the programs.  Of particular interest is a two-hour interview with noted vocal arranger Kirby Shaw.  In the second half of the interview, he gives valuable advice to new arrangers.

 

Purchasing CDs

http://www.a-cappella.com
Mainely A Cappella has a huge selection of CDs and tapes, as well as songbooks, individual arrangements, books and videos.  Most of their CDs have music samples that you can listen to over the web.  CASA members get a discount.

http://www.singers.com
Primarily A Cappella also has a huge selection of CDs, tapes, songbooks.

Other books

This is a college textbook on choral arranging.  Too expensive for me, but I'd love to look through it someday.  If you want to make a career of it, this might be worth a look.  :-)
As long as I'm posting Amazon links, here is a really fun book about one year in a college a cappella group.  Crazy!!

These also look interesting:



 

Check out the wide world of a cappella at the Contemporary A Cappella Society!