A cappella

Music performed a cappella ( AH kə-PEL-ə, UK also AK ə-PEL-ə; Italian: [a kkapˈpɛlla]; lit. 'in [the style of] the chapel'), less commonly spelled a capella in English, is a style of music performed by a singer or a singing group without any instrumental accompaniment. The term a cappella was originally intended to differentiate between Renaissance polyphonic and Baroque concertato musical styles. In the 19th century, a renewed interest in Renaissance polyphony, coupled with an ignorance of the fact that vocal parts were often doubled by instrumentalists, led to the term coming to mean unaccompanied vocal music. The term is also used, rarely, as a synonym for alla breve.

Early history

Research suggests that singing and vocables may have been what early humans used to communicate before the invention of language. The earliest instructions for performing music were found on a cuneiform tablet from around 2000 BC, while the earliest that has survived in its entirety is from the first century AD: a piece from Greece called the Seikilos epitaph.

Religious origins

A cappella music was originally 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. The madrigal, up until its development in the early Baroque into an instrumentally accompanied form, was also usually performed a cappella. Jewish and Early Christian music was largely a cappella, though instrument use subsequently increased in both religions as well as in Islam.