It's another boring late night in your dorm room and you're studying or eating left-over pizza from last weekend's movie night.
Knock knock.
A dozen young gentlemen bearing flowers and gifts wait at your door. They serenade you until you blush. On a Sensual Note, AU's all-male a cappella group, regularly lends its voices to AU's greek organizations by providing private performances during Big/Little Week.
"What girl wouldn't want that?" said sophomore Matthew Parrin, president of On a Sensual Note.
The group is currently hard at work adding five new songs to its repertoire. Although the group has independently produced two albums, "Aural Pleasure" (1999) and "Back to the Drawing Board" (2003), Parrin said their newest is their most accomplished project.
"It's our first professionally recorded album," Parrin said.
The group made the recordings at the Omega Studios in Rockville, Md. They received funding from the AU Council Club, alumni donors and fund-raisers. The upcoming album, entitled "The On a Sensual Note" will be available in the spring, and they have tentative plans for a promotional tour.
Parrin, a classically trained singer from Wisconsin, moved to the East Coast because of its reputable collegiate a cappella tradition. Well-known a cappella groups include Harvard's Din and Tonics, Georgetown's Chimes and George Washington University's Pitches.
Why a cappella?
"With a cappella, you can make women cry, men smile and everyone laugh," Parrin said. "Because of its rigorous structure, classical music is distant and makes it hard to reach people."
According to Parrin the voice is a singularly powerful experience because "it can do drums, trumpets and strings."
Not a fan of the golden oldies? Not a problem. Although the group admires the standards, they want to reach out to all people, "no matter who they are, where they're from or what kind of music they like," said Parrin. The group performs such recent jams as OutKast's "Hey Ya," the Backstreet Boys' "I Want it That Way" and U2's classic "With or Without You."
Three times a week, the group gathers in Batelle-Tompkins for rehearsal - "just a bunch of guys being guys," as Parrin put it. Unless they are rehearsing a particular set of songs for a performance, they work on perfecting their harmonies or play around with new songs.
Membership requires passing a preliminary audition with a two-thirds majority vote. All members are expected to attend six hours of rehearsal each week in addition to performances. But, these guys don't just sing together - they have fun together.
Besides the fact that singing helps "get the girls," Parrin said that the members share a fraternal bond.
"It's an alternative to fraternities, something I can donate to when I'm old and gray," Parrin added.
On a Sensual Note relies on the collaboration of its members. Musical director Scott Coleman helps with the technical arrangement of voices, but any member can submit a song for a performance or album.
The group, though popular, is still in its infancy. The brainchild of alumni Jay Criscuolo and Jay Rao, On a Sensual Note introduced their contemporary style of a cappella to the AU community in the fall of 1998, when the group performed in the Kreeger Auditorium.
On A Sensual Note regularly performs on the last day of classes at the end of each semester at 11 p.m. in Kay Spiritual Life Center.
