I dreamed about what college would be like from the time I was twelve years old to my first day on Penn State’s campus. I watched so many movies about college, dorm decorating YouTube videos, “day in my life” vlogs, anything you can think of. I always questioned which movies were actually accurate and which ones were either outdated or Hollywood-style glamorized beyond the point of recognition.
One of my favorite college movies was “Pitch Perfect,” and as a junior at Penn State, I can say that “Pitch Perfect” was by far the most accurate to my college experience of all the college movies I have ever seen.
Penn State has an amazing music community, including nine a cappella groups. I joined The Singing Lions, Penn State’s show choir, my spring semester of freshman year, and I currently serve as the president of the group.
I recently rewatched “Pitch Perfect” for the first time in years and was shocked by how accurate it actually is. Of course, it’s still an exaggerated movie, but I laughed harder then I had on any of my previous watches when I realized just how spot-on the movie was.
This makes a lot of sense, since I also recently discovered that “Pitch Perfect” was based on a book written by a journalist who followed three a cappella groups at three different college campuses, including a co-ed group, an all-male group, and an all-female group. These groups were the ones that the Barden Bellas, Treblemakers, and BU Harmonics from the movie were loosely based on.
So, here’s what “Pitch Perfect” got right about the collegiate a cappella experience.
Auditions
Being on the executive board of my group, I have experienced both auditioning and judging auditions for my a cappella group. Both are incredibly stressful situations to be put in.
In one position you are so nervous and scared of rejection, and in the other you are terrified of hurting anyone’s feelings, even though you know you can only take about 15% of the people who audition.
Penn State a cappella groups have a common audition, kind of like the one in “Pitch Perfect,” where anybody auditioning can audition for all of the groups the same night if they choose.
The main difference is that instead of a stage where all of the groups sit and watch one person audition at a time, each group has their own room and auditionees can go from room to room auditioning for their chosen groups. So, you could come to the common audition and audition for your one favorite group, or audition for eight. It’s completely your choice.
After that, all of the groups offer callbacks to their chosen auditionees, and those people choose which callbacks to go to. They can go to every callback offered to them, or choose to only go to specific ones.
After the callbacks, the groups offer spots to the people they want in their groups. At this point, people have to choose which group they would like to be a part of, just like in “Pitch Perfect.”
Because my group is a show choir, we sing and dance. Our first audition is just a short song prepared by the auditionee, but at callbacks, we split the time between teaching a dance and having potential members sing one of our songs.
This process is just as chaotic as the audition montage in “Pitch Perfect” suggests.
During the initial auditions, you see so many people sing so many different styles of songs that it all starts to blend together into a chaotic mental montage of classical music, musical theater, pop, rap, R&B, indie, country, hymns and vocal percussion.
During callbacks, there is usually only a thirty second to a minute portion of a song that auditionees prepare, and as a current member of the group, my role is to help run that portion of the song with the soprano section until they feel ready to hold the part on their own with the other three vocal parts.
Basically, you sing the same thirty seconds so many times in a row that it starts to feel just like those “zoom zoom zoom zoom zoom zoom”s at the beginning of “Since U Been Gone” in “Pitch Perfect.”
the chaos
The scene in “Pitch Perfect” where everyone is yelling at each other and chasing each other, Audrey is throwing up, Lily is making snow angels in the puke, Stacy is blowing her whistle and Beca walks in confused as hell is actually pretty accurate to the vibes of some rehearsals, but in a more fun way.
Sometimes I walk into rehearsal and there’s a Just Dance video up on the big screen. Sometimes it’s one of those baby sensory fruit videos and people are tagging themselves as specific fruits. Sometimes someone is just randomly screaming. Sometimes everyone is crying and hugging.
All I know is I have never walked into a rehearsal to anything resembling normal. But, it’s my favorite part of each day.
unique groups
In “Pitch Perfect,” there were four a cappella groups with their own unique characteristics. Similarly, at Penn State, we have nine different groups with their own unique styles that make the community so vibrant. The main traits that make my group what it is are that we both sing and dance, we go on an annual spring break performance tour and we are a THON org. There are so many things that set apart each a cappella group.
Of the a cappella groups, there are co-ed groups, an all-female group, an all-male group, groups that sing more pop, groups that sing more musical theater, groups that compete in the ICCAS, groups that don’t, groups that have been around for decades and groups that are relatively new, groups that are strictly a cappella and groups that perform a mix, groups with vocal percussion and groups without and so much more.
I love that we have so much diversity within our arts community for students to choose from. There really are so many options at Penn State, and it is a huge part of what makes a cappella here so fun.
The bus
The chaos of the bus is extremely accurate, except I would actually argue that the chaos on our real-life bus is worse than the “Pitch Perfect” bus.
Whereas in “Pitch Perfect,” the Bellas bursted into beautiful harmonies to “Party in the USA,” we have lip-syncing competitions on our long bus days on our spring break tour. They get competitive, loud and usually vulgar, but they are a ton of fun.
Our bus is also covered in posters during the trip, gifted by each member’s bus buddy (basically a week-long Secret Santa exchange but on a bus in spring). Some of the posters will be beautiful, sentimental works of art. However, they usually are not. Most of the time, they just add to the generally unhinged vibes of the week.
This isn’t even to mention tour baths (wiping yourself down with Lysol wipes halfway through a long day on the bus), aggressively competitive elimination games, trying to crawl over everyone sleeping on the floor or with their feet sticking out into the aisle to get to the bathroom at the back of the bus or the overall crankiness from trying to sleep in bus seats all day.
However, I still wouldn’t trade that bus for any other spring break experience.
Amazing Performance Opportunities Combined With Really Random Performances
Sometimes in an a cappella group, you find yourself with an incredible opportunity like performing on stage in THON or in this year’s a cappella competition hosted by PAC.
Other times, you find yourself singing the Penn State Fight Songs in some random tailgate lot a mile from the stadium for cash or in a church basement 45 minutes from campus. It all balances out in the end, I guess.
Balancing traditions with new ideas
Something that was so real in “Pitch Perfect” was the struggle to balance group traditions with new ideas. Our group has been around since the 80’s, so of course we want to honor and continue some of the traditions set by our alumni. However, we also want to sing new, fun songs and implement cool new choreography that people want to see.
This is such a difficult balance to strike, but we manage it by performing a mix of “old” songs and choreography with brand new material each semester. This keeps our traditions alive while staying authentic to the interests of the current members of the group.
new members
When Beca joined the Bellas and Chloe immediately walked up to her and said that she could tell they were going to be best friends, I felt that. That is exactly how it is when new members join an a cappella group. I loved our new members by callbacks and was so excited to hang out with them and become best friends with them.
I remember when I joined the group feeling overwhelmed by all the love and attention I immediately got, but it only took about a month to make best friends with everyone there.
The vocabulary
The phrases like “aca-scuse me?” and “toner” aren’t exactly what we use. However, each group does end up with some interesting vocabulary words, usually based on chaotic experiences and group lore, that would be incomprehensible to anybody outside of the group.
the family
The most accurate part of “Pitch Perfect” is the family you make from being in a group together. Your shared experiences, the hours you spend together, the parties, the laughs, the trips and the memories: they all create a bond that can’t really be broken. Even when people graduate and go their separate ways, that friendship stays strong. You fight like family, but most importantly, you love like family.
To anybody who is considering auditioning for an a cappella group next semester to have their own “Pitch Perfect” college experience, I highly recommend it. You won’t ever regret it.