Serenades
 

Ok, from what I've heard of them so far from GC, they sound like SO much fun. But, I'm wondering what specific sorts of occasions does everyone use them for? Would it be appropriate for a women's org to serenade a men's org. to invite them to a mixer?

Does anyone's campus do this regularly? As far as I know no one here does it, but I'd love to get it going.

On my campus, the sororities pick a specific night (usually around the time of their I-Week) and visit all the fraternities. We sing our songs to them and they sing song back. It's a blast.

Here, when some house steals your composite you have to go sing to them to get it back. That's the main occasion for the serenade here.

Also the sororities will occasionally go around and sing their songs to all the houses and we sing back, but it seems like so few sororities know their songs so there are only a couple houses that have done it. The fraternities sing back, and I'm proud to say that all the sororities have told me afterwards how impressed they were with us Betas. One girl in Kappa who was in choir all throughout HS told me the other night that when we started to sing she about peed her pants - I guess we must have just been on that night.


We have also serenaded Gamma phi early on in the semester because they were our block partners for the football season.

We go serenading about 2 times a year. In the fall we go Pumpkin Caroling for Halloween. We give each of the fraternities a pumpkin full of candy. Usually they give us treats and sing back. The last one has given us hot chocolate in the past to end the night. In the Spring we serenade to invite boys to our Crush Party that we have every year. We give out anonymous invitations as a group, they have to wait to the party to find out who invited them.

Serenading is a lot of fun and a great way to introduce the NM to Greek Life. It's also great PR. The boys usually serenade all the sororities when they have a new pledge class. Other than that they only serenade their favorites when they feel like it. All of the sororities here love it.

it sounds like sooo much fun! i wish we did that here!

Me too, you'd think here in the south boys would be all about that!! What's up, SC guys? Let's see some serenading going on....

If you want every member to show at a meeting; all you have to do is announce that a fraternity will be serenading. :D

At UCSD all the chapters serenade to introduce new pledges to the Greek system. Everyone has a blast and the actives always fight over who gets to accompany the pledges. The serenading chapter brings some cookies or candy. The fraternities also bring roses for sorority presidents and girlfriends.

The style of serenade done here, I think, is different than other schools. For the most part; serenades here involve dance routines as well as singing. Think *NSYNC and Brittney Spears routines. Not routines just inspired by them; but the actual routines. :eek: Needless to says there's weeks of practice before the dances are revealed. We then usually incorporate them into Greek Week and Derby Days.

The only exceptions I know of to this is when all the Sigma Chi actives serenade. Thier pledges do a seperate serenade. Also one of the sorority chapters does a "serious serenade". They wear black dresses, heels, and pearls. Then they light candles and sing love songs or something. :shrug:

For us we had serenades for informal and formal occasions. We sometimes would serenade on spur of the moment to one of our brothers girlfriends or to some hottie out on the town. We also had serenades occasionally when we would organize a serenade with a sorority and the pledges would accompany with us(we'd wear our kelly green sports jackets and bring a rose). Other Formal occasions included semi formal or formal when we would all get down on one knee and serenade all of our dates. Lots of fun :) A VT Theta(Sandy) one time told me that they had a serenade that they made for especially for the betas and it sounded really cool. I believe they had a mixer when they did that.

Kevin

At my school, fraternities and sororities did not do serenades, but there were a couple of a cappella singing groups on campus that did, on Valentine's Day. You could buy a serenade for a few bucks - as a fundraiser, so they could do tours or whatever. You had to give your "victim's" class schedule and pick a song out of about 5 choices. We sometimes had lectures put on hold for 5 or 10 minutes, especially in freshman core classes, while the serenades were sung :)

During my senior year, I had a friend in one of the singing groups on campus, and I arranged with her that her group would serenade my boyfriend in the main cafeteria on campus at a specific time. And they did. :D Anyway, it must have worked, because less than a month later, he proposed, and we're still happily married nearly 5 years later! :D

Not quite the same thing, but a cute idea nonetheless. :)

At my school I believe that all of the sororities serenade. Mine does it on the second night of I-week. We pick houses to go to and sing 4 songs (3 bad ones and a good one to exit to) We all wear black and carry candles which is kind of funny cause we look really classy, yet we sing some "dirty" songs. Fraternities pledge classes usually come sing to most of the girls at our housing area (we dont have houses). They usually sing songs like "you've got that lovin feeling" Its really cute!

