I know, right? This is what I get for showing my boyfriend The Music Man.
He’s always wanted to start a barbershop quartet, and now he’s all fired up about it again. I told him he needs 1) three more people, and 2) a vocal coach. And he asked me what exactly I was doing with my music minor that my parents paid so much money for.
Now, see, I don’t know dick about coaching vocalists. I did piano, and I hadn’t even touched that for years until a few months ago. I can play parts (although I’ll have to get some serious practice in doing all four at once - two at a time, no problem.) And I know when it sounds good and when it sounds shitty. And I can teach the mechanics of reading music, if his other imaginary three people can’t. (I have no idea where he expects to find a tenor.)
I’ve been in choral groups, now - I spent four years in Collegiate Chorale and came out a pretty fair singer, although I’ve lost all that, and I used to sing in the SCA. So I’ve been the recipient of vocal training. But I have no clue whatsoever how to give it. Not to mention that Chorale was at a women’s college and I don’t know a thing about men’s voices.
Any suggestions? I’ve been reading all the stuff on the Barbershop Harmony Society webpage, which is helpful. He’s not going to let this one go until he gets tired of it, so I might as well suck it up and do my best.
Regional a cappella news groups at singers.com; also find CDs and links to quartets (and other a cappella groups from doo-wop to barbershop; the Barbershop Harmony Society (formerly SPEBSQSA) actual performing is as almost much about makeup, costumes, and presentation as it is about singing and arrangements. It’s as much as a club as any other men’s organization or lodge, with fundraisers and hierarchy and events.
This is not a bad thing if he’s looking for fellowship. But if he’s just looking for singing, he might find someone through the bulletin board at the link above; also get a few CDs of groups from your area (where are you? what voice is your boyfriend?) and contact them. These are just regular guys with day jobs and almost all are friendly and will give you advice.
Unbelievably, he has since I wrote my OP found three other guys. I don’t know how he does it - I’d kill to have his people skills. “Hi, guy I met at a party once, do you want to be in my barbershop quartet? Oh, it’s okay, my girlfriend will teach you to sing.” I am told that I’d better have an agenda for our first practice on Wednesday. Eek!
Thanks for that singers.com link, although the list of regions is… amusing. Doesn’t come within four states of us.
I’m very upset that SPEBSQSA went and changed its name - I ran into it several years ago while searching for something else and thought it was the funniest acronym I’d ever seen.
It looks like getting any materials worth anything will involve buying it from them (and they’re on their annual conference now so orders are suspended, I think) - we don’t have anything at all here in our library, nor in any library in the state, and a spot check on interlibrary loan suggests you might as well just pay to own the damned books. I’m surprised we don’t have anything here, though.
ETA - sorry, we’re in Columbia, SC. He’s pretty versatile but has never had any training - I think he’s planning on singing lead.
My advice (coming from someone who knows nothing about coaching music) is to try to be versatile enough to cater to different audiences. Personally, I find traditional BQ songs sung straight to be boring after a while, but I love it when Family Guy does it with a comedic twist. (Search “Family Guy Barbershop Quartet” on YouTube for examples)
It was intended to be funny; they were founded in the infancy of WPA, CCC, TVA, and all the “alphabet soup” government programs and were poking fun at them. Also, they didn’t change the name officially; they’re still SPEBSQSA legally.
I’ve heard that in Barbershop quartets, a fifth voice is induced from the particular harmonization of the four. I think to coach effectively, you need to learn what that means. Then come back here and explain it to me. (See how I disguised a hijack as advice? I’m really getting good at the bulletin board stuff!)
It’s called the ringing chord, or the ring. Has other names as well. The wikipedia article explains it pretty well.
I mentioned that baritone is the hardest part because if your boyfriend is the best and most experienced singer in the group, he might be best covering baritone.
Their annual conference is also a competition that is shown via webcast. I think it is free and they solicit donations but they might have changed this year. Since you’ve found their website, I’m sure you can find the schedule.
