One day, I was having breakfast in Fleming dining hall during rotation. A girl I had talked to once before came up to me and asked, “Hey, wanna start an all-girls a cappella group?” And so the Pipettes began.
When Preethi, the girl above, talked to people about the prospect of forming such a group, she was met with encouragement but hesitation — in the past, people had tried to form groups, even all-girls a cappella groups, but they had never lasted. Though I was excited about the idea, I was also hesitant at our ability to gather people and get them committed to the group. But Preethi persisted, recruiting girls from all different houses, mostly frosh, until we had a sizable group of potentials.
I remember we had a first meeting, in the Caltech Music House, where we just talked about possible songs. I felt pretty skeptical after that meeting, and didn’t expect anyone to show up to the next one. Though the second meeting was filled with an almost completely different set of people, somehow, they stuck with us, and are the group I sing with today. Over the next several weeks of the term, people started asking me about the group — somehow, the word had spread — and I recruited some more members. We started buying songs and practicing them. We made a Google Group, Google Drive, and a Facebook group. We had regular rehearsals and communication. It was totally weird, and looking back, as it was interspersed with problem sets and college life, it all seems to have happened at once.
About a month after we formed, we learned that we were invited to sing at the Caltech a cappella winter concert less than a month away. Our formerly lax rehearsal agendas became harried as we panicked to prepare our set. Our last song, “All I Want For Christmas Is You,” was pulled together in about two weeks, with less than four rehearsals. Though other a cappella groups reassured us that nobody was going to judge us, we were still determined to make a good first impression. Though we were terribly nervous, and had a pretty bad mic check, the performance ended up going just fine:
We had no idea what we were doing then, and we have only a slightly better idea of what we’re doing now, two terms later. One thing I know for certain is that scheduling is a pain. We have two rehearsals a week, one on a weeknight and one during a weekend afternoon, totaling 3.5 hours a week. This is a when2meet we have for scheduling just one rehearsal during the first week of third term. Only 6 people out of 10 have signed up so far, but we still have so many non-negotiable conflicts (classes, other rehearsals, meetings) that there is only one 2 hour period during which everyone is available. Next week, we’ll have to do another when2meet, and also talk about when people’s sets are due, to figure out when the regular rehearsals will be this term. Such is Caltech scheduling.
And of course, I know that every member of the Pipettes is integral to the group. Once you’re in a house, it’s harder to hang out with people from other houses. But we have 6 of the 8 houses represented in our group, so we automatically get to spend time with a pretty “diverse” group of people for 4 hours a week. Sometimes more than that, because we chat and eat at the student coffeehouse after night rehearsals, and have girls nights and food excursions. This was our junk food pile at girls night:
