The following are selected excerpts from my interview with Moira Kyweluk, a member of AWKappella.
J = Joseph Maurer
M = Moira Kyweluk
J: How long have you been a member of AWKappella?
M: I've been a member of AWKappella for...a month.
J: What prompted you to join?
I was really tired of not doing anything artistic on campus and, um, I'd always heard about it and had a lot of friends who were involved in it, and for a long long time they discouraged me from doing it because I did “serious business a cappella” [laughs] and then finally I was just like “can I please be a part of awkward a cappella, that's all I want to do,” and they said “absolutely, come to practice.”
LATER
J: Do you have any previous experience singing?
M: I have a lot of previous experience singing, I did, um, church choir for like 10 years, I did chorale in high school for two years? A year? And, um, I auditioned for two Brown a cappella groups, all-female a cappella groups and was called back and was almost in one of them, and then tried out again the next semester, and was almost in that, so I've been involved in a cappella for a long time. Or singing in general, in one way or another.
J: So, have you done much singing at Brown?
M: Other than in my auditions for a cappella, no. Regular a cappella, not AWKappella.
J: Is there a pronunciation difference?
M: [first syllable emphasized] AWKapella vs. a cappella.
J: So you emphasize the...
M: The AWK.
J: And how has your experience in AWKappella compared to other singing experiences?
M: Ummm, it's much more laid-back, it's much more fun; people really encourage each other to sing, rather than competing over solos or, um, being uptight about arrangements. It's much more casual, much more laid back, it's sort of a group effort, rather than something is already arranged and you're learning it from a “head” director, or someone who arranges, or someone who does the arrangement, sort of we all do the arrangement because it's not very structured. And, you know, I've only been doing it a month and already we're doing a song that was my suggestion so I felt pretty good about that, and yeah, it's really just much more laid back, much more fun, much more time for singing. We don't really warm up or anything.
LATER
J: How do you think other people, not in the group, view AWKappella?
M: I think there's sort of two...minds, there's one that think it's just, I mean, who have sort of an attitude about it and think that it's really stupid, and just think it's a bunch of dorks doing, like...dorky things. And then there's other people who just...sort of self-consciously are like “yeah, that's so cool!” um...but I don't know if they genuinely actually think it's cool or not. But I guess the people who are in it just do it for fun, they don't take it very seriously. And there's no, I mean there's literally zero rivalry between regular a cappella groups, you know, the ten or twelve a cappella groups on campus, and AWKappella. I think they're very separate.
LATER
J: Where do you see the future of AWKappella going?
M: I would love for AWKappella to be...not the way the “classic” a cappella groups are, but um, sort of along the lines of the pirate a cappella group, sort of a recognized “fun” thing, that people want to go to the performances of, and aren't just going 'cause their friends are in it. Like, it'd be fun if incoming freshmen, you know, when they're going out to the archsings and things, if AWKappella had archsings that they actually wanted to attend, cause it was funny, and fun. And if people realized that this isn't really...it's called awkward a cappella because it's a bunch of kids who just wanted to sing, and it's not really self-consciously like “oh, we're awkward, but we're really not,” it's people just singing because they like it, and sort of singing their hearts out. So, the future I'd love to see is...a fan following, or people who, you know, whether they themselves sing or not, um, wanting to be a part of our performances. We generally have pretty good turnout, but it's also because we force our friends to go [laughs].
/End Interview
This interview was quite illuminating, as it shows a crucial moment in the growth of the group: Moira is a member of the first group of "outsiders" to join AWKappella, people who were not closely tied to the original founders of the group. This semester will be interesting, as it will determine what sort of effect the new members have on the direction of the group, whether it thrives, or whether it's unable to be sustained when the members lack the additional bonds that the founding members already had with each other.
Moira is also an interesting interview subject because she has experience singing in "serious" groups, but she still embraces the AWKappella ethos. I have transcribed some of the more interesting parts of the interview (which was over fifteen minutes in length), and I will transcribe more as time allows. I'm also in the process of interviewing several other members of the group, but I thought that this particular interview would be a good one to post for the transcription assignment. Overall, I'm happy with how the interview went. I planned out some rough questions that intrigued me, but I mostly just let the interview flow naturally, and I tried to segue naturally between topics.
Moira also noted that AWKappella has a performance coming up in a few weeks, so that will be exciting! It will be their fist performance with the new members, so I'm sure it will be quite interesting to observe.
3 comments:
I like the fact that you include your reflections on how the interview went at the end. It's great to get a sense of your research plans and how you might use this interview in your presentation. And I think it's really neat that you're focusing on the effect new members have on the group. I find Moira's comments on the differences between AWKappella and a cappella very interesting and I wonder if other members of the group will share her perceptions or if they will have different things to say.
It’s interesting that she said one of AWKappella’s goals is to have funny quirky performances like the group ARRR!!!. I’m sure there are many insightful observations you could make based on your own experience in ARRR!!! What could the presence of these two a-typical a cappella groups on campus say about the culture at Brown? Perhaps you could ask the same questions of AWKappella that I’m asking of members of ARRR!!!. Is the group primarily as social organization or a performance group? Why do people join? Does the culture in AWKappella change more over time than in other musical groups because it doesn’t have a strict rehearsal process? We could write a joint thesis together, and become millionaires.
The fact that Moira repeats the phrase "laid back" several times in a single response suggests that this is really a key point of contrast with other a cappella groups, at least in her experience (and this seems to be borne out by her account of her multi-stage, ultimately unsuccessful auditions for other groups). I wonder how consistently AWKappella members discuss the group in opposition to/in terms defined by regular a cappella at Brown? When reading Mike's ARRR!!! ethnography materials I didn't get this sense at all; ARRR!!! seemed to have its own well-defined identity that had very little to do with traditional a cappella. (But of course perhaps there are ARRR!!! members who do discuss the group in these terms.) Your contextualizing comments are very helpful, and I think you're right to identify this semester as a potential turning point in the life of the group.
Post a Comment