By Brittany Schaefer, Staff Writer
Eric Schaaf sings lead at the Stoke coffee house.
Jack Gilman had no idea a lousy poster in the Memorial Union Building with Elvis clip art would change his life so much.
“It didn’t look like much but I wanted to get involved in something so that night I auditioned,” said Gilman, who is now a senior.
That little piece of paper led to Gilman becoming the president of Not Too Sharp, an all male a cappella group made up of University of New Hampshire students. And Not Too Sharp has had quite the impressive year.
The recent success in the past year involves being a part of the Best of College A Cappella compilation album, the Voices Only compilation album, and being nominated for the best original song at the Contemporary A Cappella Recording Awards. These accomplishments make them the only nationally ranked group at UNH by Aca- Rank.
“It was a great way to end the summer,” Gilman said upon hearing about their best original song nomination. “It was overwhelmingly exciting for us.”
“It was very gratifying to get the nomination as we had all put so much work into putting the track together,” said Tyler Plummer, a junior Not Too Sharp member. “It was also very humbling to be nominated against such talented competition.”
Members of Not Too Sharp sing in harmony on the UNH ice arena.
Although Not Too Sharp did not win the overall best original song at the Contemporary A Cappella Recording Awards, they were among the five national teams who were nominated.
Gilman did not start his singing career here at UNH. In elementary school he was involved in chorus and then went on to musical theatre in high school. Gilman said many of the other members were also involved in musical theatre in high school.
Broadcasting at their booth on University Day will be their music video, Send Me On My Way. The men took their talents to Mount Major to film their first music video, which got quite the hype online.
After a few different a cappella sites sharing their video, Send Me On My Way got over 42,200 views on YouTube.
On the page is a top comment stating “Not A Cappella. There’s a drum machine in there.” This is when member Cory Nitschelm politely responded, “That’s actually vocal percussion! This is all a cappella.”
Not Too Sharp does live performances, records CDs, and films music videos which many of the other musical groups at UNH do as well.
“We are just trying to take everything that has been done and take it up a notch,” Gilman said.
Gilman never thought the group would receive over 42,000 views and have such a rewarding year.
“Twelve years ago Not Too Sharp began as a barber shop group,” said Gilman. “Now we have evolved into a contemporary group and we are doing anything and everything to get our name out there beyond UNH.”
Although auditions were Wednesday, Sept. 10, Gilman encourages people to still audition because “they are always looking for more members.” Not Too Sharp will also be available for questions at University Day on September 16.