Hey AggieDZ! At U of Houston we do serenades, but it is mostly guys coming to us. They come at the beginning of the year to say welcome back (and a thinly disguised attempt to scope out our new members to see if they like them). They also come to invite us to do a mixer or pair with them for Frontier Fiesta. One time one of our girls got serenaded by her boyfriend's fraternity and got her drop from him at the same time instead of having a candlelighting. That was really cute. We usually sing back to any fraternity that sings to us, so we just look at the songleader and she starts the songs. The best serenades on our campus come from Delta Upsilon because they do four-part harmony every time. The other guys pretty much suck at it, but they try hard and they always bring us either our flower or theirs, and sometimes candy, which is cool.

Oh yeah, I forgot...we always end with "In a Parked Car" do y'all know that song? It's our silly song.

Serenading at A&M would be difficult as all the fraternities are spread out, unless you just concentrate on one fraternity. Is that what you were thinking about doing? I think it would be so nice if the fraternities would start serenading the sororities-much easier as we are all in a 2 block area.

Wow! Thanks so much for all of your responses.

dzsaigirl, good to hear from you!

Aggie AXO,

Well, I had thought that it would be a great, unique way to invite the boys (an idividual house) to a mixer, or to thank them for participation in one of our events. (and actually there is significant talk and interest, if you can believe it, about building a "Fraternity Row"--the latest buzz is that the Lambda Chi's are going to rent the former AGD home from AXiD, which would mean there'd be 2 men's org's on sorority row now) Should be interesting!

Fraternities serenade for events such as Homecoming. If they're having a philanthropy event, they'll serenade in order to get more girls to come to their events. They'll come and serenade us during our philanthropy events to wish us luck!

I love serenades!!!!!!

At Illinois guys and girls serenade each semester to determine the next semester's social calendar. First semester the guys come to your house from around 10 - 1am singing and dancing on two different nights. Usually the first night is a sweet song and then second round is a little more fun. Then the next week the girls go back to the houses they want to have exchanges with on two separate nights. Boys don't have any rules as to what they can and cannot do during serenades but sororities have pages and pages of things we can't do. It's basically meant to keep everyone on the same playing field and to make sure we're classy girls. Then you vote in chapter for who you want exchanges with and the fraternities vote too. The voting is somewhat stressful but in general, serenades are fun for everyone and not a bad way to spend an evening!

We do serenades for sorority pledges, and once in a while for sorority girls who are girlfriends of the brothers. Girls who are really good friends with us will usually request that we do it for their little sis, and we end up bringing them presents or stuff too.

Funny story with that - one of my best friends wanted us to sing to her little sis, so I rounded up a few guys to do it. It had been a tough day, so I hadnt' shaved, looked a little dishevled and all that. Well, we sing, and somehow the topic turns to me being a preschool teacher (which I do for a part-time job). Well, the girl takes one look at me, and immediately thinks I'm some sketchy molestor, one of those guys who drives the big white vans. Considering I'm the least sketchy guy ever, it was pretty funny - except she still thinks it, although her big (my really good friend) has repeatedly told her differently.

Collin

So AXiD owns the AGD house now???? Where is Gamma Phi going to live?? How did AXiD buy the AGD house if they weren't going to colonize?

Serenades at UM happen when sororities want SAE to pick them for the annual Mud Bowl, Just to get your name out on campus, pledgings and composite stealings to get them back.

We get seranaded before homecoming by all the fraternities that wanted to be paired up with us.. then we pick the one or two that we want and call them (there are twice as many fraternities as sororites at my campus, so sometimes you have 2 partners) The hard part is to call the house that you want to be paired up with before another house does. It's actually a lot of fun trying to figure out which houses you want first and then trying to call them or wait till they come to tell them yes! We also seranade all the fraternities to invite them to participate in our philanthropy, which is a lot of fun, because we take a song and change the words around to make it an invitation. :D

Serenades at U of Illinois
 

I agree with UofI AXO, serenades at Illinois are awesome! There is a lot of practicing usually leading up to the serenade weeks. Lots of costumes and dances, roses, candy, Pokey Sticks from Gumby's pizza, etc... for the big show though. Basically, each sorority/fraternity house tries to out "wow" the other for the next social semester. I've seen the *NSYNC themes, Brittany Spears (from fraternities. :D)Blue Man Group, Saturday Night Live, "The Perfect Fraternity," rock bands,...you name it!
Sadly, this is my first year as an alumna, and I miss the craziness of it all. The voting part was a bit stressful like UofI AXO said, but I loved the entire process of serenades! Every one usually brings their homework to their house and it's almost a given that none of it will get done as the shows go on all night as the houses arrive. So fun!

