CASA - The Contemporary A Capella Society

Unlike network reality shows, the premise was simple and there wasn’t a carefully edited plot line driven by a set of fabricated challenges. Take a dozen people from modern life, stick them in West Texas circa 1865, and see if they can run a ranch. Since the series ended last night (though it will be rerun soon, I have little doubt), I don’t feel guilty telling you the result: they failed, and all went home shell shocked with very mixed feelings about their experience.

What? No happy ending? No winners? Nope. People didn’t get along, and the paternal ranch owner’s reaction to crisis was to fire people: first the ranch foreman, then the cook, and finally one of the cowboys, which was a bad move since the cowboys make a pact among themselves that if one was fired they’d all leave. And you sure can’t run a ranch without cowboys.

The entire program was meant to teach us about life on a ranch, and perhaps it did, but I walked away having seen and learned more about human nature in today’s world. With no script or safety net, everyone can lose. The Donald Trump approach to management (problems? failure? “you’re fired!”) is a recipe for disaster.

It was fascinating watching an interpersonal train wreck among grown, educated adults; perhaps we’ve all got a bit of the Jerry Springer voyeur in us, provided the material is aimed at our demographic. And yet it wasn’t particularly pleasant. There was no clear good guy, as everyone had their faults, so you weren’t really rooting for anyone in particular (although it was easy to get angry at the ranch owner for his decisions).

When I woke up this morning, it occurred to me: it’s probably that none of these people ever sang in a collegiate a cappella group.

When you join the group, you find yourself among an often motley crew with only one common trait: you go to the same school, and you sing. The first thing I noticed in the Bubs was that many of the people in the group would never socialize were they not thrown together as a result of their talent: conservatives and liberals, artists and engineers, extroverts and introverts.

There were many conflicts, some very heated: over soloists, wrong notes, showing up on time to the van. But we knew we had to make it work. You can’t just fire all your basses. You need each other.

And when you sing together, it makes it all worth while. You can hear and feel the old adage: the sum is indeed greater than its individual parts. Here at CASA, we’re on a quest to spread “harmony through harmony”, and as Northern California as that sounds (Hey! Blame my ancestors for ranching here!), it really works.

Perhaps this column should have been called “All I Really Need to Know About Getting Along I Learned in my A Cappella Group.”

There is a reality show I’ve seen that more accurately reflects a collegiate a cappella dynamic: “Deadliest Catch” on the Discovery Channel. More documentary than reality show, it follows a handful of crabbing boats in the Bering Sea on their extremely dangerous, sleepless fishing runs. Sure, they fight. And not everything goes swimmingly (in fact, if one of them falls in the water they’ve got about 60 seconds before they freeze and drown). But they know they need each other, and they find a way to work together.

I think the world needs more of that. Although it might not be as pronounced as 40-foot waves off the coast of Alaska, we all have enough external challenges to face without having to square off against one another.

Although there are times in this world where people are clearly at odds and there must be a winner and a loser, this was not the case in the ranch house. Twelve people, one goal: run a ranch. Unfortunately they chose to see each other as the opponent instead of realize that there were greater challenges facing them all. Without each other’s help they were doomed to failure. In this case it meant failure on a small scale, but there are times when the stakes are much higher. Every day.

Let’s hope that the next round of ranchers can find a little harmony.