When watching the NBC reality show "The Sing-Off," a singing competition featuring a cappella groups, it's incredible to hear how full a sound the singers can produce with just their pure voices and no musical accompaniment. The human voice is the only "instrument" used.
With a cappella singing "you're putting everything out in the open with nothing else but the voice box, lips, teeth, and tongue to shape the music being made," says Dr. Thomas Carroll, a voice specialist and director of the center for voice and swallowing at Tufts Medical Center in Boston. Carroll should know. Before attending medical school, he majored in music and sang high tenor in the Oberlin Obertones, an all-male collegiate a cappella group.
According to Carroll, a cappella singing is not necessarily more demanding on the voice than singing with musical accompaniment. But, he says, it may take more athleticism from a vocal standpoint, especially to beat box, also known as vocal percussion, or mimicking the sounds of drum beats, rhythms, and other percussion instruments.
Click on the wrench in the upper left-hand corner to see what else you can do.