...Beginning with the end in mind helps. “To thine own self be true.” Truer words were never spoken, but how many organizations truly know themselves? In order to be successful as an a cappella group, I believe you need to take three big steps:

1.    Define your group
2.    Know your audience
3.    Craft your image

The first step sounds like the easiest, but in many ways it can be the toughest. We struggled with it for years. I wanted the group to be an octet singing light choral music like Disney's Voices of Liberty. My students had other thoughts and other strengths. Over time, we have evolved into the “one-on-a-mic/vocal-band” style group, like Rockapella, Toxic Audio or m-pact.

What do you want to be? Don't feel constrained by where you are now. Make specific goals, and don't overlook the obvious. Is this a male, female or mixed group? The answer shouldn't be “it depends on the year.” How many members will you have? This isn't a hard-and-fast number as much as a guideline. We flux between 7 and 10. Your numbers determine a lot about the group from voicing, amplification options and expenses. Most importantly, what style music are you going to sing as your bread-and-butter? A cappella covers a wide range of options. Do you lean towards vocal jazz, straight pop, rock? While it is important to challenge your group with a variety of music, they must have a “home base.” Your singers will spend time listening to and studying what they do most often, and you'll see this culture enhance your end product immensely.

The second step is closely related to the first step – know your audience. If you sing for a wide range of community events, your set list will need to have a little something for everyone. When we pick charts, we have to consider:

• Lyrics – G rated, always
• Age of audience – We program multiple decades on purpose: newer songs for school events, older songs for Rotary Club gigs. We are then covered for home concerts where high school kids, parents and grandparents are all in the audience. They all get to hear something they like.
• Familiarity – it sometimes feels “cheap,” but audiences love the familiar. We get more mileage out of Stevie Wonder's “Signed, Sealed, Delivered,” than we would from “I Wish.” You can see the crowd have the “Oh, yeah!” moment when their faces say, “I know that song.”
• Difficult does not always equal better – my kids like to sing charts that are hard because it is challenging for them. What they sometimes forget is that we need to fill as much as an hour, and learning that much difficult music can be exhausting. Consider each song as an investment. While I love Derric Johnson's arrangement of the National Anthem, we stopped singing it because it had low return-on-investment. When singing the anthem for the Friday night football game on one microphone broadcast over the stadium P.A., really cool, thick chords didn't mean squat. An easier arrangement got the same crowd response and took much less rehearsal time, which we then put into our main performance package.

Once you know who you are and what you are singing, the last step is to craft your image. Do you want to be perceived as edgy? Hip? Cool? Laid back? Jazzy? Funny? Your image should always hold sway in your decision making. Just because you are a high-school group doesn't mean you can't look professional. With today's technology, it should be relatively easy to develop a brand for your group. Get a logo, or at least a consistent typeface and color scheme for your group, then incorporate that into your materials. Your name, your outfits, CD cover design, website, etc. should all express the same ideas. This basic branding can be really effective as you try to build the group’s name/reputation in your community.

In conclusion, remember that as you work towards a group identity, there are aspects of your personality, age and talent that are unchangeable. Don't just dream up a vision you can't achieve. Find what you do well naturally and exploit it like mad.