Yesterday, in the DC area, there was a concert with two choruses and 8 quartets on their way to Philadelphia for the competition. If they are indicators, watching the webcast would be worth the effort.
It won’t help you so much in the beginning, as you’re trying to teach people to tune and balance, but there’s a site you may find useful at some point: http://barbershoptags.com. I was hoping they had links to more general barbershop instructions, but no dice.
One of the easiest tags in there is “Sleepy Time Down South”. It’s often the first tag a barbershop learns. The “Autotune the News” people learned it in time to make it their 5-word speech (video) at the 2010 Webbies.
Their annual conference is also a competition that is shown via webcast. I think it is free and they solicit donations but they might have changed this year. Since you’ve found their website, I’m sure you can find the schedule.
Alas, the webcast is not free… but it’s only $10 for the audio only stream, which runs from daily (beginning yesterday, Tuesday) thru Saturday. (There is also a High quality video stream for $99, covering every session.)
I highly recommend the quartet semi-finals, Thursday, the chorus contest, Friday and the quartet finals Saturday night.
What kind of songs are they going to sing? Down By The Old Mill Stream, that kind of thing? Where you need striped shirts, black elastic armbands, straw hats, and curly mustaches? I’m curious because I read somewhere that yes, barbershop quartets are still going strong - but are the songs updated?
We’re having our first rehearsal tonight and a big point on my agenda is to work out exactly what we want to be doing - yes, I’m sure we’ll do a lot of standards, because two of my guys already have the curly mustaches down pat. I think there’s room for a lot of variety, though - comedy songs, other a capella styles, more modern music amusingly barbershopped, etc. We really need to discuss how comfortable they are as a group singing hymns, though, for example. I want to figure out exactly what they think are the appealing points, and what they think makes a quartet a barbershop quartet, specifically. (Well, I intend to give a lecture about close harmony and barbershop sevenths first, so I guess that’s just the quiz.)
Our first practice went surprisingly well, actually. I was intending to spend most of it talking about the nature of barbershop singing, the decisions we need to make, all that stuff, and at the end do a little work on an easy tag. We actually spent an hour working on the first and last tags from the “into to tags” document on the page BigT linked - thanks so much, it was very helpful.
I’ll have the parts to “Little Midnight Rose” in my head for the rest of my life, but at the end of the evening we really had a credible chord going on and we’d learned a lot about what worked for us. We started work on “Sleepy Time Down South”, which was much more difficult for the bass and baritone, but we’re getting there on that one.
On the whole, I’m very impressed with my boys. My bass had literally never sung a note outside his car before tonight - never sang in church, nothing. They seem really enthusiastic and committed. We’re meeting again next Wednesday, and I’ve ordered some materials - can’t wait!
Oh, and we met in my garage attic with my baritone’s keyboard, since there’s a lot more room in there than in my study with my piano (and my piano needs tuning) - we had the window open for air and didn’t think about the poor neighborhood. One hopes they only started listening, say, 45 minutes in.
From the Barbershop Harmony Society website I found this chorus, which looks to be not far from Colombia. They rehearse at a church, but they didn’t really seem overly religious. Your guys might want to check them out, they could be a really good resource for training and materials, if they’re anything like the Sweet Adelines chorus that I sing with.
Congratulations on your successful first rehearsal. I’m really impressed that you and the guys have been able organize a quartet and get started so quickly. Good luck!
Rumor has it that while I’m away, they’re planning to do some rehearsing on their own to impress me next Wednesday. It’s abso-freaking-lutely adorable.
Oh, when my boyfriend wants to do something, the amount of energy brought to bear will shock and delight you. When, say, the porch light needs replacing, on the other hand…
I explained that the little 8 under the treble clef indicates that it’s an octave lower, and my tenor pointed it out to the guys as “That thing the clef is pooping.” So now they want to name themselves either the Little Doo-doos or the Four Doo-doos and can’t decide.
