Communities either could not afford music accompaniment or rejected it out of a Calvinistic sense of simplicity, so the songs were sung a cappella.

A cappella ( Italian for " in the manner of the church " or " in the manner of the chapel ", also see gospel music and choir ) music is specifically solo or group singing without instrumental sound, or a piece intended to be performed in this way.

A cappella music originally was, and still often is, used in religious music, especially church music as well as anasheed and zemirot.

Gregorian chant is an example of a cappella singing, as is the majority of secular vocal music from the Renaissance.

Jewish and Christian music were originally a cappella, and this tradition has existed continuously in both of these religions as well as in Islam.

The polyphony of Christian a cappella music began to develop in Europe around the late 15th century.

Sacred Harp, a type of religious folk music, is an a cappella style of religious singing, but is more often sung at singing conventions than at church services.

Thus, over time, the expression " a cappella " ( Italian for " in the manner of the chapel ") came to mean exclusively vocal music in contradistinction to the spreading use of the organ in cathedrals.

The fact that Christendom has periodically grafted instrumental music into the worship service probably obscures, for contemporary adherents, the long, general and conscientious teaching of a cappella.

This has led to a tradition of a cappella singing sometimes known as sefirah music.

Many Muslim musicians also perform a form of a cappella music called nasheed or Tawasheeh.

Peter Christian Lutkin, dean of the Northwestern University School of Music, helped popularize a cappella music in the United States by founding the Northwestern A Cappella Choir in 1906.

A strong and prominent a cappella tradition was begun in the midwest part of the United States in 1911 by F. Melius Christiansen, a music faculty member at St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota.

The success of the ensemble was emulated by other regional conductors, and a rich tradition of a cappella choral music was born in the region at colleges like Concordia College ( Moorhead, Minnesota ), Augustana College ( Rock Island, Illinois ), Wartburg College ( Waverly, Iowa ), Luther College ( Decorah, Iowa ), Gustavus Adolphus College ( St. Peter, Minnesota ), Augustana College ( Sioux Falls, South Dakota ), and Augsburg College ( Minneapolis, Minnesota ).

There also remains a strong a cappella presence within Christian music, as some denominations purposefully do not use instruments during

Arrangements of popular music for small a cappella ensembles typically include one voice singing the lead melody, one singing a rhythmic bass line, and the remaining voices contributing chordal or polyphonic accompaniment.

The song is not actually performed a cappella, but rather, explains that before her son was born, her life was without music.

In 2010, the Australian a cappella Quartet The Idea of North was nominated for an ARIA for their seventh studio album, " Feels Like Spring ", bringing a cappella music back into pop culture.

Like the USA, Australia has an a cappella association ( Vocal Australia ) who organizes events, education and resources for the vocal music community.

The third a cappella musical to appear Off-Broadway, In Transit, premiered 5 October 2010 and was produced by Primary Stages with book, music, and lyrics by Kristen Anderson-Lopez, James-Allen Ford, Russ Kaplan, and Sara Wordsworth.

Its first recording is an a cappella version from 1922 by the Sacred Harp Choir.

Certain high church services and other musical events in liturgical churches ( such as the Roman Catholic Mass and the Lutheran Divine Service ) may be a cappella, a practice remaining from apostolic times.

A cappella can also describe the practice of using just the vocal track ( s ) from a multitrack, instrumental recording to be remixed or put onto vinyl records for DJs.

The first co-ed south Asian a cappella was Anokha, from the University of Maryland, formed in 2001.

Also, Dil se, another co-ed a cappella from UC Berkeley, hosts the " Anahat " competition at the University of California, Berkeley annually.

Maize Mirchi, the co-ed a cappella group from the University of Michigan hosts " Sa Re Ga Ma Pella ", an annual South Asian a cappella invitational with various groups from the Midwest.

Other co-ed groups include Taal Tadka from Georgia Institute of Technology, RAAG ( Rutgers Asian A cappella Group ) from Rutgers University, Naya Zamaana from UCLA, UW Awaaz from the University of Washington and Dhamakapella from Case Western Reserve University.

The show featured eight a cappella groups from the United States and Puerto Rico vying for the prize of $ 100, 000 and a recording contract with Epic Records / Sony Music.

