Every year on Valentine’s day, the a cappella performing groups around school travel from classroom to classroom, performing for students. The song they sing is the student’s choice but the way they perform it is all up to the groups. This has become an ongoing tradition as it always seems to bring smiles to students faces the minute those singers walk through the door.
The singers spent weeks practicing to make sure their songs are perfect to perform.
They have to figure out who is beatboxing, who is going to be the lead singer and so much more. Because a capella has no instruments, they had to make sure that everyone in the group was in harmony as well as make sure they are singing the right notes. “Each a cappella group usually learns about four songs. We usually spend one week practicing for about two hours every day making sure we master those songs,” junior Chromatics singer Christina Perez said.
The people on the Chromatics or the Supertonics enjoy the singing valentines as well. Other than assemblies here and there the students here don’t really get a chance to see the a cappella groups perform live. Singing Valentine’s gave the students a chance to see some of the best singers in the school live. “Singing Valentine’s is like a concert. People are yelling and screaming and always taking pictures and they are always so happy to see us,” junior singer Amritha Sridhar said.
Last year, because all of the snow days took away too much instruction time, a capella groups did not perform Singing Valentine’s on Valentine’s Day. Instead, they ended up singing in March and called them “Springing Valentines.” Last year’s form of the performance wasn’t as big of a hit as it had been in years past. There is just something about Valentine’s Day that gets people excited to see all the performances. “Last year for Springing Valentines, there wasn’t the same sense of excitement as there was in years past when I performed. It wasn’t as exciting,” Sridhar said.
Usually the week before Valentine’s Day, the a capella groups get stressed out as they perfect every part of their songs. It took long nights as well as long practices to make sure everything was the best it could possibly be. “It is pretty stressful preparing because there are multiple songs that we have to learn and also many of the new members have a lot of trouble catching on to the tunes so it takes a lot of time to teach them,” sophomore Chromatics singer Abby Batkhab said.
Every year these groups work as hard as they can to make sure they give the school great performances on Valentine’s Day.

Drew Shrager

Staff Writer