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A cappella close harmony singing group From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A barbershop quartet is a group of four singers who sing music in the barbershop style, characterized by four-part harmony without instrumental accompaniment, or a cappella. The four voices are: the lead, the vocal part which typically carries the melody; a bass, the part which provides the bass line to the melody; a tenor, the part which harmonizes above the lead; and a baritone, the part that frequently completes the chord. The baritone normally sings just below the lead singer, sometimes just above as the harmony requires. Barbershop music is typified by close harmony— the upper three voices generally remain within one octave of each other.
While the traditional barbershop quartet included only male singers, contemporary quartets can include any gender combination. All-female barbershop quartets were often called beauty shop quartets, a term that has fallen out of favor. The voice parts for women's and mixed barbershop groups use the same names as those for male groups since the roles perform similar functions in the quartet although the vocal ranges may be different.
While the regional origins of barbershop quartet singing are not wholly agreed upon,[1] current organizations that promote the style typify it as an "old American institution."[2] While the style is most popular in the United States, barbershop organizations exist in the United Kingdom,[3] The Netherlands, Germany, Ireland, South Africa, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, New Zealand, Australia, and Canada.[4]
Barbershop quartets have been featured in popular culture in musical theater productions such as The Music Man, or lampooned in television series such as The Simpsons and Family Guy.
While many sources claim that barbershop singing originated in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in the United States of America, some maintain that the origins of barbershop singing are "obscure".[1] The style is considered a blend of White and African American musical styles.[5] Although the African American influence is sometimes overlooked, these quartets had a formative role in the development of the style.[6]
By the 1920s, the popularity of the style had begun to fade. It was revived in the late 1930s along with the founding of the Society for the Preservation and Encouragement of Barber Shop Quartet Singing in America (SPEBSQSA), now known as the Barbershop Harmony Society, or BHS.[7][8] The society's first meeting was held at the Tulsa Club in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on April 11, 1938,[1] and it was open only to male singers. In 1945, a parallel organization for women was also founded in Tulsa, called Sweet Adelines International (SAI).[9] Harmony, Incorporated (HI), also serving women, was established in Rhode Island in 1959.[10]
In 1971, president of BHS Ralph Ribble launched the "Barberpole Cat Program" to encourage barbershop singing as widely as possible.[11] Well-known and popular barbershop songs were published and promoted in order to provide a core set of pieces for barbershop quartets. The current list of 12 songs, commonly known as "polecats",[12][13] was selected in 1987. These songs, plus the tag end of two others, are:
In competition, barbershop quartets generally wear coordinated outfits to mark them as members of the same group. The Society Contest and Judging Committee of the Barbershop Harmony Society notes in their rule book that aesthetics are important to competitive success: "The judge responds to both the vocal and visual aspects of the performance, but the judge principally evaluates the interaction of those aspects as they work together to create the image of the song."[15]
Traditionally, barbershop quartet attire consisted of: vest, straw hat, and spats, often with bow tie and sleeve garters; this is known as the Gay Nineties style.[16] In popular culture, this style exemplifies the stereotypical barbershop quartet. Several Walt Disney theme parks feature a dedicated barbershop quartet called The Dapper Dans (Disney World version pictured). The outfits worn by these performers vary depending on location but do feature vests and straw hats.
As a general rule, barbershop quartets use a TTBB (tenor—tenor—baritone—bass) arrangement, with the second tenor singing the lead. Since the 1940s, barbershop singers have tuned their seventh chords with just intonation to maximize the overtones, yielding a distinctive "ringing" sound.[17]
Tenor: The tenor generally harmonizes above the lead, making the part the highest in the quartet. So as not to overpower the lead singer, who carries the tune, the part is often sung in falsetto, which is of a softer quality than singing in the modal register,[18] though some quartets do make use of tenors with a softer full voice quality.[19] Notable examples of barbershop quartets which made use of the full-voiced tenor include The Buffalo Bills and Boston Common.[20]
The range of a tenor in barbershop music does not necessarily closely correspond to that of a tenor's range in Classical repertoire, often being more in the range of the classical countertenor range.[21]
Lead: The lead, often a lower or second tenor or even more recently a higher or lighter baritone,[citation needed] usually sings the main melody.
Baritone: The baritone often completes the chord with a medium voice, usually slightly below the lead, but sometimes above it. While the baritone's part by itself does not sound as "melodious" as the other three, the baritone is a fundamental role in the quartet to filling in the missing notes and giving each chord a fuller sound.
Bass: The bass always sings and harmonizes the lowest notes, often setting the root of the chord for root position chords, or singing the lowest note of the chord for inverted chords.
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