Sigma'cappella makes noise with single and music video

“When I came into college and tried out for an a cappella group, I was fully prepared to not have a solo until I was a junior or a senior,” said Patty Alzaibak. “I’m just so thrilled with the fact that Sigma just kind of ignores year or your experience and just puts on the blinders, I don’t care how old you are, I don’t care how long you’ve been here. If it’s yours, it's yours.”

Hofstra University’s Sigma’cappella, originally founded in 1998, is celebrating 20 years as an a cappella organization in an immense way. The group recently released their very first single and official music video, a cover of “Creep” by Radiohead, which is now available for viewing on YouTube and streaming on all major music platforms.

The idea of releasing a single was years in the making. Sigma'cappella began fundraising last winter and decided to put thought into motion after the success of their performance at the ICCA (International Championship of Collegiate A Cappella) quarterfinals in March 2018.

Alzaibak, a junior exercise science major and the soloist in "Creep" added, “Dimitra, our lovely beatboxer, who was a freshman girl at the time – it’s unusual to have a female beatboxer – she won outstanding vocal percussion for the entire set, and she’s our musical director now.”

“Patty won outstanding soloist of the night for that song – and only one person wins that award,” recalled current Sigma’cappella President Gabrielle Spann, a senior community health major.

“The week after the ICCA's, that's when everyone had this automatic consensus that we should do Creep for the single," Spann said.

“I was in class all of last semester. I didn’t go to Wednesday rehearsals because I had anatomy, and my boyfriend, who was the bass in Sigma and is now graduated, texted me while I was in class saying ‘Guess what, Sigma just unanimously voted your song as the single' ... and that was so exciting," Alzaibak said.

Both the video and audio were recorded on Hofstra's campus in the Lawrence Herbert School of Communication and Brower Hall, respectively. The video was shot by Kyler Lopez, a senior film studentat Hofstra, produced by producer, engineer and co-founder of Plaid Productions, Alex Green, and mastered by Dave Sperandio, owner and senior mastering engineer at Vocal Mastering. The original arrangement was created for the ICCA's by Christopher Hoffman, a Hofstra alumnus and former president of Sigma'cappella.

“In our ICCA performance we’re all standing randomly across the stage all looking in different ways and Patty walks through us singing,” Spann said. “She’s that creep, that different person, and it’s so cool that [Lopez] was able to incorporate that into the video."

As for getting their single onto major platforms, Spann said, “I did a lot of research on exactly what platforms to use and what programs would help me get onto those platforms. We used one called Tunecore ... you download the file and cover art straight to the app ... and then you get to choose the platforms that you want and view different plans and pay over time and we’ve raised enough funds to keep it going for a couple of years."

A week after the release of the single, Alzaibak is still in disbelief, "I watch it and it’s like it's not me. I came into college as an exercise science major, I wasn’t expecting to hit a lot of success with an a cappella group. I’m not here to sing, it's not my goal, but it was something I wanted to keep doing and the fact that I’ve been welcomed into this group that has wanted to do so much regardless of who’s got what major, that they’ve given me this opportunity to continue with music despite not choosing it as a major, is just crazy."

"I mean I’m over here doing my anatomy and physiology and I turn around and we’ve got this professionally recorded single and it's me. I haven’t wrapped my head around it yet, I’m just so honored," Alzaibak said.

Spann added, “I had the opportunity to be there at the very end when Patty was singing and it was me and the former president Nikki Martinez and we sat there while Alex and Patty recorded, and it was just so amazing to hear the other voices from earlier in the day and then listen to Patty’s voice on top it was like ‘Wait, this is real.’ That was the real clicking point."

Sigma'cappella plans to release more singles, videos and even an album, but above all, they hope to do more events on campus and share their work with Hofstra students.

“I hope it’s something that future iterations of Sigma look back on and are proud of,” Alzaibak said. “I hope they use it as an example to release more music.”