Once again, thanks so much for all of the detailed responses!

AggieAXO, check your pm!

Here at Maryland everyone serenades before Homecoming and Greek Week. We go to all of the fraternityies, but for the ones we're considering for Greek Week or Homecoming we bring fun stuff. There is usually a second serenade where there is "asking" for Greek Week or Homecoming (guys ask in the fall, girls in the spring) and then there is a sing back if you accept the invitation. Also, a lot of fraternities serenaded Christmas caroles before finals. One of the nicest things I've seen was when AChiO serenaded sororities as well.

At Kent, the fraternities would serenade on certain occasions, and often during the times when they were introducing their new pledges to the sororities. If they serenaded one chapter they pretty much serenaded them all----with one exception, which was the night of Sept. 8, 1993. On that night, an elaborate jacket-and-tie serenading was planned and executed only at the Chi Omega house......because it was for the purpose of Brent proposing to me!!!! The guys sang the first song and then Brent stepped out from the circle.....he pulled me into the center of it and I figured they were just going to sing the sweetheart song or something. But instead Brent asked me if I loved him and I said yes, of course, and then he dropped to one knee and said "Well then will you marry me?" and pulled out a ring!!! It was really cool because most of my sisters were there and it was fun to have all the guys there.....Brent's brother (who was a Sigma Chi) and his girlfriend were hiding behind a car, videotaping the whole thing.

Sidenote.....the AXiD house was a block over and our backyards kind of butt up against each other. One of my closest friends was their pres. and she was at the house that night. The AXiDs could hear the cheering and singing and got mad because the Delts didn't come to their house....but one of the girls who was hanging out with one of the Delts said "No, it was a set-up, one of them is proposing to his girlfriend tonight....." well Aimee knew at that second that it had to be me.....so by the time I told her she already knew!!!!

At MSU, we had our new member class do a serendade during i-week. They got all dressed up and did a routine with a few dances then traditional songs. The actives would do an intro too. From the semester that I remember, the fraternities came and did a pledge serenade as well.

Ooooooh, I LOVE stories like this!!! It kind of restores my faith in the male gender :)

Being greek, I always felt kind of gypped because my husband went to the Naval Academy (i.e. no fraternities there). I never got serenaded, never got lavaliered or pinned, never got to blow out the damn candle at a candlepass! :mad: You know, all those things that are so near and dear to a sorority girl's heart!

But I'm not complaining, really, I'm not....:rolleyes:

At my school UCSB, all the houses serenade. You have the option of singing which we do and when I was a pledge we sang (as recommended by me) all my loving/beatles, and give it up/pepper. We even acted out the scene in the middle. Then we did pick up lines with roses, as sororities do the same (they get really dirty!). Theres a pledge dance, lap dance, then the actives dance. Check it out here:
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?ref...ubj=1540162209
Nevermind the slap dick in the middle, he was dropped haha

At my school only NPC and IFC really do serenading, thats only 6 orgs out of 30+ on campus, my local does serenades, but we derived from a national, so it's just a tradition that was carried on and revamped. Only our pledges sing, they are given two songs at the beginning of their pledge process, the girls practice for weeks and then perform during I-week. One song is a currently popular song with a lot of the words changed so that it pertains to greek life, the fraternity were serenading, etc. Then we have a dance number that follows where girls sing and dance to a popular song. Our org has a big reputation for having amazing serenades, mostly because its not just your average look cute and sing pretty routine.

Most fraternities do serenades, i personally love when they get creative and stray away from their traditional songs. I've seen some really amazing ones, and ive seen some very boring ones, i think it depends on how much actives are working with pledges to make a serenade perfect.