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"We
have had an amazing weekend! Sweet Adeline’s
has welcomed the chorus into their association with
open
arms, and for Phoenix to win the Chorus competition
and Flaunt!
to win the Quartet Competition on our first year in
is just wonderful!
I can’t tell you how proud I feel to be President
of the most incredible bunch of women ever!!" The
President
Phoenix due to go to
Hawaii
Quote from Lynda Wood, Director |
What
is Barbershop?
Barbershop Harmony
is a style of unaccompanied harmony singing.
It is within the school of A Capella singing,
from the Latin meaning "in the chapel
style", which simply means using voices
to create both the tune and the accompaniment.
Barbershop singing is in four parts, which
are named after the male voices who traditionally
sing them, even in women’s choruses.
The parts are:
Lead
- singing the melody
Bass – singing the lowest notes which support the sound
Tenor – singing a high descant-like harmony over the melody
Baritone – singing the extra notes in the chord which give barbershop
its special quality.
Barbershop
is a very close harmony style, and the interval between
the highest and lowest notes is always less than two
octaves. It is almost always sung by single voice groups,
either all male or all female. Well-sung barbershop uses
vowel-sound matching and vocal blending to make chords ‘lock
and ring’, creating extra harmonics which give
the style its’ exciting edge. As well as harmonies,
barbershop features embellishments such as echoes, bell-chords,
and key-changes, as well as vocal stylizations such as
swipes and scoops, some of them borrowed from jazz or
blues music.
Barbershop shows often include visual elements, enhancing the music with
dance and performance, to give a complete musical entertainment package.
A Potted history of Barbershop
Barbershop singing is a melting pot of styles. Folk and religious music from
17th Century Europe, which was often harmonized in four parts, was brought
to America by the early settlers, where it combined with the rhythmic and
improvisational aspects of African-American music in the southern United
States. As with other forms of European folk music, it really was sung in
barbershops, often with the barber singing the melody and customers or passers-by
improvising harmonies. This became part of the American tradition of recreational
singing, and unaccompanied quartet singing was very popular during the second
part of the 19th Century. Other names included ‘Kerbstone’ or ‘Lamppost’ singing,
since it was a favorite pastime of young men hanging out on street corners!
The distinctive barbershop style was first associated with black southern
quartets in the 1870s. It became a central part of minstrel shows and later
vaudeville shows, as well as being sung privately at social functions. Later,
radio became a popular medium for mainly amateur quartets, and in 1938 the
Society for the Preservation of Barber Shop Quartet Singing in the United
States (SPEBSQSA) was formed. This has since evolved into a worldwide network
of men’s and women’s clubs for quartet and chorus singing and
competing.
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