Each year, hundreds of Collegiate a cappella groups submit their strongest songs in a competition to be on The Best of College A Cappella ( BOCA ), an album compilation of tracks from the best college a cappella groups around the world.

Another successful a cappella group is Straight No Chaser ( SNC ), which is actually two separate but related groups, one of which is an a cappella, collegiate group from Indiana University in the USA.

Nevertheless, Donizetti received some musical instruction from Simon Mayr, a German composer of internationally successful operas who had become maestro di cappella at Bergamo's principal church in 1802.

* Domenico Scarlatti ( 1685-1757 ) was maestro di cappella at St. Peter's Cathedral in Rome from 1715 to 1719.

A cappella choruses are popular with bluegrass gospel artists, though the harmony structure differs somewhat from standard barbershop or choir singing.

He showed talent from an early age, and first came to public attention with the a cappella choral work A Boy Was Born in 1934.

* Madrigal comedy, entertainment music of late 16th century Italy, featuring a cappella madrigals

Also that year, the single " Gaudete " from Below the Salt belatedly became a Christmas hit single, reaching number 14 in the UK Singles Chart, although this a cappella piece, taken from the late renaissance song collection Piae Cantiones from Finland and sung entirely in Latin, cannot be considered representative of the band's music, nor the album from which it was taken.

While Wert endured the humiliating situation in Mantua through the late 1560s, he kept his job: he was to remain at least nominally maestro di cappella in Mantua until 1592.

His madrigals, on the other hand, are a cappella, in the late Renaissance style, so Agazzari simultaneously showed extreme progressive tendencies as well as some more conservative ones: unusually, his progressive music was sacred, and his conservative was secular, a situation almost unique among composers of the early Baroque.

Verdelot, along with Costanzo Festa, is considered to be the father of the madrigal, an a cappella vocal form which emerged in the late 1520s from a convergence of several previous musical streams ( including the frottola, the canzone, the laude, and also including some influence from the more serious style of the motet ).

He went to Poland in between late 1595 and early 1596, staying at least through October 1596, accepting a position as maestro di cappella at the court of Sigismund III Vasa in Warsaw ; his predecessor, Annibale Stabile, had just died after only being there two months.

Madrigal comedy is a term for a kind of entertainment music of the late 16th century in Italy, in which groups of related, generally a cappella madrigals were sung consecutively, generally telling a story, and sometimes having a loose dramatic plot.

The peak of development of the style was in the late 1580s and 1590s, while Giovanni Gabrieli was organist at San Marco and principal composer, and while Gioseffo Zarlino was still maestro di cappella.

In 1612 Claudio Monteverdi was appointed maestro di cappella, and though he brought the musical standards back to a high level, the vogue of the polychoral style had passed ; concertato music, much with solo voice, was now the norm ; the productions of this late period are identifiably Baroque.

While the monody was a Baroque stylistic innovation, most of the madrigals are a cappella, and written in a style reminiscent of the late Renaissance ( in the first decades of the 17th century, the continuo madrigal was becoming predominant, for example in the works of Monteverdi ).

Griffin began her known recording career with the Gospel Consolators, an a cappella group in New Orleans, in the late 1940s.

The label is best known for releasing rare and hard-to-find rock, electronic, funk, soul, hip hop, jazz, reggae, latin, and a cappella music made between the mid-1960s and late 1980s on vinyl records and CDs with copies of original album sleeves and liner notes.

" Bristol Stomp " is a song written in 1961 by Kal Mann and Dave Appell, two executives with the Cameo-Parkway record label, for The Dovells, an a cappella singing group from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, who recorded the song for Cameo-Parkway late that year.

Pioneers in this field include an eight-piece a cappella family group from Trinidad called the Singing Stewarts-Oscar Stewart, Ashmore Stewart, Frankie Stewart, Phylis Stewart, Gloria Stewart, Timothy Stewart, Thedore Stewart and Del Stewart-who were the first to appear on a major British record label in the late 1960s.

Dartmouth College's oldest a cappella singing group, the Aires were originally formed as the Injunaires in 1946 as an offshoot of the college Glee Club ; the Dartmouth Aires broke with the Glee Club in the late 1970s.