The a cappella group, Eastern Euphonics, will hold auditions this Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.

Auditions will begin Wednesday from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m., continue Thursday from 4:30 p.m. to 7 p.m. and wrap up Friday 7 p.m. to 10 p.m.

All auditions will take place in the Doudna Fine Arts Center in room 1360.

Nia Butler, Euphonics member and junior special education major, said the group is a co-ed a cappella group that transforms pop songs with their own voices.

An original founder of Euphonics, Mikayala Beck, said they are especially looking for a vocal percussionist, which is a beatboxer.

Beck also said the group is looking for more male members for a variety in vocals.

In total, Beck and Butler said they hope to have somewhere between 15 and 18 members. The group had around 15 last year.

Butler said, for tryouts, participants need to have a chorus and a verse from two different songs prepared memorized.

“Then Mikayla will test their range,” she said. “There is nothing extremely hard in the audition.”

Beck said she will also do tonal memory.

“I will play something on the piano and have them sing it back to me. Memorization is a big thing. We have to memorize all of our songs, because at competitions (group members) can’t have their music with them,” Beck said.

Beck said Euphonics has been a registered student organization for two years, but the group has been four years in the making.

A group of students who loved singing and wanted to start an a cappella group asked geography professor Dr. Cameron Craig if he would advise the group, she said.

After he agreed, the group of students had to have various meetings, Beck said, and student government had to give Euphonics permission to be an RSO.

She said the hardest part of the whole process was writing a constitution and guidelines for the group, as it is required for each RSO on campus.

Beck said the group’s theme for this year is based on a love story, so they have chosen songs with this theme.

When picking songs to sing, she said they brainstorm together to see what sort of songs will pique listeners’ interests and what will sound best for their voices.

Beck said last year the group was unable to sing some techno songs because it lacked a beatboxer.

“Vocal percussion is something we strongly need,” she said. “We need someone to keep us in time.”

The group went to their first competition in St. Louis last year, Butler said, and “it was a lot of fun.”

She said the competition was a good starting point, and it helped the group figure out what they needed to work on and what they needed to change.

Butler said Euphonics plans to go to the International Championship of Collegiate A Cappella again this year in St. Louis.

The group also hopes to do some performances around campus too, she said.

Kennedy Nolen can be reached at 581-2812 or kdnolen@eiu.edu.